Strong Elections Help Build a Community Where We All Thrive

From the desk of Lynn Davis, Interim Executive Director

For the past three years, Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center has worked with local, regional, and national partners to strengthen democracy by supporting free, fair, and safe elections and fostering respectful dialogue across our community. We see this work as an essential part of countering antisemitism and building a society where Jews and other minority communities can thrive.

America's commitment to inclusive democracy has enabled the Jewish community to flourish with an unprecedented degree of safety, security, and opportunity. But current attacks on that democracy, along with a growing, anti-democratic extremist movement, pose a profound threat. In recent years, election integrity and voter confidence have faced growing pressure, including harassment, threats, mis- and disinformation, staffing shortages, and legal and political interference.

The lessons of Holocaust history remind us that democratic institutions cannot be taken for granted. They depend on public trust, civic participation, and people willing to uphold them. When those institutions are weakened, minority communities are often among the first to feel the consequences.

Our Jewish community can play a meaningful, nonpartisan role in supporting election protections and bolstering democratic norms. In the weeks leading up to the midterm elections, TJMHC will focus on the people who make our elections possible: local election officials, poll workers, volunteers, and community members who ensure voting is secure, accessible, accurate, and trustworthy. This work is not about influencing election outcomes. It is about helping ensure that every eligible voter can participate in every election, that every valid vote is counted, and that election results are administered accurately, quickly, transparently, and lawfully.

How can you help? Tomorrow, Tuesday, August 11th, is National Poll Workers Day. Several TJMHC staff have already signed up to serve as poll workers, and we're inviting our board members, docents, volunteers, and supporters to join us. Visit powerthepolls.com/jewishdemocracy to add your name. (Please use Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center as your referring organization.)

Poll workers are essential to ensuring our elections remain free, fair, safe, and accessible, and we need them in every district in the country. These are paid positions and completely nonpartisan work that almost anyone can do. (In Arizona, you must be 16 years of age.) And the time is now - election officials need to staff up over the next few weeks because they will soon be turning their attention to other urgent election tasks.

Protecting our democracy is one way we protect our community. By helping ensure that every eligible voter can cast a ballot and every lawful vote is counted, we strengthen the institutions that have allowed Jewish life—and so many other communities—to flourish in America. I hope you'll join us. 

This initiative is made possible by the Jewish Partnership for Democracy and A More Perfect Union’s Faith in Fair Elections campaign, with additional support from Over Zero.