No Kings: Vote Early

(upbeat music) Hello, this is Michael Moss. Heather Cox Richardson is unable to read the letter today, so I will be reading it in her place. October 17th, 2026. Around the United States of America and the world, people gathered today at more than 3,000 no kings, vote early events, to encourage Americans to vote in the November 3rd midterm elections. The events were designed to encourage people to vote early, to ensure their votes are counted in an election where the president and his party have made it clear they intend to silence their opponents. Since Trump launched the big lie that he had been cheated of victory in the 2020 presidential election by voter fraud, Republican-dominated state legislatures have restricted access to the vote. Although it is already illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections and such votes are vanishingly rare, Trump and his allies are insisting that states must restrict the vote to prevent voter fraud. According to the Brenon Center, which works to protect voting rights, in 2021, at least 19 states passed 32 laws to make voting more difficult. Since the 2024 election, 22 states have passed 47 laws that restrict the vote. As Bob Ortega of CNN reported yesterday, states have closed polling places and black and Latino districts, required new paperwork to vote, reduced early voting, and restricted the use of student IDs for voter identification. Selina Stewart, the chief executive officer of the League of Women Voters, a non-partisan organization that works to expand access to the vote, told Ortega, "In 17 years of working on voting rights, "I have never seen such a widespread and coordinated effort "to restrict access to the ballot." No Kings organizer Ezra Levin said the way to judge the effectiveness of this "No Kings Day" was to answer the question. Did we drive the biggest early vote in the history of the Republic? He added, "I think we're gonna do it." But just at the height of the provoting events, Metta took down the main No Kings organizing page on Instagram for about four hours. According to Levin, Metta didn't respond to the No Kings team, even as the account was offline at the peak of our National Day of Action and Livestream. Once the account was viewable again, Metta told us in the response email that they made a bad call. Still though, No Kings administrators had no access to the account, blocking their ability to post about an ongoing day of mass action for early voting. Levin noted, "This is part of a much bigger concern. "Activists and movements around the world "are increasingly vulnerable to decisions "made by powerful technology platforms "that can determine who gets heard and who gets silenced." The League of Women Voters wrote that the timing of the blackout mattered. When people are gathering, organizing and seeking information about civic participation, cutting off a movement's primary communication channel, even temporarily, is deeply troubling. This is about more than one account. It raises serious questions about transparency, accountability, and the power private technology platforms wield over public communication. Metta later claimed the issue was technical, saying, "When accounts post, share or comment "at very high frequencies, it can trigger automated systems." That's what happened with the No Kings IG account in the lead up to today's Day of Action. Unfortunately, that automated action was clearly taken in error. Everything is now working as it should, and we sincerely apologize. The timing of the error was unfortunate. Just yesterday, Reuters reported on a story out of Brazil, claiming that in internal communications, Metta employees acknowledged that the company had restricted the Instagram accounts of Brazilian president Luis Ignacio Lula de Silva. The story says the employees' messages also recommended accounts related to his challenger. Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of Jair Bolsonaro, the right-wing ex-president who tried to overthrow Lula's government. Senator Bolsonaro did much better than expected in the election and the two face a runoff. It was not so close to six o'clock Eastern time that the No Kings account could be used again. We are back in, we can post again, Levin wrote. This was utter (beep) on the biggest early vote effort in history, but it will not stop what we're building. No Kings means no Kings in the White House, he wrote, or in Silicon Valley. (upbeat music) Letters from an American was written by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, "Death of Massachusetts," recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.