Does your church or faith community embrace social justice and revel in the U.S. Constitution? You know — slavery is bad, military can’t live in your house, freedom of speech and all that?
And your church, I’m sure, preaches about health care inequity, racial profiling and organizes immigration awareness talks — welcome the stranger, right? (But maybe your people run with the caveat that “as long as they have documents” at the end of that statement. That’s for a different discussion.)
Jeanne Spreier
Yet in your church, is talking about voting from the pulpit too political?
Voting is a constitutional right, just like the military can’t be housed in your three-bedroom ranch or you can write whatever you want in your church bulletin. It’s so important, it’s mentioned in Article 1 and the 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th amendments to the Constitution. Slavery, by contrast, is alluded to three times in the Constitution and the word is finally used in the 13th Amendment. Yet we have no issue hearing sermons about the evils of slavery.
Voting is not political. It’s a constitutional right, and once church leadership shifts from “political” to “constitutional right,” they should see the imperative of ensuring their entire qualified congregation is voting.
“Registering to vote is part of what I call a voting sandwich, and it starts with believing voting is important.”
Register to vote
Registering to vote is part of what I call a voting sandwich, and it starts with believing voting is important. One poll shows about 60% of young adults agree that voting is “very important,” compared to nine in 10 older adults. (It’s actually worse than that — only 44% of young adults are actually registered and even fewer vote.)
If someone doesn’t think voting is important, why register? (Youth ministers, I’m talking to you.) Remember, just like slavery is bad and churches clearly are sharing that message, voting is good.
Some states make it easy to register to vote. Same-day registration is accommodated in 24 states with various caveats. And yet, no voter fraud. Some states, like my own, Texas, do everything but take blood samples to allow you to register and then vote.
Either way, remember: It’s not political to register voters at your house of worship. It’s ensuring your members exercise their constitutional rights.
Meanwhile, these cumbersome registration rules such as in Texas can change when enough voters demand change. If yours is a state like Texas that has a rigorous (onerous) voter registration process, why wouldn’t you help your congregants register to vote? We’ve already established that, like freedom of speech, voting is a constitutional right.)
“It’s not political to register voters at your house of worship.”
Get to the polls
So layer two of voting is actually registering to vote. Layer three, and this honestly is the hardest, is getting people to the polls. All you “white” congregations, you’re doing this wrong.
Souls to the Polls is perhaps the most influential voter mobilization tools in the U.S. These are its advocacy issues: Criminal justice reform, early childhood care and education, environmental justice, health advocacy, housing justice, immigration.
Hello? Anyone see their congregation in this list? These aren’t Black/white issues. These are social justice and equity issues.
Congregations can facilitate voting. Offer learning — go through the ballot with members on a Wednesday evening to cut through the incessant and meaningless paid advertising; offer child care and maybe dinner for kids as their parents go vote; offer transportation after church for those who don’t like to drive; offer community — you would not believe how many people are flat out scared of going to the polls by themselves.
Thus far, we have three layers of voting and not a single one is “political”:
- Voting is a constitutional right and we should exercise our constitutional rights.
- Registering voters is important.
- Facilitating voters getting to the polls is important.
Make sure your vote counts
I’m going to add a fourth layer which has become important in the past decade or so: Make sure your vote is counted. I have served as a vote count monitor in Texas for the past several years. Your in-person vote is getting counted.
“Congregations should be raising awareness of the imperative that people of good faith work at the polls and in the election process.”
In Texas, because of draconian mail-in ballot laws passed by the state Legislature, I’m less confident about mail-in voters’ ballots getting counted. Congregations should not only be raising awareness and importance of the constitutional right to vote, but also the imperative that people of good faith work at the polls and in the election process at all levels.
We still haven’t gotten to “voting is political.”
Voting is faithful
For me, voting is faithful. If I truly believe in the Lord of abundance (wine at the wedding, loaves and fishes, the sower, the fish nets breaking, and on and on) then I’m called as the English cleric John Wesley (1703–1791), advised: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”
This was basically reiterated in various forms by Theodore Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter. I’m sick of canned food drives at church and fundraisers for public schools where students are mostly from brown families while billionaires who shall not be named pay no taxes and have yet another 200-foot yacht built. I’m voting for the hungry and voiceless.
Finally, I do embrace the constitutional imperative that there not be an “establishment of religion” as stated in the First Amendment. I’m not voting for the U.S. to become a “Christian nation,” I’m voting so kids can get lunches in summer when their parents are too scared to go to work, or work at jobs that don’t pay enough for them to afford food and rent. I’m voting so prisoners have dignity, so toxic dumps don’t end up in poor neighborhoods, so widows (single mothers) get the help they need and for the wealthy to pay their fair share. I’m voting my faith.
Jeanne Spreier’s first memories of voting started with her grandmother, who got the right to vote in 1920, telling her how important it was always to vote. Spreier was a college intern with U.S. Sen S.I. Hayakawa, R-Calif., and later worked on the campaign staff of U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., now the longest serving U.S. House member. She is the granddaughter of European refugees who spoke limited English and a longtime member of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas. She’s been active in voting issues for more than a decade.