naamahdarling:

gryphye:

gryphye:

One last note for you, Especially for those of you who don’t think their vote counts.

A district in RED Oklahoma just went to the democrats for a state senate seat.  The winner, Allison Ikley-Freeman, won by a margin of 31 votes.  It’s a small district, only 4437 people voted.

YOUR VOTE COUNTS!

I also found out later that she’s a happily married lesbian! s’awesome.

No, y’all don’t know how huge this actually is.  

Allison Ikley-Freeman also works as a mental health care professional for a low-cost clinic in a very poor part of Tulsa.  She is only 26.  She has 3 children and is married to a Black woman.  She had never run for office before, and is only the third openly gay person to be elected to the Oklahoma legislature.  We are one of the poorest and most ill and mentally ill states in the country and a key part of her platform is increasing access to health care and mental health care in a tragically underserved area.

This is my district, the West Tulsa district, and I live here.  Tulsa is a pretty liberal area for Oklahoma – Tulsa County was blue for a while during the 2016 election – but it is still an uphill battle.  Conservatives are motivated and organized in a way that liberals generally are not.

It was a special election, which means it was very small, for only the state senate seats, and was not held on the “usual” election dates.  Interest is low for these.  Turnout for special elections is usually minimal, most people don’t even know there IS an election coming up, and usually only dedicated voters show up to cast their ballots.  Those voters skew strongly older – a more conservative demographic to begin with – with the most dedicated being Republican.

Three times in two years – and now twice this year – Oklahoma, one of the most conservative states in the country, has flipped a Republican out of office in a special election.

Ikley-Freeman and her team worked tirelessly to get word out in the district, to try to get Democrats to show up to this election.  They managed it, but only barely.  I almost stayed home, because I was sick that day.  I didn’t.  If I had? Just 31 more people like me would have lost Ikley-Freeman that seat.

To put things more into perspective, from the Tulsa World:

…Results showed Ikley-Freeman with 2,234 votes to 2,203 for O’Hara. As is usual with special elections, low voter turnout was an important fact — only 4,437 people voted in this election, compared to almost 32,000 in last year’s regular general election.

Ikley-Freeman needed less than 2,000 people to believe in her.  That’s all.  This is indeed an excellent example of what can be accomplished when people simply show up to vote.  Especially in smaller elections.  I urge you all to update your registration, locate your polling place, and use your voice.  Especially if you are able-bodied, straight, neurotypical, white.  People like me, disabled people, queer people, mentally ill people, as well as POC experiencing oppressions I do not, need you to show up.

Voting is a HUGE thing you can do to help us protect ourselves from Trump and his disgusting parasites.  Vote in Democrats at the local level.  It provides some protection.