How To Make Your Voice Heard

6 min readJul 18, 2022

By Carlos Franco — July 18, 2022

Twitter: @itstechnical_cf | Glasp: @CarlosCFranco | BuyMeACoffee: @CarlosCFranco |

Image Copyright© Carlos Franco, 2022, 2023. All rights reserved.

With elections coming up and the current political climate shaping into a cultural battleground, more and more Americans are asking themselves, what can I do? This article aims to help and guide people who want to get more involved in politics but aren’t sure where to start.

Connecting With Others

A good starting point could be connecting with friends and family that may be feeling similarly about a voting issue, candidate, or upcoming election. Sharing your point of view and hearing theirs could help shape the direction of the kind of action you might want to take.

💡 Political action & involvement doesn’t always have to be grandiose. In fact, starting small can lead to larger impacts. Below is a list of some small actions that can get you started:

Share your opinion (respectfully) on your social media accounts — things like banners or hashtags (#) are great ways to communicate your position.

Donate money and support to political candidates that share your view.

Get in contact with political leaders through social media, email, phone calls, and letter-writing campaigns.

Social Media

As mentioned earlier, communicating your opinions via social media is a pretty easy first step. You are encouraged to maintain a respectful tone and abide by the guidelines of the social platform you are posting on. Things like: threats of violence, profanity, and cyberbullying are usually prohibited and could potentially be investigated criminally.

Most (if not all) elected officials and political candidates have some form of social media. Twitter and Facebook are two very popular platforms, but Instagram, TikTok, and others are also great access points for politicians and political party organizers.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Pennsylvania,

“Communication between an elected official and the people is a two-way street. Thanks to the free speech clause of the First Amendment, politicians cannot eliminate viewpoints they don’t want to hear” (1).

This was most recently tested in court in a legal case in 2019: Knight First Amendment Inst. at Columbia Univ. v. Trump, when the Knight Institute filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration for blocking seven individuals from accessing the @realDonaldTrump Twitter feed. The court agreed with the Knight Institute, stating, “[Trump] is not entitled to censor selected users because they express views with which he disagrees” (2).

Advocacy Groups

Another option for getting started is reaching out to established political groups and organizations. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and The American Conservative Union (ACU) are among the oldest and have established track records for advocating in a variety of ways for numerous causes.

💡 Wikipedia is a great starting point for finding political organizations that fit your cause:

Contacting Elected Officials

All elected leaders have official phone numbers, emails, and addresses for incoming mail.

If you decide that making contact with your elected officials is something you want to pursue, Congress.gov is a recommended resource.

“Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. The site provides access to accurate, timely, and complete legislative information for Members of Congress, legislative agencies, and the public. It is presented by the Library of Congress (LOC) using data from the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, the Government Publishing Office, Congressional Budget Office, and the LOC’s Congressional Research Service” (3).

Members of the U.S. Congress: Here is a directory of congressional members (both chambers: House and Senate) that has filtering options for years, chambers, and political parties. (https://www.congress.gov/members)

Screenshot of congress.gov page with 117th congressional term selected. Credit: congress.gov.

Guidelines for contacting

Reaching out to a congressperson can be intimidating; you may not know where to start or what to say. The ACLU has a page on some tips for communicating with an elected official through mail or email entitled, Writing your Elected Representatives | ACLU. Below are the main points summarized from the article (4).

Keep it brief: Keep your letters to one page and one topic — being concise is key.
State Who You Are and What You Want First: Your first paragraph should include who you are and what kind of political action you want (i.e., My name is John, and I am a constituent of XXX District. I want you to support protecting voters’ rights by sponsoring XXX bill…)
Hit your three most important points: Choose the three strongest points that are most likely to convince legislators to back your position and explain them in brief detail.
Personalize your letter: Give personal examples about how this issue or legislation impacts your life and community; use personal stories and anecdotes to contextualize your position. If it applies, mention any votes or donations you have made for them.
Be respectful but assert your position: You are the authority on how their representation impacts your life. Be respectful in conveying your opinion and position, but be clear and assertive.

Meeting With Elected Officials

If you want to meet your elected representative in person, the ALCU also has a guide to help you get ready; Meeting with your Elected Representatives | American Civil Liberties Union. Here is a list of the main talking points in the article (5).

When requesting a meeting: Request your meeting in writing and include the issue or piece of legislation you want to meet about. Include who you are, and offer some suggested meeting dates & times.
Prepare for your meeting: Make a short list of talking points that explain your position in a clear way. If you are working with a group, decide who will come to the meeting. Try to keep the number of people who come to less than five. Have a specific person or people talk about each topic to keep the conversation moving.
Be mindful of time: Be on time for your appointment and be respectful of the representative’s time. They often have very tight schedules and multiple meetings in a day. With this in mind, it is common for meetings to end early or go over time, which can cause legislators to be late to appointments. If this happens to you, try to be patient.
Be brief but focused: Most meetings only last 15 to 20 minutes, so make the most of your time by sticking to your points, using personal stories to show how issues and laws affect people, and asking the legislator to commit to taking action (e.g., “When can you commit to making a public statement about this issue?”).
Follow up: Follow up with the legislator to let them know how you thought the meeting went, if they made any promises, or if they asked for more information about your position.

💡 Even though these tips and suggestions are mostly about getting in touch with members of Congress, they can also be used when getting in touch with local and state government officials.

Organizing & Mobilizing

If you are more interested in taking direct action, you could join or start a political organization. Or you could work for a candidate’s election campaign (perhaps even your own). As a final thought, I’ll leave you with a quote from President John F. Kennedy.

“The magic of politics is not the panoply of office. The magic of politics is participating on all levels of national life in an affirmative way, of playing a small role in determining whether, in Mr. (William) Faulkner’s words, ‘freedom will not only endure, but also prevail.’” (6)

Resources

References +6

See a list of the key highlights from the sources consulted and cited in this article on Glasp using the following link; or by searching the tag: #H1 Voice Heard from the search bar on Glasp’s landing page.

Accessed on July 18, 2022. https://www.aclupa.org/en/news/elected-officials-cannot-block-people-social-media
Accessed on July 18, 2022. https://knightcolumbia.org/cases/knight-institute-v-trump
Accessed on July 18, 2022. https://www.congress.gov/about
Accessed on July 18, 2022. https://www.aclu.org/writing-your-elected-representatives
Accessed on July 18, 2022. https://www.aclu.org/meeting-your-elected-representatives
Accessed on July 18, 2022. https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/educational-resources/john-f-kennedy-on-politics-and-public-service