nothin Rally Cry: “Count Every Vote” | New Haven Independent

Rally Cry: Count Every Vote”

Thomas Breen photos

Rally speakers (clockwise from top left) Ala Ochumare, Rick Melita, Abdul Osmanu, Gary Winfield.

Activists and Democratic politicians rallied on the Green Wednesday afternoon as part of a national campaign to count every vote” — and to prevent President Donald Trump from seizing reelection before all mail-in ballots in battleground states are tallied.

The rally came one day after Tuesday’s general election.

At the event, organized by the Connecticut Democratic Socialists of America and the Connecticut Working Families Party, over a dozen speakers lambasted the president for declaring victory early Wednesday morning, even though key battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia have yet to finish tabulating record numbers of absentee ballots cast in advance of Election Day.

One hundred people participated in the rally.


We knew this was coming, ” WFP State Director Carlos Moreno (pictured) said about Trump’s premature victory” presser held at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, during which he made baseless claims of election fraud’ and expressed confidence that the Supreme Court will ultimately declare him the winner.

He’s trying to undermine the vote right now,” Moreno stressed. This while millions of absentees in major cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Atlanta,” and in other battleground states remain to be counted in full. (National news outlets like The New York Times have subsequently declared Democratic challenger Joe Biden the winner of Wisconsin’s 10 Electoral College votes.)

Moreno said that Wednesday’s rally, one of hundreds taking place across the country, was designed to focus concerned citizens’ attention on any attempts at voter disenfranchisement. He said it was also designed to get those voters ready to mobilize and take action” in case Trump continues to declare himself victor before the final numbers are in.

Carole Arnold and Becky Sandman.

The post-Election Day fight over the counting of absentee ballots marked the latest incendiary stage of a presidential election that has been defined by a pandemic, anti-police brutality uprisings, an increase in violence in cities across the country, and the Republican Party’s persistent challenges to the validity of absentee and early voting, especially in battleground states.

Speaker after speaker after speaker in New Haven on Wednesday stressed the theme that Americans must organize if they are to ensure that mail-in ballots are counted before the presidential election is through — just as they must organize if they want to achieve goals of affordable housing, racial justice, environmental sustainability, quality healthcare, and economic stability for all.


Our democracy will not be suppressed in this election,” said Hamden Action Now’s Rhonda Caldwell (pictured). Every single solitary vote will be counted.” Once those final votes from cities like Detroit, Atlanta, and Philadelphia are counted, she said, we can go ahead and get this madman out of the White House.”

CT DSA organizer Alex Kolokotronis (pictured) agreed. Our democracy is hanging on a thread,” he said, and today it feels like it’s about to snap.”

He said the only way to ensure that all absentee and mail-in ballots are counted in this election is to speak up about it. And the only way they’re gonna hear us is if we say, Count every vote! Count every vote!’”

Wilbur Cross High School ninth-grader Dave Cruz-Bustamante (pictured), an organizer with the Citywide Youth Coalition and the local chapter of the climate-focused Sunrise movement, called Trump’s declaration emblematic of a broader lie about American exceptionalism.

What kind of great country lets its president openly say that he wants to stop counting the votes and let the Supreme Court — a group of unelected judges — decide who’s president?” he asked.

Mayor Justin Elicker said that constantly refreshing the news late Tuesday night gave him the uncanny feeling that he was living through Trump’s 2016 win all over again.

How can it be that there are so many people in this nation who are endorsing the behavior in Washington?” he asked. How can it be that there are so many people that don’t seem to care about climate change, that don’t seem to care about Black lives, that don’t seem to care about science?”

He stressed that, regardless of what happens at the national level, New Haven will be able to continue to define our values” of welcoming everyone regardless of their documented status, their economic status, their race or ethnicity” and of investing in people who have been struggling for so many decades.” He said Democratic gains in the state legislature will make that advocacy for New Haven easier over the next two years.

Local WFP organizer Luis Luna (pictured) urged attendees to continue showing up and organizing, around this particular electoral crisis as well as around the many other issues that affect working class and middle class people across the state.

We are in the midst of an environmental crisis, a racial upheaval crisis, the pandemic,” he said. These things are what is galvanizing us to organize. Since Trump was elected, we have seen hundreds of thousands of people being activated. This pandemic and this president have really opened up the underbelly of this system.”

What gives me hope,” he concluded, looking out at the crowd, is to see all of you.”

Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch Wednesday’s rally.

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