Sixty-one years ago the Voting Rights Act helped ensure voting access for millions of Americans who had for generations been locked out of participating in our democracy. Its passage and subsequent extensions have helped millions of nonwhite and non-English-speaking Philadelphians have a voice in who leads their community, commonwealth, and country.

As recently as 2006, reauthorization of the act was passed in the Senate unanimously. Yet over the past 13 years, a barrage of actions and court cases have chipped away at the VRA, weakening its provisions and restricting who gets a say in electing our country’s leaders.

Weakening the VRA pushes against a now 250-year-long trend of building a more inclusive, representative democracy, and highlights the need to ensure protections for all eligible voters, no matter their political persuasion, race, age, region, or native language. Full representation is vital to a healthy and truly representative democracy.

In the near term, the most direct and powerful way to secure our voting rights is to use our voting rights on a massive scale.

If you’re reading this, you are probably already planning to vote, and you may already be the person people in your life turn to with questions about elections. Being that person for your friends and neighbors is the most important thing you can do right now to protect the vote in your community. Everyday people like you have a superpower: you are trusted messengers to the people in your lives, which makes you among the best election messengers out there. You have the ability to weave reliable information about elections and the importance of voting into daily conversations with the people who already trust you.

Receiving accurate information can have a calming and empowering effect on voters who are understandably skeptical — if it’s delivered by the right messenger.

Librarians can provide ballot guides, small business owners can chat with regulars about local issues that affect your business and theirs, and community leaders and mentors can talk about the importance of local elections during regular meetings, practices, or gatherings. Faith leaders, educators, health or social services providers, and artists and performers also have a role to play in strengthening democracy in your community. Whatever your role, if people in your community trust you, you have something powerful to offer right now: clear, honest, actionable information about how they can make their vote count.

A political campaign or partisan cause isn’t enough to move the needle these days, especially considering that young people are moving away from political parties altogether. The most potent strategy to combat anti-democracy efforts and election misinformation is by building communities of trust, encouragement, and hope.

There are several key areas where voters in Philadelphia and throughout the country need clarity amidst the ongoing barrage of anti-voter measures and the confusion often sown in their wake:

• First, where you can vote. Despite headlines in other states about redistricting earlier this year, Pennsylvania’s district boundaries remain unchanged since the last election cycle. Still, voters should check their voter registration status here at or by visiting their local registrar or clerk’s office.

• Second, when to register and vote. With the primary elections concluded this spring, voters need to know all relevant deadlines for the upcoming general elections, including the deadline to register (October 19), request an absentee ballot (October 27), when absentee ballots need to be received in order to count (November 3), and when early in-person voting using an on-demand mail ballot is available (until October 27 at your county election office or other officially designated location). As a trusted messenger, you can ensure your friends and neighbors are aware of these deadlines and plan ahead to act as soon as possible, especially if they intend to vote by mail or using a drop box.

• Finally, trusted messengers like yourself can help voters differentiate between facts, fiction, and fears around the voting process. The reality of the voting process is, as of today, mostly unchanged from before. Despite the scary headlines, no federal legislation or executive order has impacted voter identification requirements in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, so you do not have to present ID when voting unless it is your first time voting in your current election district, in which case a variety of photo and non-photo IDs are accepted. Rumors or threats of election intervention are also not based in law, nor, as far as we can tell at this point, reality. Under federal law, all voters still have the right to vote free of intimidation at the polls, including from federal agents.

Receiving accurate information can have a calming and empowering effect on voters who are understandably skeptical — if it’s delivered by the right messenger. Outsiders with partisan agendas or ulterior motives don’t engender the same trust as people who are part of our everyday lives. You can be that trusted voice of reason to others in your life. That’s how you can help preserve the core tenets of the Voting Rights Act in your community.

Clarissa Unger is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition. Jen Domagal-Goldman is the Executive Director of the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge. Lauren Kunis is the CEO & Executive Director of VoteRiders. Rebekah Caruthers is the President & CEO of the Fair Elections Center.

The Citizen welcomes guest commentary from community members who represent that it is their own work and their own opinion based on true facts that they know firsthand.

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