As ballots continue to be tabulated across the nation, 65 trans-led organizations have signed an open letter denouncing voter disenfranchisement and calling for every vote to be counted in the 2020 election.
The letter emerges following a chaotic election night in which President Trump attempted to claim victory despite the fact that many states — including Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Alaska, Nevada, Michigan, and Arizona — still counting ballots. The Trump campaign has also said that it would call for a recount in Wisconsin, where former Vice President Biden currently holds a slim advantage. Regardless of whether that request is granted, the president has already confirmed that he would challenge any unfavorable result in the courts. “Though President Trump is falsely declaring victory and denying the legitimacy of ballots legally received or counted after Election Day,” the open letter reads. “Every vote needs to be counted.”
Beyond Trump’s attempt to overturn democratic practices, the open letter condemns the administration’s numerous and brutal attempted attacks on the rights and lives of trans Americans.
“Serious and unprecedented threats to the democratic process and the safety of voters comes on the heels of four long years of horrific and targeted attacks on trans peoples’ healthcare, housing, employment, education, and lives and safety at the southern border by the Trump Administration,” Kris Hayashi, Executive Director of Transgender Law Center, wrote in the letter. “Trans, gender nonconforming and nonbinary people have an unprecedented stake in the outcome of this election, and we are calling for our voices as voters to be counted and heard.”
These attacks against the trans community are made even more threatening by targeted legal, systemic, and emotional mechanisms of suppressing the trans vote. Trans folks face discrimination at the polls and potential disenfranchisement in several ways, including through the combination of strict voter ID laws, burdensome gender and name change laws, and felon disenfranchisement laws. A February study by The Williams Institute, a pro-LGBTQ+ think tank at the University of California Los Angeles, estimated that roughly 965,350 transgender adults would be eligible to vote in the 2020 general election. Out of that number, about 378,450 otherwise eligible trans voters did not possess identity documents that reflected their correct name and/or gender, leaving them vulnerable to challenges from poll workers.
As them. has previously reported, around 260,000 of these individuals live in the 35 states that have some form of voter ID laws. And out of those 260,000, some 81,000 potential trans voters live in states with the strictest voter ID laws. In these states — which include some still counting ballots, such as Georgia and Wisconsin — voters who have an issue presenting accepted identification must not only cast a provisional ballot, but also take additional steps after Election Day for their vote to be counted.
The open letter encourages any “voters who have experienced discrimination or intimidation at the polls, whether or not they were actually able to vote” to report their experiences to TLDEF’s Election Day Discrimination website. “TLDEF will undertake advocacy with election officials and, if necessary pursue litigation, in order to eliminate discrimination against transgender people on Election Day,” the letter says.
“Transgender people like everyone else deserve to have their votes counted regardless of how that vote was cast,” said Andy Marra, Executive Director of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF). “Our community has been actively working to ensure transgender people are informed about their right to vote and today we are insisting on the value and importance of counting every vote before any winner is announced.”
In a call to arms, the letter and its undersigned organizations, which represent large cities, rural areas, and suburbs in 32 states, are “asking that everyone contact their Senators and Representatives and demand that every vote is counted in the 2020 election.” Signatories of the letter include My Sistah’s House of Memphis, Tennessee; Choosing Our Roots of Anchorage, Alaska; Out in the Open of Brattleboro, Vermont; Dem Bois Inc. of San Pablo, California; and Point of Pride of Eugene, Oregon, to name just a few.
Echoing calls from activists in the trans community, the letter closes by positioning the result of this election within a larger struggle against white supremacy and transphobia.
“Whatever the final outcome of this election, our organizations will redouble our commitment to fight for a future of liberation, equity, and equality for the transgender community in our country, so that the marginalization of trans people — especially Black and other trans people of color — is no longer an obstacle to voters expressing their will on Election Day in a free and fair election.”
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