Aloha Reader,

Our hearts are with our Kauaʻi ʻohana this week. Hurricane Lowell hit the island hard, with high winds, heavy rain, and widespread power outages. If you're in a position to help, consider supporting local relief efforts as our neighbors begin to recover. Donate here.

That same spirit of showing up for each other is exactly what this midterm election will take. Donald Trump and his allies no longer hide their plans to rig it, through gerrymandering, ballot delays, disenfranchisement, and the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents posing as "election monitors." Now he's openly bribing people to vote Republican. Our answer is to make turnout, voter education, and the results too big to rig. Step one: Vote Early.

There's a lot happening this week - action items to protect this election, and a look ahead to the future we're building together:

• USPS ballot rules: waiting on the Supreme Court
• Election security webinar: September 26
• Vote Early day of action: October 17
• Seeing is believing: our elections are secure
• Deep dive: Ohio's biggest 2026 races
• A roadmap worth reading: Ben Wikler's new book

USPS ballot rules: waiting on the Supreme Court

A federal district court and a federal appeals court have both blocked the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) from enforcing its new mail ballot rules for the 2026 election, upholding a preliminary injunction while litigation continues. The Trump administration's Department of Justice has now asked the Supreme Court, for the third time, to lift that injunction.

The stakes became clear this week in Leon County, Florida, where the USPS briefly rejected the county's mail ballot envelopes because the return address sat 0.014 inches closer to the words "return service requested" than the rule allows. Leon County appealed and got its envelopes approved just in time, but the near miss shows how easily a rule like this could disenfranchise voters with almost no notice.

Whatever the Supreme Court decides, the fight itself is doing damage: it's sowing confusion and laying the groundwork for future claims to dispute the results.

Election security webinar: September 26

To help cut through the confusion and misinformation, we've put together a webinar on election security.

Join us at noon on Saturday, September 26 for a lunch-and-learn webinar with Hawaiʻi J20+, the League of Women Voters, and the Oʻahu Rapid Response Coalition. Judith Wong, president of the Hawaiʻi League of Women Voters, will take your questions, including:

• How do we vote securely and increase turnout?
• What threats have been identified and what safeguards are in place?
• What is the chain of custody for ballots, especially from neighbor islands?
• What security gaps remain, and what's being done about them?
• What role can grassroots action play in election security?

TAKE ACTION: Register here.

Vote Early day of action: October 17

MARK YOUR CALENDAR: Saturday, October 17 is the next nationwide day of action, officially called No Kings: Vote Early, and here in Hawaiʻi we know it as No Dictators. It's a nonpartisan day built around one simple goal: making sure every eligible voter has a plan, knows their options, and casts a ballot as early and securely as possible. Your vote is your voice, and we need to be loud and clear this year. Getting your vote in early protects it from being threatened by last-minute obstacles, whether that's a signature mismatch, a missing form, or a shift that runs late on election day.

Like every No Dictators event, ours will be nonviolent and welcoming to voters of every party. We'll be out chanting "hands off my vote," helping neighbors make their voting plans, and getting ready to defend ballot access and the results before, during, and after the election.

TAKE ACTION: Find your local event and register here (on page 2).

Seeing is believing: our elections are secure

Hawai'i's elections are secure, and we've seen it firsthand. Our Honolulu-based ballot-counting center relies on official observers, plus volunteers for ballot opening, duplication, Voted Ballot Container (VBC) processing, and the audit team, to watch over every step of the process.

Marlene Thom, who co-leads Indivisible Honolulu and also helped lead our fight for free and fair elections in the public policy action group, served as an official observer in the primary. She wanted to see for herself that our elections are secure, and came away reassured. She wrote up her experience, and it's now on our website.

We expect the highest level of Make America Great Again (MAGA) fanatics' interference yet this election, so knowing exactly how safe our process is here in Hawaiʻi matters more than ever.

TAKE ACTION: Read Marlene's report.

Deep dive: Ohio's biggest 2026 races

Even from here in Hawaiʻi, we're part of the Blue Wave effort that stretches all the way to the mainland. This week, our six-winnable-states series lands in Ohio, home to some of the most consequential races of 2026.

​In past newsletters, we covered Iowa's Josh Turek and Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed and William Lawrence.

Help flip Ohio's 7th Congressional District (OH-07): Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker and Brook Park city councilman, is running to unseat Republican incumbent Max Miller in one of the most competitive working-class districts in the country. Corporate Political Action Committees (PACs) and MAGA groups are already lining up against him.

Miller's ex-wife, Emily Moreno, has accused him of ​domestic violence​ and of ​abusing their daughter​. Her father, Senator Bernie Moreno, Miller's former father-in-law, has publicly denounced him, and fellow Republican Senator Jon Husted has called on Miller to resign. Instead, he's running for reelection.

We must hold our elected officials to the highest ethical standards. An abuser has no business holding office, and replacing him is a must.

Two more Ohio Democrats face tougher races after last year's redistricting made their districts more Republican: Marcy Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in U.S. House history, and Greg Landsman, a former public school teacher representing Cincinnati.

For the Senate, Sherrod Brown is challenging incumbent Jon Husted, who was appointed to finish J.D. Vance's term after Vance became vice president. Brown represented Ohio in the Senate for three terms before Bernie Moreno defeated him in 2024.

For governor, Amy Acton, backed by several unions, is running against Trump-endorsed Vivek Ramaswamy. Polls show a close race. Acton was unhurt last week when an armed man rushed toward her at a campaign event, injuring several bystanders before he was stopped.

TAKE ACTION: Phonebank with National Indivisible​

TAKE ACTION: Phonebank with Ohio Wins.

A roadmap worth reading: Ben Wikler's new book

Restoring democracy won't happen overnight. It's going to take time, but the good news is, there's already a plan we can pick up and start executing, one step at a time.

Ben Wikler chaired the Wisconsin Democratic Party from 2019 to 2025, helping Democrats undo the Tea Party-era agenda under Republican Governor Scott Walker and flip statewide seats blue. Last year, he ran for chair of the Democratic National Committee and lost to Ken Martin.

Wikler's new book, This Is The Plan: How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy makes his case for electing Democrats at all levels, especially in swing states.

In his words: "Your goal: to achieve governing trifectas in the states whose Electoral College votes are likeliest to tip the presidency one way or the other in 2028."

Hawaiʻi has been a Democratic trifecta for decades, so our work here looks a little different: driving up voter turnout and keeping a much closer eye on the legislators in office. We've already got one huge legislative win to show for it. Act 11, passed this May to close a corporate political-spending loophole opened by Citizens United, wouldn't have happened without Indivisible. Read how we got it done.

Wikler maps out, year by year from 2026 to 2032, which races matter most and how to organize around them. If you want a how-to guide for restoring democracy, pick up a copy.

Phew. That's a lot to take in, and you don't have to do it all. Pick one thing from this list and show up for it - that's how we win.

Warmest Aloha

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