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Adam Russell Taylor, Jim Wallis
Nearly 100 million Americans have already cast their ballots. It’s a staggering and hopeful number that makes this Election Day unlike any other. Today, the nation decides whether it will follow the path to a more inclusive, multiracial democracy — or spiral further into the violent abyss of white supremacy. Today we decide what kind of nation we want to become.
For many in this election season, both COVID-19 and rampant police violence have revealed the racist systems that have haunted this country since its founding. To uphold those systems, the people who most benefit from them are engaging in the most direct and deliberate efforts at voter suppression and intimidation we have seen since before the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
So across the country, people of faith are calling for vigilance to ensure a free, fair, and safe election. Chaplains are filling polling sites where conflict is possible, especially in battleground states, along with legal experts. Through efforts like Lawyers & Collars/Turnout Sunday and Souls to the Polls, faith communities are watching, waiting, caring, preparing, protecting, and standing ready to be peacemakers for as long as needed, following Jesus who calls peacemakers the children of God.
Vigilance means being attentive to whether votes are fully and fairly counted, which will determine in part whether this election will be judged as legitimate. Vigilance means demanding that all votes are counted, including all mail-in and absentee ballots. Vigilance means maintaining a calm and measured approach as those votes are counted and denouncing any reckless or premature victory declarations. And if pervasive and decisive voter suppression subverts the popular will, vigilance means we are prepared to engage in resistance and even civil disobedience to protect our democracy and exercise our Christian witness.
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