A CHURCH-WIDE call to prayer is to be held on election night in the United States, as the country goes to the polls in mid-term elections for Congress and, in some states, the Senate.
The Episcopal Church is to live-stream a four-hour vigil on election night, 8 November, and the Church is encouraging Christians to support the democratic process by getting involved with voter-registration campaigns locally. Early voting has already opened in some places.
The Church’s General Convention has repeatedly passed resolutions to oppose voter suppression and restrictions on voting, and to promote the expansion of voter eligibility.
This year, the Church has organised an Episcopal Activators programme, encouraging volunteers to help voters to register and to cast their ballot, particularly in those states where new voting restrictions are in force.
In Georgia, a new law shortens the time for requesting a postal vote and prohibits people from handing out food and water to queuing voters, among other restrictions.
Black church leaders in the state have organised rallies in a push to get members of their congregations to vote — a tradition known as “souls to the polls”. The events included a caravan organised by church leaders and civil-rights groups to take members of their congregations from Rainbow Park Baptist Church to a mall to vote early.
Poll chaplains will also serve in some areas, to promote calm and defuse tensions at polling stations. The coalition Faiths United to Serve Democracy has enlisted more than 700 chaplains, and is still training more in advance of next week’s election.
The Revd Adam Russell Taylor, a member of the coalition, said that there was anxiety that, after the 2020 presidential election and changes to voting law in some states, tensions might spill over into violence at the polls this year. Some, he said, feared that voters — particularly Black and brown voters — would be intimidated into not voting.
A new study from the Pew Research Center found that Republican voters’ trust in the election system had fallen. While Democratic voters were more confident that elections would be administered well, just 56 per cent of Republican voters said that they thought that the elections would be administered well or very well.
Abortion rights is among the issues at the heart of the elections for many, although hopes that the subject would lead to a surge in votes for Democrats from women look set be dashed, as concerns about the economy and cost of living are at the top of voters’ agendas.
In Texas, on 8 November, voters will also choose who sits on the oil and gas regulatory board. The two candidates have been involved in a spat this week over the slogan of one candidate, Wayne Christian: “Remember to vote for the only Christian on the ballot.”
His Democratic opponent Luke Warford, who is Jewish, complained that the slogan was “bigoted”.
Mr Christian has now dropped the slogan, which, his campaigners said, they would not have used it if they had known Mr Warford’s faith.