WILMINGTON—With the November General Election fast approaching, the ACLU of Delaware’s (ACLU-DE) voter campaign is taking lessons from their Primary Election efforts, and working in partnership with the Delaware Voting Rights Coalition (DVRC) to ramp up efforts to ensure Delaware voters know what to expect as we move into the final stretch of the 2022 midterm election cycle.
ACLU-DE’s voter campaign saw success in mobilization efforts to elevate critical issues like Smart Justice, renters’ rights, and abortion access in target districts leading up to the Primary Election. Efforts in Representative Districts 1, 2, and 13 included issue-specific mailers, digital advertising, phone calls, texting, direct community outreach, community-organized voter education events, canvassing, and targeted Spanish-language advertising and social media engagement. In RD13, these efforts centered the ACLU-DE Smart Justice Campaign and highlighted the need for police accountability and probation reform in Delaware: issues that the incumbent and House Majority Whip, John “Larry” Mitchell was silent on. The primary winner and political newcomer, DeShanna U. Neal, has affirmed her commitment to championing justice reform as well as other priority issues like reproductive freedom.
Now, ACLU-DE has turned its sights to the General Election, and is again working to mobilize voters on key issues in target districts.
The ACLU-DE voter campaign plans to invest voter education in Sussex County, where growing Hispanic and Latinx communities will likely make immigrants’ rights a major conversation in the 2022 election cycle. Voters in other key districts can expect issue-specific mailers and digital advertising highlighting candidates’ stances on protecting and expanding abortion access.
The campaign will also prioritize voter education around the importance of the statewide Attorney General race, an office that will play a significant role in determining the future of abortion access in Delaware, Smart Justice reforms, and the rights of immigrants.
The voter campaign has created a candidate questionnaire for both legislative and Attorney General candidates and calls on all candidates who have not yet participated to submit responses so voters can learn where each candidate stands on these important issues. ACLU-DE neither endorses nor opposes candidates.
With last week’s Delaware Supreme Court decision to overturn vote-by-mail and same day registration less than a month before November’s General Election, ACLU-DE’s voter campaign and DVRC are working to combat voter confusion and misinformation—one of the most significant forms of voter suppression. Ahead of the impending voter registration deadline this Saturday October 15, the Delaware Voting Rights Coalition has announced the launch of its updated 2022 General Election Voter Guide aimed at highlighting what these changes mean for how Delaware voters can cast their ballots this November.
DVRC’s public education campaign includes a print and digital version of the voter guide, available in both English and Spanish, and downloadable voter information graphics for social media. The full guide, in all of its versions, and all the graphics, are available online at bit.ly/dvrcvoterguide.
With the General Election in just three weeks, ACLU-DE encourages all Delaware voters to head to VoteDelaware.org to find out more about where the candidates in their districts stand on the issues that matter to them. DVRC, in partnership with ACLU-DE, encourages all voters to visit bit.ly/dvrcvoterguide to get the latest information on how, where, and when to cast their ballots in the 2022 General Election.
