Voting in the ADEM election will let you amplify your vote power by 100x. ADEM sets the direction of the Democratic Party and controls who earns the Democratic Party endorsement for State Assembly, State Senate, US House, and US Senate.

Voters trust and vote with the Democratic Party endorsements. The endorsements can easily create a 12% vote margin (about 62,000 votes) in these high-stakes elections that determine state and national policy.

You must register for ADEMs by January 11, 2021, and some of the prerequisite steps can take several days, so DO THIS NOW!

What is ADEM?

ADEM is the “Assembly District Election Meeting,” which is honestly kind of confusing. It is a small election, divided by Assembly district, for choosing your Democratic Party delegates. These delegates will get together later to vote on election endorsements and the Democratic Party platform.

Setting the Democratic Party platform is nice, but it doesn’t do much more than provide a rough signal to voters. The real power, and why you should care, is in the endorsements. Most voters are low-information voters, and they’ll vote how trusted sources tell them to. Many voters in San Francisco don’t even know that every candidate on their ballot is a Democrat, but they’ll go to the polls with the Democratic Party endorsements in their pocket and vote for everyone the Party recommends. Yeah, this is a totally broken system, but this is how political power works here.

If you’re tired of Democrats who care more about virtue signaling than solving actual problems, then you need to vote in this extremely low turnout, high impact election.

And yes, in a one party city you have to steer the Ship of State rather than jump overboard to some other party guaranteed to lose.

How to register for ADEMs

Here’s a checklist you can use. See below for more information if needed.

• Check your voter registration
  • SF Residents: San Francisco Voter Portal
  • Other: https://voterstatus.sos.ca.gov/
• Registered Democrat?
  • If not:
    • Re-register at https://registertovote.ca.gov/
    • Complete by January 5th
  • If yes
    • Registered at your current address? If not:
    • Fill out the Voter Registration Update Form
    • Sign it via dochub or similar
    • Email the signed PDF to SFVote@sfgov.org with the subject “Voter registration record update”
    • Complete by January 7th
• Register at ademelections.com
• Vote by January 22
  • East side SF: risetogethersf.com
  • West side SF: cityforallsf.org

Check your voter registration

If you live in San Francisco: use the San Francisco Voter Portal.

If you live outside of SF, or the above form fails, use https://voterstatus.sos.ca.gov/

You must be a registered Democrat in order to vote in this party election. Even if you don’t fully align with the Democrats, you should register as one anyway. It gives you power to vote in the primaries and in these small elections with disproportionate impact.

Register as a Democrat

Do this no later than January 5th, 2020.

If you are not already a registered Democrat, you need to re-register to vote here.

Follow the prompts and make sure you select Democrat when choosing your party. If you already have a signature on file with the DMV (If you have a California driver’s license, then you do), then you should be able to complete your registration without printing anything.

It doesn’t matter what you personally believe. Registering as No Party Preference or Libertarian or Whatever means you are willingly giving up power. Don’t fall into this trap – register as a Democrat.

Update your address

Do this no later than January 7th, 2020.

If you’re already a Democrat, but you are living or receiving mail at an address that’s different from your voter registration, you must fill out the Voter Registration Update Form. You can complete this form online, but you’ll need to use a service like dochub to sign the form and download a signed PDF. The digital signature does not need to stylistically match the signature you have on file with SF Elections.

Again: You can email this form; you don’t need to print, sign, and mail it.

One completed, email the signed PDF to SFVote@sfgov.org with the subject “Voter registration record update”. You will get a confirmation within a day or two.

Register for ADEMs

Go to https://ademelections.com/ and fill out your information to request a ballot.

If you have just updated your party registration or mailing address, you will probably have to wait a few days for the system to detect your changes. Keep trying every day until it tells you that you’ve registered successfully and received a confirmation email.

VOTE between January 11 and January 22

You will receive a ballot in the mail. As soon as you get it, fill it out and mail it in. The actual deadline is January 27th, but we can’t predict how long USPS will take!

San Francisco is split into two Assembly districts, and you can only vote in the district you live in. If you don’t know where you live, consult this map.

I recommend voting for these people:

San Francisco, AD 17 (East side)

Read more about the candidates at risetogethersf.com

San Francisco, AD 19 (West side)

Read more about the candidates at cityforallsf.org