America’s birds can’t vote. But they have a huge stake in the outcome of U.S. elections.

So — thanks to Auk the Vote! — in 2020 birders broke new ground in civic engagement. For the first time, we organized as birders to protect what we love — birds, their habitats & ecosystems, healthy human communities, the planet — by joining crucial Get Out The Vote (GOTV) efforts.

Our goal? To get pro-bird, pro-environment, pro–environmental justice voters to the polls in swing states.

The outcome?

We succeeded!

We mobilized over 100 volunteers to make thousands of phone calls at 5 phone-banking sessions in October & November, in partnership with Flip the West.

We mobilized scores of additional volunteers at 3 phone-banking sessions in December & January, in partnership with Georgia Audubon & Environmental Voter Project.

We recruited exciting “celebrity birder” guests for our GOTV sessions, including Jonathan Franzen, Jennifer Ackerman, Nate Swick, Jenny Odell, Caleb Crain, Corina Newsome, & Christian Cooper.

We received favorable media coverage, including in Birdwatching Daily, on the Fowl Mouths Podcast, & in The Gull, Golden Gate Audubon’s quarterly newsletter, which featured Auk the Vote! in their Winter 2021 cover story.

Looking back on 2020’s election results, Auktivists have the satisfaction of knowing we played our part in stopping the Trump administration’s unrelenting onslaught on the environment, on vulnerable human communities, on science, & on efforts to fight climate change.

Emboldened by our success, & knowing how much is still at stake… 

We’re not stopping!

Now that the Biden administration is making real headway toward undoing the past 4 years’ damage, we’re laying our plans for the next round of elections. To make 2020’s victories the start of a lasting turnaround in our country’s environmental and climate-change policies (rather than a short respite between anti-environmental attacks), we’ll be mobilizing huge flocks of birders between now & the 2020 midterms.

So… 

Sign up with Auk the Vote!

Stay tuned for our next round of Auktivist organizing!

And, of course, keep on birding!