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Content Warning: This piece contains graphic descriptions of violence, including sexual assault.The worst night of my life was the night that changed everything.   It was hot out.

The intense focus on the presidential race can easily obscure policies that could have more of a direct impact on communities in both red and blue states but they are no less important. Many voters don’t engage with the electoral process because they don’t think their votes make a difference or count for much. Down-ballot races are where voters can make a real impact in shaping policies and spark a broader public debate.  The ACLU is nonpartisan, so our goal with down-ballot campaigns is to ensure that voters are educated about the potential consequences of an election, not to support specific candidates. We don’t tell voters who to vote for but provide them the tools to cast an informed vote by elevating the key issues at play in the race.  So what policies are at stake in this election? Here’s a quick snapshot of the types of civil liberties and civil rights issues that could be on your ballot.  Criminal Justice Reform This summer police accountability and other criminal justice reforms were thrust front and center. These are issues we’ve long worked on but now take on new importance and are reflected across the spectrum of races where we’re engaged.  Take the Maricopa County, Arizona attorney race. Elected prosecutors, district attorneys, or county attorneys have an enormous impact on the criminal legal system — they decide who to charge with crimes, whether to offer a second chance or send someone to prison, and when to hold police accountable. In Maricopa, we’re focusing on how candidates can hold police accountable when they kill someone and end prosecutions of low-level marijuana possession, charges that disproportionately impact people of color.  Conditions of confinement are also a key issue in the criminal justice space. Sheriffs are often the people directly in charge of local jails, meaning they’re responsible for conditions in these facilities and the people incarcerated there. In Cobb County, Georgia, Montana stands out as a state with strong protections for reproductive freedom, especially in its geographic region, but that’s mostly because of its governor, as well as some important state supreme court precedents. The state legislature continually passes abortion restrictions like targeted regulations of abortion providers (Proposition 115, that would ban abortion later in pregnancy. Prop. 115 would make it a crime for doctors to provide abortion care starting at 22 weeks in pregnancy, robbing pregnant people of the ability to make their own personal medical decisions, taking into consideration their own personal situations. Prop. 115 is a one-size-fits-all mandate that fails to acknowledge every pregnancy is unique — and shows no compassion for what families face in unimaginably complicated circumstances. And it takes away the ability of doctors to provide the best medical care for their patients. Immigrants’ Rights Typically, the federal government shapes our policies on immigration. But they frequently also try to involve local law enforcement in their efforts to find, detain, and deport immigrants, splitting families and communities. This is the case for local sheriffs who are often asked to house detained people, including immigrants, and have the power to enter into agreements with federal immigration enforcement to deputize local police as immigration agents.  In the run-up to November 3, we’re focused on three specific sheriff races that have the ability to transform the quality of life for immigrant families. In Charleston, South Carolina, Cobb and predatory payday loan interest rates, which average more than 400 percent. These payday loans, marketed as a short-term fix for those in financial stress, are actually designed to trap borrowers in a cycle of long-term debt. The consequences of payday lenders fall especially hard on communities of color, where payday lending stores are located in higher numbers than in other neighborhoods. It becomes incredibly hard for minority families to build wealth, save for the future, or have a safety net because dollars are systematically drained away. This ballot measure comes at a time when many Americans are devastated by the global health pandemic and the longstanding racial disparities it has exacerbated, leaving millions unable to meet their families’ basic needs. While many of these issues will take work to resolve, voting for this ballot measure will be a move in the right direction to help remedy economic and racial injustice.  In California, the most diverse state in the nation, voters can choose to support Proposition 16, which would bring affirmative action back to the state for the first time in decades. The current affirmative action ban means fewer and less profitable opportunities for women and communities of color. But this isn’t only about money and jobs — lives are at risk. Black, Latinx, and Native American people are dying disproportionately from COVID-19 because of the devastating consequences of decades of discrimination in education, housing, jobs, health care, and more. Affirmative action would help reduce and eliminate those harms by leveling the playing field, for instance, through expanding access to health care education to all communities. Research has shown that communities of color receive better health care from medical professionals of those communities. If passed, Proposition 16 will help bring equal opportunity to all Californians, increasing access to fair wages, good jobs, and quality schools for everyone. Make a Plan to Vote Of course, none of these policies will change if you don’t vote. So make a plan and recruit friends and family. For more on how to vote in your state, check out our Let People Vote tool. ——— Paid for by American Civil Liberties Union, Inc., Anthony Romero, Executive Director, 125 Broad Street, New York, New York 10004.  Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.   Paid for by the American Civil Liberties Union, Inc. on behalf of the Committee to Advance Constitutional Values.   Authorized and paid for by American Civil Liberties Union, Inc., 125 Broad Street, New York, NY 10004, 212-549-2500, on behalf of Yes on 805, Inc.   Paid for by American Civil Liberties Union, Inc.; Anthony Romero, Registered Agent.  Authorized by Abortion Access for All.   Paid for by American Civil Liberties Union, Inc., 125 Broad Street, New York, NY 10004, and authorized by Nebraskans for Responsible Lending.   Paid for by American Civil Liberties Union, Inc., ID #1259514, and authorized by Yes on 16, Opportunity for All Coalition, Sponsored by Civil Rights Organizations.

Do you have a plan to cast your ballot on November 3rd or before during early voting? We’re all are asking this question, but for many transgender people it invokes an extra layer of questions and anxiety. Will I need to show ID? If so, can I get my name and gender marker changed on my ID in time?  Did I change my name on my voter registration? How should I dress? Will a poll worker embarrass me, out me, or challenge my identity? WIll I get harassed for being trans or some other reason? Transgender voters encounter a number of barriers that make exercising our right to vote complicated, intimidating and unnecessarily difficult. State ID laws have created a web of barriers for transgender residents to cast their ballot. There are around 378,450 voting-eligible transgender people across the country who do not have accurate IDs. And 81,000 transgender voters live in states with the strictest photo ID requirements.

This week and in recent years, a growing number of states and cities across the country celebrated Indigenous Peoples’ Day. It comes as an important corrective after decades of celebrating the “discovery” of the Americas by Christopher Columbus each year. We know, of course, that no such discovery happened — what did happen was colonization, and centuries of subjugation, murder, disenfranchisement, and displacement of Native Americans. As we reflect on our history and on the stories that have been too often excluded, we consider the importance of not just what stories get told, but of who gets to tell them.  This week on At Liberty, we are joined by Josué Rivas, who helped us think through these questions. Rivas is a visual storyteller, educator, creative director, and self-described “Indigenous futurist.” He descended from the Mexica Otomi peoples. He aims “to challenge the mainstream narrative about Indigenous peoples” and to “be a visual messenger for those in the shadows of our society.” 

Everything we’ve fought for is at stake in this election. Our right to protest a broken system, our right to equal treatment at work, and even our right to vote. It’s up to us to decide what comes next. The ACLU does not endorse or oppose candidates, but we do want to give you the information you need to make informed decisions. It is crucial that you study where the candidates land on the issues. See below for the presidential candidates’ positions on key civil liberties issues.

I work as a registered nurse in an intensive care unit in Southern California. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, I’ve been working alongside my colleagues as we try to save the lives of the sickest patients and comfort their families. The hours have been long, and we have all seen more than our share of sorrow.   Fortunately, for most of the pandemic I had my husband to lean on. It was comforting to know that while I was in the unit, he was at home caring for our two young children and that when I came home he would be there to support me.   That changed in July, when ICE detained him during a routine check-in. Now they are saying that he will be deported to Pakistan as soon as they are able to put him on a flight. I need your help to try and stop that from happening.   Amir and I were introduced to each other by a mutual friend in New York. I loved listening to him talk. He was so knowledgeable and interesting. In Pakistan he had been a doctor, later coming to the United States on a student visa to pursue a PhD at the University of Texas in environmental science. While he was there, he started dating a woman who eventually became his first wife.   Then 9/11 happened. As a Pakistani Muslim, Amir suddenly became a target of the FBI due to his research into bioluminescent bacteria, and agents showed up at his door, interrogated him, and took him away. It took them a few weeks to realize their suspicions were baseless and though they never acknowledged it, based on discriminatory profiling. Unfortunately, in the months prior to this incident, he and his wife had become estranged. As a result, he was then transferred from FBI custody to ICE, where an officer told him that the collapse of his marriage had made him deportable.   For three years, Amir fought to stay in the U.S. from the inside of a detention facility. He taught himself immigration law, filing over 200 cases on behalf of other immigrants while also dealing with his own case. Eventually, he was released after a custody review.   But Amir’s troubles with ICE didn’t end there. Every time they could, they detained him again, hoping that they would be able to get documents from Pakistan that would allow them to send him back.   Despite this ordeal, Amir and I fell in love, moved to California, and started our family. He told me about the problems he’d had with ICE, but I didn’t care — I believed we would find a way to work it out.   Now we have two children, one of whom is a year and a half old and another who is six. Every summer, Amir has dutifully checked in with ICE, who have been issuing him temporary work permits and allowing him to remain in the country with us. He started a business, and has been a taxpayer and member of the community here.   I wanted Amir to apply for a marriage visa for us, but he feared that it would anger ICE and lead to his deportation. His time in detention psychologically scarred him and left him afraid of what might happen if he rocked the boat.   This past July, when Amir went to his check-in with ICE, they didn’t let him leave. Without warning, they detained him, saying that they had obtained documents from Pakistan that would allow him to be deported, and that they would be doing so as soon as they could.

Voters with disabilities make up the largest minority voting bloc in the country, but too often, voting is inaccessible. It’s a bigger problem than it may seem: One in four American adults has a disability and 45 percent have a chronic illness, including health conditions that impact their ability to vote safely during a global pandemic.  In this week’s episode of At the Polls, we discuss accessible voting with Susan Mizner, director of the ACLU’s Disability Rights Project, and Curtis Chong, a longtime technologist and advocate for digital accessibility for all. 

The election for Orleans Parish district attorney on Nov. 3 is a historic opportunity to shape the city’s priorities on racial disparities in sentencing, prosecutorial practices, bail reform and help end mass incarceration. The next DA can create a fairer, more equitable criminal legal system and champion reform. Make informed decisions. Make sure you know where the candidates are on key civil liberties and civil rights issues.

2020 has been an unprecedented year in many ways; a pandemic during a presidential election being one of them. Not unique to 2020, however, is politicians’ and states’ systematic efforts to suppress voting and disenfranchise Americans. But the ACLU, along with our affiliates and partners across the country, have been hard at work defending your right to vote. This year, we have won 27 victories in 20 states and Puerto Rico that will safeguard the voting rights of millions of Americans this November. Together, these states are home to more than 154 million Americans and wield 247 votes in the Electoral College.   No one should have to choose between their health and their vote, and yet states insisted on limiting access to early voting and voting by mail and played politics with peoples’ lives during a global pandemic. Voting by mail is a common-sense and secure solution to protect our health, which is why officials from both parties in a wide range of states expanded voting by mail to all voters in their states.