Dear Community,

We are less than a week away from one of the most important elections of our lifetime. Today, we are thrilled to launch our JMC election brief called, We Count: Arab, Muslim, Middle Eastern, and South Asian (AMEMSA) Voters in Virginia. The brief gives an overview of our civic engagement campaign to call 65,000 AMEMSA voters in Virginia, our findings from a survey we conducted with low-propensity working-class voters in Northern Virginia, community reflections on civic engagement campaigns, and resources. Read the full brief here and share it! 

Overall we found from a survey with 176 voters that:

• The overwhelming majority of AMEMSA registered voters who took our survey stated a strong yes (86%) to voting in November. A small minority (3%) stated a strong no to voting during this election.

• Issue Areas and Priorities: The two leading issues our respondents wanted the next President to prioritize were fighting racism and Islamophobia (40%) and expanding access to affordable healthcare (36%).

• Public Health: The top two public health issues that voters wanted to be addressed were COVID19 (52%) and expanding access to affordable healthcare (39%).

• Public Safety: The top 3 public safety issues that voters wanted to be addressed were hate crimes against people of color (38%)and police accountability and reform (36%). In addition, 17 percent of voters who took our survey stated government surveillance of mosques and Muslim communities was their number one public safety issue they wanted to be addressed.