Executive actions the new administration can take to help ensure the integrity of our elections and strengthen opportunities for civic participation for Black and brown Americans.

In record numbers and in the face of a global pandemic, Americans voted early and on Election Day, and availed themselves of mail-in voting. But the right to vote includes the right to have your vote counted.

Voting has always been one of the most powerful tools of a justice-seeking people determined to defeat oppression and its propagators.

A recent report by the national think tank Demos recommended jail staff take additional steps to ensure people are not disenfranchised because they are in jail.

For what feels like the first time in years, we can pause for the briefest of moments and breathe.

Despite all the barriers, our communities showed up for democracy. Here is what must come next.

We need to continue to demand a government committed to protecting Black and brown communities in this moment, and need to continue to push for bold, transformative change.

This year, as we attempt to keep our loved ones safe during a deadly pandemic, more people in our communities will be voting by mail (absentee) than ever before. Counting those votes will take time.

We should think of November 3rd as merely the first of many days of electoral uncertainty while states count every vote. And that is okay.

North Carolina was failing in its voter registration obligations even before the pandemic. Blueprint North Carolina and others stepped in to compensate for the state.