sonia | Vote Forward tally

I've been printing and preparing 5 Vote Forward letters most evenings after work and walking them over to the post office. This weekend I did a final set of 20.

In total, I sent 150 letters to California voters, and 35 letters to US citizens abroad in Estonia, Canada, Norway, France, Germany, Brazil, Switzerland, Great Britain, Italy, Peru, Austria, India, Denmark, Israel, New Zealand, Japan, Mexico, and Australia. The international letters come with interesting addresses, but they require more postage and more printing, since they include the absentee ballot application for the voter's convenience.

I spent $163.75 on postage, approx $10 on envelopes (someone at a yard sale gave me a stack of envelopes from a box of 500 they weren't using), $5 on pen refills, and an estimate of $10 on printer ink and paper. So, around $200 and a bunch of time and energy. I hope it makes a difference, as part of the nearly 10 million letters being sent in 2024.

If nothing else, writing my note over and over felt like an invocation for a good outcome. I vote because... "I love California and I want all our kids to have a safe and joyful future." It also felt positive to pay careful attention to the diversity of names I was writing to, making sure to spell them correctly and giving the capital letters a little flourish. I hope the recipients feel a little bit of the care that went into sending the letters.