Michael Swayze's Community Resources

Tag: Mt Airy Democrats

  • Voter Engagement in Mt. Airy

    Knock Doors in Mt. Airy

    Time is growing short. Sign up to help elect Chris Rabb to Congress, elect Chris Johnson as our State Rep, and return State Senator Art Haywood to Harrisburg.  Opportunity awaits to canvas in Mt. Airy. Sign up, here. A duty of voter engagement activists and Committeepeople, or soon to be, is to make voting simpler. As we go about informing, educating, and canvassing our neighbors please share the information below.

    Local Satellite Election Office and Dropbox Locations

    The dropbox for the 22nd Ward is located at Pleasant Playground, 6757 Chew Avenue (intersection of Slocum Street). Our local Satellite Election Office (SEO) is located at 5301 Chew Avenue. The SEO is open M-F 9am – 5pm and Sa-Su 10am – 4pm. Yes, open on the weekend. Their phone number is 215-686-7808.

    A listing of all SEOs throughout Philadelphia is available, here.

    Instructions for a Mail-in Ballot

    There are four steps for completing and returning your mail ballot: 

    1. Read the instructions and mark your ballot with a blue or black pen. There may be races on the back of your ballot, so be sure to check both sides.
    2. Place your ballot in the yellow envelope marked “official election ballot.” The ballot must be placed in this envelope for it to be counted.
    3. Place the yellow envelope in the larger return envelope. You must sign and date the larger envelope before you return it to your county board of elections.
    4. Return your completed ballot to your county elections office – either by mail, in person, or in an officially designated drop box – by 8 p.m. May 19. Mail ballots received after that time will not be counted. 

    Remember: You are the only person permitted to return your ballot unless you have a disability and designate someone in writing to return your ballot for you.

    Source: Pennsylvania Department of State, April 27, 2026 email

    Designated Agent Form

    You can help a voter by using this form to 1) pick up and return an application for a mail-in or absentee ballot; 2) pick up and return a mail-in or absentee ballot. The voter completes the top section of the Designated Agent Form and the person acting as the Designated Agent completes the bottom portion.  The form is available for downloading at https://www.pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/vote/resources/documents-and-forms/Authorize-Designated-Agent-for-Mail-in-or-Absentee-Ballot.pdf. 

    Curing Ballots

    The Philadelphia Board of Elections has received mail-in and absentee ballots with various issues that may prevent them from being counted in the upcoming May 19, 2026 Primary Election. However, Philadelphia is among a number of counties that allow voters to “fix” their ballot so it can be accepted. The City Commissioners maintain an on-going, updated list of potentially flawed ballots. Consult the Latest News section of their website then view the latest list in either Pdf or Excel version. Read their page, 2026 Primary Election: Unverifiable Identification, Undeliverable, and/or Potentially Flawed Ballots, here. 

    Various reasons are associated with these flagged ballots. They include: undeliverable, id not verified, no signature, or no secrecy envelope. The City Commissioners strongly urge that voters on the list request a replacement ballot by visiting one of the city’s Satellite Election Offices. (Ours is located at 5301 Chew Avenue.)

    As of May 7th, 500 ballots are in question. Check the list regularly to notify voters in your Ward/Division so their ballot can be “cured”. Designated Agent Forms are particularly useful for those who are unable to visit an SEO personally.

    For additional background, read a recent Billy Penn article.

  • Consumer Watchdog Agency Endangered

    An article appeared in yesterday’s New York Times print edition with details on how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), created in 2011 by Congress in the aftermath of the housing crisis of the Great Recession, is being systematically attacked and dismantled. (For the NYT article by Stacy Cowley, click here.)

    A friend and subscriber send me a note to “join in taking personal action in support of reversing the potential elimination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.” Yes, Jim D., consider it done. Below is more background information and my plan on how to combat the illegal and unconstitutional actions of Donald Trump and his team.

    In the past few days, the CFPB Director was fired, Elon Musk posted “CFPB RIP”, bureau employees were locked out of their offices, and the Project 2025 author and new Office of Management and Budget head, Russell Vought, gave unvetted DOGE employees access to CFPB data systems containing highly sensitive consumer and business information.

    The National Consumer Law Center, a leading consumer advocacy group, supplies the following:

    Financial companies have shown time and time again that they cannot police themselves. The Administration is trying to shut down an agency created by Congress to fix problems that caused over eight million people to lose their jobs and almost four million families to lose their homes during the Great Recession. The CFPB saves homes, stops fraud that ruins lives, and enforces key laws, winning $21 billion in relief for over 200 million people harmed by credit bureaus, big banks, debt collectors and predatory lenders.

    The illegal actions to shut down the CFPB halt work to safeguard people’s private information, protect bank customers when hackers raid their accounts, and help families save their homes when they’re unfairly rushed to foreclosure. The CFPB now appears poised to roll over and play dead in pending lawsuits by big banks and credit bureaus, letting them overturn new rules returning $5 billion in excessive overdraft fees to struggling families and removing medical debt from credit reports.” NCLC has joined with Democracy Forward to move to intervene in the overdraft fee litigation, and we are working to preserve the medical debt rule.

    The plan I propose includes the following:

    • Attend rallies. There is strength in numbers and you will feel part of a community.
    • Phone and email your elected officials, now. There is a list on this website of New Jersey and Pennsylvania Senators and Representative, here. For Members of Congress in the other 48 states visit https://www.congress.gov/members.
    • Contribute to organizations that support our rights and freedoms. My featured organization today is the National Consumer Law Project, a group I’ve been associated with for twenty-five years.
    • Join national, state, and particularly local political groups. My current favorites are: Indivisible, Indivisible Philadelphia, Mt. Airy Democrats, Turn PA Blue, and Vote the Ridge to name just a few.
    • Vote every election, twice a year.
    • Do something.