For the People Act Action Page

What Can One Person Do to Get the Freedom to Vote passed?

We're often asked what can one person do to protect the freedom to vote, get money out of politics, or make sure our voting districts aren't gerrymandered. A lot, actually! The founder of our organization, Doris "Granny D" Haddock, walked across the United States when she was 89 years old and is credited with getting the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform bill passed!

Coming up for votes this fall is the Freedom to Vote Act, a democracy reform bill which includes the most significant democracy protections since the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Among the provisions, as detailed at Common Cause's website:

So, what can you do to help get the Freedom to Vote Act passed?

Here are some actions we've prepared to make it easy for you to do a simple yet powerful action. Several of these were developed for our Open Democracy Teams, but you need not be a team member to do them. Do as many as you have time for, AND share this page with your politically-active family and friends. Our object right now is to mobilize as many people as possible to contact their U.S. Senator by phone, letter, postcard or email. PHONE is most important!

Action #	Action	Objective / For Whom is the Action Intended?	Information You Need	Sample	Deadline for Completion
1	Call Sen. Hassan Phone call to U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan (or your senator, if not from NH) to tell her you support the For the People Act	Anti-Freedom to Vote Act dark money groups are mobilizing calls to Sen. Hassan because she's up for reelection. We need to phone in our support for Freedom to Vote Act, and tell your story as to why the bill is important to you.	888-453-3211 (Senate Switchboard - ask for the Senator's office) Senator Maggie Hassan's NH Office, 603-622-2204	Sample Script	June 22
2	Call Sen. Hassan - Filibuster Phone call to U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan (or your senator, if not from NH) to tell her to either modify or get rid of the filibuster	Sen. Hassan needs to hear from voters about getting rid of the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to end, but may be open to changing it to allow this bill.	888-453-3211 (Senate Switchboard - ask for the Senator's office) Senator Maggie Hassan's NH Office, 603-622-2204	Sample Phone Script	June 22
3	Call Sen. Shaheen Phone call to U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (or your senator, if not from NH)	Sen. Shaheen supports the Freedom to Vote Act, but needs to be persuaded to become a CHAMPION of the bill and convince her colleagues.	888-453-3211 (Senate Switchboard - ask for the Senator's office) Senator Shaheen's NH Office, 603-647-7500	Sample Script	June 22
4	Call Sen. Shaheen - Filibuster Phone call to U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (or your senator, if not from NH) to tell her to either modify or get rid of the filibuster	Sen. Shaheen has expressed a willingness to change or get rid of the filibuster in the past.	888-453-3211 (Senate Switchboard - ask for the Senator's office) Senator Shaheen's NH Office, 603-647-7500	Sample Script	June 22
5	Share the Action Page w/Sympathetic Folks Share this Freedom to Vote Action page by email with 5 or more friends to get them to take action	We need as many different folks to call as possible. Someday, bad actors will come for YOUR vote, too!	https://www.opendemocracyaction.org/forthepeopleactaction	Sample Social Media Copy & Graphic We want you as part of the team to help us pass the #HR1 / #S1 #ForthePeopleAct. We have a dozen of simple actions you can take to help make this happen. https://www.opendemocracyaction.org/for_the_people_act_action_page	June 20
6	Phone Banking Tuesdays Help Us Make Calls to NH Voters during our phone bank on Tuesday nights 6-8 pm.	This type of phone banking uses your computer and microphone, and an autodialer, to make the calls. You'll be calling liberals and independents who are likely supporters of HR1/S1 to get them to call Senator Hassan's office. You will be connecting the voter to the office with a button push.	Sign up to help and pick your dates: https://www.mobilize.us/endcitizensunited/event/393474/ This is with our partners End Citizens United and 603 Forward.	Scripts are built in to the program. Training will be provided at the beginning of the evening.	June 14, June 21
7	Sign/Share Petition Sign the petition letter to Sens. Hassan & Shaheen & SHARE in your social media channels	To be successful, this petition needs you to SHARE the link on social media.	https://www.opendemocracynh.org/nhforthepeopleact	Just go to the page and sign it. You'll receive an email in response to SHARE. You'll also be given a chance to share via social media.	June 22
8	Texting Team Help us text voters to call Sens. Hassan and Shaheen	We're teaming up with a national partner, Movement Labs, to do some automated texting. For folks who don't like phone banking, this is another way to help generate calls to the Senators. This system uses your computer to send the texts and receive the replies.	Contact Brian Beihl to volunteer	1) Contact Brian and tell him you'd like to help 2) RSVP at the ODA website: https://www.opendemocracyaction.org/2021_textbank 3) Take the 10 min. training	Between Friday, June 18 and Tuesday, June 22.
9	Yard Signs Make a sign for your yard, and for your neighbors & family	Get your neighbors to call your Senators		Sample Signs	ASAP
10	Do an Event Hold an Event in Your Town Sign holding Tabling at an event	The goal is to get others in your town to call the Senator's offices.	Signs should have phone number for Senators. You don't need to coordinate with us, but we would like to support you by getting the word out if we can. Also, if possible, get people to call while they're at the event.		ASAP
11	Share on Social Share our For the People Act graphic in your social media channels	Get others to call their U.S. Senators to support S. 1 and get rid or change the filibuster to get it done.	Patriotic Americans want to see their freedom to vote protected, equal access for all voters, keep billionaires from buying our elections, and ethics reforms to keep our politicians working for us. That's why smart voters support the For the People Act, and are calling their U.S Senators at 888-453-3211 to tell them to do what it takes to get it passed.	More graphics will be added to our facebook page.
12	Write an LTE ASAP, Write letters to the editor urging others to call their Senators	Let's flood the local papers with requests for people to support the For the People Act - Please read the samples with stats of how both Republican & Democratic voters support the bill.	The NH Sierra Club has a great tool with the email addresses and specs for LTEs for the larger NH papers. https://www.sierraclub.org/new-hampshire/how-submit-letter-editor-lte-new-hampshire	Samples - go ahead and write one if you're ready	ASAP
13	Join a Team Join a NH-based Open Democracy Team	Our six teams educate you, so you can take action and educate others. Like this action page, we have a team action page that is updated with prepared activities each week so you can take smart, targeted actions.	https://www.opendemocracyaction.org/regional_democracy_teams	Teams meet weekly or biweekly.
14	Make a Selfie Make a video, distribute it on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter	Urge your friends to call their Senators. Make sure to give the number, 888-453-3211	You can use your phone, computer or tablet to record. No titling or graphics are necessary.	Sample script for your video Sample video https://youtu.be/cU1RyUfk-Ko	ASAP
15	Share the For the People Song	This video was made by some members of our North Country Open Democracy Team. It's fun and helps explain the big points of the bill. Copy & paste the post at right, and the graphic for the video will pop into Facebook.		Copy & Paste: Check out this song about about the For the People Act, written and performed by Granite Staters. The #S1 #ForthePeopleAct comes up for a vote soon, so call your U.S. Senator now, 888-453-3211, and please SHARE! https://youtu.be/tk-esT6o8eA	ASAP