BOOK CLUB

Book Club: Voting Rights and Elections

We knew voting rights was the appropriate topic for our book club these past few months, but after the recent Supreme Court decision to gut the Voting Rights Act, our discussion this month turned to messaging. We looked at the critical messaging guidance from extensive qualitative and quantitative research by Research Collaborative and ASO Communications around protecting our vote in the 2026 midterm elections:

• Hands off our Vote

• Messaging Guidance for the Destruction of the Voting Rights Act

These resources are invaluable in helping frame Get Out the Vote (GOTV) conversations, reclaiming the narrative by speaking plainly and concretely, not abstractly or vaguely.

We are shifting the focus for our last book club on voting rights (June 28) to translating what we've learned into action by creating a zine to promote GOTV in Washington, especially with the younger crowd, We plan to share it with Indivisible groups across Washington State. 

It is critical to win control of Congress, it is also imperative this November that we ensure the 5 open seats on our Washington State Supreme Court remain voting-right expanders and not the voting right deniers, like those current members of our MAGA Supreme Court.

Join us for our June meeting where we will finalize our zine, discuss action plans to distribute it, and kick off our next topic: what we want our democracy to look like. Please bring reading recommendations.

When & where

Sunday, June 28th
12:30 to 2PM
Ballard Public Library (parking available under the library)

We look forward to seeing you! RSVP to Cheryl Sizov at cherylsizov@gmail.com or just show up.

What we've been reading on this topic

Here are some suggestions if you want to read up—many are available within the Seattle library system:

• Voter Suppression in U.S. Elections, edited by Jim Downs

• Uncounted: The Crisis of Voter Suppression in the United States by Gilda Daniels

• One Person, No Vote by Carol Anderson

• The Great Suppression by Zachary Roth

• Black Voter Suppression by Artika R. Tyner

• The Hidden History of the War on Voting by Thom Hartmann

• Give Us the Ballot by Are Berman

Many other good titles can be found on these websites:

• Civil Rights Teaching: Voting Rights, Democracy for Change 

• Princeton University Press

  • Books for understanding the US election,

  • Books for understanding how we vote

• Elections and Voting Summer Reading List, Harvard Kennedy School