Advocacy Corner
The General Election is Tuesday, November 5. Please make it a priority to vote if you are eligible. For the first time, APA has created a voter guide. It has excellent information about both general and psychology-specific voting information.
As you know (especially those of you in the swing states!), we are voting for our next President of the United States in this election. However, I strongly encourage folks to pay equal attention to state and local candidates and ballot initiatives. Though all POTUS elections are incredibly important, and this one is historic, our day-to-day lives are often the most directly and significantly impacted by our local and state legislatures. For example, my experience both residing and working in Missouri, a red state, is quite different than the experience of someone living and working in California, a blue state. While a Californian and I are American residents with the same federal laws, we are governed by astonishingly different state and local level laws that affect our psychological practices, healthcare parameters, personal autonomy, general safety, etc. These laws and the people who make them are decided by the state and local candidates on the ballot. This resource can help you look up your specific ballot and research it. Local papers and news agencies also often publish helpful online election guides.
Admittedly, I paid little attention to state or local elections for years. I have always been a proud voter because, as a Black female, I am the first generation in my family born with the right to vote. I would never take this right for granted because people made great sacrifices for me to have it. Thus, I consistently voted in every Presidential Election and would complete the entire ballot, so I did consequently vote on some state and local legislators and initiatives. However, I was not invested in them and was not showing up for elections between those four years. Then, I got involved in legislative advocacy. The most significant lesson I have learned in my formal legislative advocacy roles is the importance of voting for state and local legislators and initiatives. In a short amount of time, it has been made crystal clear to me that ANYONE can become an elected official. And in places with lower population density, elections can be decided by the smallest of margins. While advocacy strategies are designed to work with any elected official, ultimately, ranges can be restricted by the individual in the office. The primary way to increase advocacy's capacity to succeed starts with who gets elected. Thus, the single most critical and accessible mechanism of legislative advocacy that we can undertake is to vote when eligible--in all elections, at each level, every time!
Amy R. Beck, PhD
drbeckadvocates@gmail.com