Counting every single vote before electing a president is crucial for preserving democracy, said religious and anti-racism organization leaders during a Wednesday morning news conference.
“Count All the Votes,” an event that took place outside San Jose City Hall, featured speakers who spoke about the democratic principle of voting.
The event was hosted by representatives from the Silicon Valley Faith Leaders Collaborative, a coalition of various faith-based organizations, and Scott Myers-Lipton, a San Jose State sociology professor who is on leave for the year.
Myers-Lipton said that nonprofit organizations from the “Protect the Community” group will host Zoom webinars in the upcoming weeks to offer their expertise to community members about topics like ballot counting guidelines and voter suppression. The group is a coalition of more than 20 Bay Area-based nonprofit organizations and was formed in 2016.
Most states counted mail-in ballots on Election Day, but battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Nevada can still receive and count ballots up to two weeks after election night as long as they are postmarked on or before Nov. 3, according to a Wednesday CNN article.
During a news conference from the White House Tuesday night, President Donald Trump tried to declare victory despite several states still counting ballots. He then called for, “all voting to stop,” because he said delays in ballot counting are a result of voter fraud, according to an article published by Al-Jazeera on Wednesday.
Myers-Lipton said during the conference that every ballot that was postmarked by election night counts toward determining the next president. He said that not counting the ballots would deny Americans their fundamental rights.
“These are not principles of Democratic or Republican party . . . these are American principles,” Myers-Lipton said.
Rev. Steve Pinkston, who represents the Maranatha Christian Center in the Faith Leaders Collaborative, said during the conference that all the organizations in the collaborative have put aside their religious differences and stand united behind the idea of counting each vote.
“The (faith leaders) are a diverse group . . . but we have put differences that we might have had in the past behind us and unified ourselves to say that all votes count,” Pinkston said.
San Jose residents Catherine Bell and Dolores Ponce said they went to the conference after receiving an email about the event. Bell said they came to listen to the leaders and show support for the cause.
“There were times as a young adult that the presidential candidate that I wanted didn’t get picked, but this (not counting the votes) is totally a suppression of democracy,” Ponce said.
