How to Vote in the 2020 Election

Important Dates:

• October 30, 2020 – November 2, 2020: Early Voting, sites and times vary.
• November 3, 2020: Election Day, Polls are open 7:00am-8:00pm.

What If I Missed the Voter Registration Deadline?

If you missed the October 19, 2020 deadline to register to vote, you may still be eligible to register and vote through Same Day Voter Registration (i.e. Conditional Voter Registration).  Participants can request a one-on-one consultation with Rubicon attorneys for any questions.

More information about Same Day Voter Registration can be found here.

How Do I Vote in Contra Costa County?

Vote-By-Mail

• Follow the instructions to mark your ballot in blue or black pen, place your ballot in the postage-paid return envelope, and sign and seal the envelope.
• Mail your ballot with USPS. Your ballot must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received within 17 days of the election. We recommend that you mail your ballot ASAP to avoid delays in being counted.

Official Ballot Box Drop-Off

• Follow the instructions to mark your ballot in blue or black pen, place your ballot in the postage-paid return envelope, and sign and seal the envelope.
• Confirm an official ballot box location near you, here. 
• Drop your ballot off on or before election day. Ballot boxes will be available 24/7 from October 5th - November 3rd at 8:00pm.

In-Person Voting

• Regional Early Voting Sites are open Friday, October 30th (11am-7pm); Saturday, October 31st (9am-5pm); and Monday, November 1st (11am-7pm). Information about early voting sites can be found here.
• If you plan to vote on election day, find your designated polling place here.  More information about voting on election day can be found here.

How Do I Vote in Alameda County?

Vote-By-Mail

• Follow the instructions to mark your ballot in blue or black pen, place your ballot in the postage-paid return envelope, and sign and seal the envelope.
• Mail your ballot with USPS. Your ballot must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received within 17 days of the election. We recommend that you mail your ballot ASAP to avoid delays in being counted.

Official Ballot Box Drop-Off

• Follow the instructions to mark your ballot in blue or black pen, place your ballot in the postage-paid return envelope, and sign and seal the envelope.
• Confirm an official ballot box location near you, here.
• Drop your ballot off on or before election day. Ballot boxes will be available 24/7 from October 5th-November 3rd at 8:00pm.

Alameda County Ballot Drop Stop

• There is a drive-through ballot drop-off option available throughout the county. Information about locations and times of the Drop Stop can be found here.

In-Person Voting

• Accessible Voting Locations are open Saturday, October 31st (9am-5pm); Sunday, November 1st (9am-5pm); Monday, November 2nd (9am-5pm); and Tuesday, November 3rd (7am-8pm).  Information about Accessible Voting Locations can be found here and here.

How Do I Make Sure My Vote Was Counted?

Once you have voted, we highly recommend that you track the status of your ballot through Where’s My Ballot, here. 

Once you’ve signed up you will receive notices via email, text, or voice message from the county elections office letting you know the status of your ballot, including:

• When a complete ballot has been received;
• Whether the complete ballot has been accepted, or, if it is not accepted, the reasons the ballot was not accepted and instructions for how a voter can fix or “cure” the ballot with a deadline to return the ballot to the county;
• When your ballot has been counted.

If you are notified that your ballot was not accepted or that there was an issue with your signature, and you need help resolving the issue, please contact a Rubicon attorney.  

To see where Rubicon stands on some of the important issues affecting California this November, including state and local propositions, see our Voter Guide here.

On behalf of the Board of Directors, we are delighted to announce the selection of Dr. Carole Dorham-Kelly (DC) as Rubicon Programs' new CEO, effective November 1, 2020. After an extensive and rigorous search, DC left no doubt that she is the premier choice to lead the organization into the future. DC has served as Rubicon's Chief Program Officer for two and a half years, and before that as a leader in our wellness services. 
 
In addition to her business acumen, intellectual horsepower, and approachability, DC has a deep understanding of what is needed to advance a new generation of policies and programs that will address the economic and social inequities confronting the communities we serve. DC has never wavered in her commitment to increasing access to wellness and economic mobility for communities of color. Her nuanced understanding of systems of oppression will allow Rubicon to take on an even more active role in advocating for policy changes that will lead to increased economic and social equity. In DC we have a leader whose values align with Rubicon's and are consistent with community needs and concerns – a leader who connects with humility, lives with hope, and acts with justice. 
 
The Board also extends its deepest gratitude and appreciation to Jane Fischberg for two decades of remarkable leadership. Jane has been a fierce champion for social and racial justice. With Jane at the helm, Rubicon has evolved into a high performing workforce organization well regarded for its whole-person approach and recognized for its establishment of an unequivocal antiracism stance. Her signature blend of empathy and high expectations pushed Rubicon to new heights of excellence. She was the chief architect of bold organizational changes that focused Rubicon on a new model of longer and deeper connections to our participants and to new workforce service partnerships in Oakland and Eastern and Central Costa County. Jane will continue to serve as CEO through October 31, 2020, after which date she will remain with Rubicon as an advisor through the end of April 2021. 
 
A driving force in our work ahead will be our ongoing commitment to transforming Rubicon into an antiracist organization and deepening our response to amplified economic disparities within the societal context of COVID-19, racial injustice and pervasive inequity. We are energized by these challenges and filled with a deep sense of purpose as we prepare to rise up to meet them with our new CEO at the helm.  
 
Stay tuned for upcoming opportunities to honor Jane and welcome DC. We will be in touch.
 
Thank you for being a part of the Rubicon community.  
 
Sincerely, 
Paul Leonard, Board Chair 
Tatiana Ware, Vice Chair 
 
A message from Dr. Carole Dorham-Kelly:
 
With respect and gratitude, I salute Jane for her courageous leadership and 20-year Rubicon legacy. Her tireless efforts have been instrumental in the strength of the brand that is Rubicon Programs. I humbly accept the charge of leading Rubicon Programs in the next chapter. I look forward to deepening existing partnerships and sparking new ones!  
 
As a Black woman raised in Richmond, I feel extreme pride and fortune to be chosen as Rubicon Programs’ next President and CEO. The responsibility and opportunity ahead is both professional and personal. My personal passions and career journey have long been rooted in community-based mental health and workforce development programs in service of communities that are disproportionately impacted by trauma and systemic inequities. In the current climate of COVID-19, economic downturn and the unmitigated disregard and devaluing of Black and Brown life, we must partner to respond with urgency. It is our shared responsibility to ensure that all families and communities have equitable access to life, liberty and economic opportunity. I am energized to join you all in this continued work, in this new role. 
 
A message from Jane Fischberg:
 
It is with excitement and joy that I congratulate DC on being selected as Rubicon’s next CEO. With DC at the helm, Rubicon has the leadership needed to take Rubicon to its next level. While Rubicon is a longstanding high-calibre workforce and supportive service provider, we continuously aspire to listen and learn from our participants. I am proud of the work we have done collectively to grow Rubicon’s impact and to transform our practices consistent with our aspiration to be an antiracist organization. DC has been a catalyst in those efforts. DC’s passion, values, and vision for the role Rubicon can play in supporting the transformation of the lives of our participants and of our communities, are unsurpassed. Together with her talents, and her ability to lead by inspiring respect rather than exercising authority, she has unparalleled qualifications to be Rubicon’s next CEO. With admiration, I look forward to supporting her as she transitions into the role, and celebrating her appointment with you in the coming months.  
 

Many at Rubicon don’t have to stretch their imaginations very far to picture the horrific conditions in California prisons in the face of the COVID pandemic and, now, the raging wildfires—they’ve been there. For Participant Advisory Board (PAB) and staff member Gail Thomas, hearing about the death and suffering of inmates is like a punch to the gut. “That could have been me. That could have been my family members. Those are my family members,” she says.   

Gail spent seven years in Chowchilla and another state prison, where she worked as an infirmary porter, and her husband, Alex Thomas, also a Rubicon participant, was a janitor in the infirmary during his time in San Quentin. From these collective experiences, and from talking to loved ones who are currently incarcerated, she knows one thing for sure: “There is no way they can do social distancing.”  

Gail’s voice hardens as she recalls packed cafeterias, cramped, understaffed medical facilities, and terminally ill prisoners dying alone.  

This personal connection is one reason Gail, Alex, and other members of the PAB have joined the movement to demand the release of elderly and medically vulnerable prisoners specifically and, more generally, to depopulate California prisons. Through writing letters, speaking out in public forums, and getting their personal stories out there, they are putting the pressure on Governor Gavin Newsom and other state policymakers to rethink the prison-industrial status quo during this unprecedented public health disaster.   

The push to depopulate the state’s overcrowded prisons has become an urgent outcry during the pandemic; the virus has turned prisons into hot zones, killing incarcerated people and staff alike at rates that are outstripping the rest of the country. According to a New York Times database, San Quentin has become one of the country's largest virus clusters with more than 2,200 infections and 26 deaths, and other facilities are not far behind. In June, after touring San Quentin and observing unsafe conditions that were allowing the virus to rage through the population, University of California health experts advised the prison to cut its population by 50%. Other overcrowded state prisons should follow suit, the experts said.  

The total number of people incarcerated in California prisons is about 100,000. The state has released or plans to release approximately 11,500 inmates by the end of the month–mostly “non-violent offenders with less than a year to serve,” according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.    

Rubicon Impact Coach Roosevelt Terry sees the state’s mishandling of the pandemic in the prison system as a gross human rights violation. Roosevelt’s son, who is serving 17 years in California State Prison-Solano, tells his father about daily protests in the yard demanding the release of sick and vulnerable inmates. “The constant fear of contracting the virus is eminent, and the idea of surviving in extended isolation lockdowns to mitigate the spreading virus is haunting [my son],” Roosevelt says.   

Roosevelt hopes corporations and other entities will step up to the plate to help with the greatest problem facing inmates who are released early: housing. As of now, it is up to relatives, probation officers, and community organizers, who are scrambling to solve the housing crisis for early-release inmates, some of whom pose a public health risk because they have been paroled while still contagious, according to the LA Times. 

There are no easy solutions, but for Gail and Roosevelt, depopulation is an imperative first step. The PAB is currently working to ensure they are poised to impact legislation. As she continues to hear horror stories from loved ones who are incarcerated, Gail is feeling the urgency of the moment. “I don’t just want to do something—I have to do something,” she says.    

Rubicon’s dedication to affirming our identity as an antiracist organization took a step forward recently, as staff created the framework for an action plan based on our antiracism stance. 

The creation of the antiracist action plan reflects a commitment to walk the talk when it comes to “engaging in the long-term, transformational work needed to demand justice for all,” said Chief Talent Officer Adrienne Kimball.  

The development of the action plan began following the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Tony McDade, when many employees echoed demands that were being voiced nationwide, and made it clear that they wanted decisive action within the organization, Kimball said. 

Staff identified a few strategies and dozens of tactics with which to move forward. Capacity-building tactics range from hiring practices to ensure that employees reflect the participant community; education for staff, especially white-identified staff, around BIPOC experiences and the legacy and continued perpetuation of white supremacy; and rigorous accountability systems. Legislative and grassroots advocacy tactics focus on supporting legal, systemic, and public policy changes to advance race equity and racial justice.

The Racial Justice Task Force is meeting weekly to plan the implementation phase of the action strategies. Examples of activities and initiatives that have already taken place include the observation of Juneteenth as an organization-wide holiday, education around Black Wall Street, and a commitment to spending money with BIPOC vendors. 

Rubicon’s commitment to acting with humility entails taking risks. “We have long felt the need to do more active advocacy and activism around racial justice issues; however, we wanted to be sure we could get it right. The moment calls for us to act, even if we make mistakes along the way,” said Jane Fischberg, President and CEO. 

Rubicon is carefully monitoring COVID infection rates and weighing risk factors to determine when to return to work sites. It’s a complicated decision, to say the least, but Rubicon is taking this unprecedented moment in history as another opportunity to put our commitment to being an antiracist organization into action.

Along with guidelines and data from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization, (WHO) and county health authorities, Rubicon has added to our return-to-site indicators a measure that adjusts for the heightened vulnerability of our participant community due to social determinants of health, including race, income level, and the related prevalence of working in essential services. 

This adjustment was a natural step for an organization that “takes an equity lens to everything we do,” said Adrienne Kimball, Rubicon’s Chief Talent Officer. Kimball was studying the county indicators for her work on the committee that is determining when to return to site when she noticed something alarming: “These indicators are not for the people we serve.” She was unsurprised by the oversight. “We know that Black, Brown, and poor people are not usually centered in general population indicators, stats, or recommendations.”

According to the CDC, “long-standing systemic health and social inequities have put some members of racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk of getting COVID-19.” Nationwide African Americans are five times more likely, and Latinx Americans are four times more likely to contract the virus than are white Americans. In addition, low-income communities and communities of color are at a higher risk of severe illness if infected.

Kimball said she did not have to sell the rest of her committee members on the idea of the equity buffer. They quickly added .5% to the WHO-recommended return-to-site community infection thresholds. Kimi Barnes, Rubicon’s Special Projects Manager, said that in addition to the equity buffer, she is looking at micro-populations in her data analysis. For example, “it’s not what’s happening in Contra Costa County; it’s what’s happening in Richmond. We have a commitment to what’s happening in our communities.” 

Rubicon recently put a hold on tentative plan to bring some staff back to job sites the week of June 15 due to recent spikes in infection levels across Contra Costa and Alameda Counties, as well as the fact that both counties are now on the State’s Watch List of counties that are not meeting State threshold criteria for the specific indicators. No new date has been set. Rubicon will continue to prioritize participant and employee health in our decision making.