Saturday’s No Kings rally was more of a call to vote early in the midterm elections than a protest.
With around 50 people in attendance, the event featured speeches by local Democratic candidates on this year’s ballot, including House District 71 candidate Diana Luna, State Senate candidate Riley Rodriquez and candidate for Taylor County Treasurer Pierce LoPachin.
Organizers set up a board for people to sign, pledging that they would be voting early in this election.
Melissa Weaver is the founder of Defend Democracy Abilene. She said the rally was just the start of efforts to get out the vote in Taylor County.
“So what now?” Weaver said. “We make a plan. We check our voting locations. We figure out where we are going. We talk to our friends, our family, our neighbors. We help people who need a ride or don’t know where to go.”
As another way to encourage people to vote early, Taylor County Democrats will have set times for voters to go to the polls as a group. The first group will head to the Taylor County Plaza on Monday at 8 a.m. A group will head to the United Supermarket on South 14th Monday at 5:30 p.m., and another group will go to the Taylor County Plaza election headquarters on Saturday at 10 a.m.
No Kings organizer Sammy Garcia said they see early voting as more important than ever this year.
“You never know what happens on election day,” Garcia said. “You may get busy. What if you have to go out of town? You just never know, so instead of taking a chance, use that opportunity of a week and a half to get your vote done and out of the way and you can just sleep easily knowing that your voice was heard.”
Taylor County Republicans are also working on their plans for getting out the vote, with phone calls and block walking scheduled this week, and they’re working to get top of the ticket Republicans to visit before Election Day.
Polling locations at Abilene City Hall and Taylor County offices are open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. this week. And the locations at the Mall of Abilene and three United Supermarkets are open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
