Over the next five weeks, our communities face an epic battle, perhaps the most important of our lives, one that for many of us is a matter of life or death. That battle is to make sure people living with HIV, BIPOC, people who live in poverty, young people and everyone concerned about justice turns out to vote on November 3 and that their votes are counted.

That’s why the Sero Project has decided to pause nearly all of our organizational, educational and advocacy initiatives in order to enable our entire staff to focus on voter registration and turnout for November 3.

There is nothing more important right now. People living with HIV, especially, have so much to lose. The healthcare, social safety net, financial and issues at stake are unprecedented. We are at a critical point in the history of the American democratic experiment and this election is the inflection point.

Over the next five weeks, Sero staff will be working with others to make sure everyone understands their local ballot, knows when, how and where to vote and where to get help when questions or problems arise.

This requires hundreds of thousands of peer-to-peer conversations, phone banking, texting and other communications, because each state has its own procedures for voting by mail, absentee voting, schedules for registration and voting. 

A concept as simple as “one person one vote” in 2020 has many complications and nuances. That’s in part because there are powerful interests that do not want us to vote. They are afraid of our votes and will go to extraordinary lengths to suppress the vote and disqualify our ballots.

We don’t want to wake up on November 4 regretting the calls we did not make, the texts we did not send the organizing we failed to pursue. A democracy can’t survive if its citizens don’t fight to keep it and Sero is committed to that fight.

Please understand if we are not able to respond to inquiries concerning HINAC, Turn It Up!,HIV criminalization reform organizing or other projects as quickly as usual. We will get back to that work on November 4.

We urge everyone and every organization to do what they can to devote all available resources to the election. This has been a year of adjustment in so many ways, we have had to pivot again and again in responding to the pandemic, the political environment and more.

In an abusive relationship, typically the most dangerous time for the person being abused is right before they leave their abuser for good. We are communities who have been abused historically, for generations, by a systemic racism, oppression and an arrogance of the well that has relegated healthcare to the domain of the privileged.

But we are stronger than we have ever been, we are determined and we are powerful. And we are on the verge of leaving that legacy of abuse for a brighter and more hopeful future. We hope you’ll join us by being “all in” for the next five weeks.

Sero will be hosting a "Path to Victory Rally" meeting, October 6th at 6 pm ET, to hear your concerns and share ways that you can join us to Get Out the Vote. Please register in advance for this meeting.

In solidarity and love from Sero.