**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**

Contact: communications(at)pwn-usa.org

POSITIVE WOMEN’S NETWORK – USA LAUNCHES 2020 HIV VOTER ENGAGEMENT PLAN

The intensive, multi-state voter engagement plan will leverage the power of people living with and affected by HIV to activate communities historically ignored by mainstream “get out the vote” efforts.

September 23, Oakland: With more than 1.1 million people living with HIV nationally and millions more connected to the HIV service delivery system, and with a long history of effective activism, the HIV community holds great potential as an organized electorate. Yet no national voter organizing efforts to date have deliberately invested time, capacity, or resources to engage this base. Positive Women’s Network – USA (PWN), the premiere national membership body of women and transgender people living with HIV, plans to change this by leading an innovative, nonpartisan electoral organizing effort. Vote Positive will leverage deep HIV community organizing roots in ten states to register, engage, educate, and mobilize “hard-to-reach” voters, while providing tools to HIV organizations to scale up their own nonpartisan voter engagement efforts.

“We know how to do this. In the 2018 election cycle, PWN piloted voter engagement activities through our chapters, successfully reaching more than 10,000 voters in just a few months. Our members registered folks with felony convictions who didn’t know their voting rights had been restored, monolingual Spanish speakers, and low-income community members in high-density housing who hadn’t been reached by any of the campaigns,” said PWN Membership Engagement Coordinator Evany Turk.

In addition to the Organizing for Power teams, PWN will support HIV community members to engage in nonpartisan voter registration, education, and turnout through its Vote Positive program. People can get involved by signing up at bit.ly/vote-positive.

“PWN is thrilled to be leading the way for the HIV community to become the powerful voting bloc it can and must be,” said Venita Ray, deputy director of PWN. “We’ve been preparing for this moment for years. Our folks have showed up to save the Affordable Care Act, and to defend reproductive rights, trans rights, and immigrant communities. We have successfully passed progressive legislation in multiple states. The HIV community is serious about organizing, and Vote Positive will make sure every voter we can reach is able to exercise their right to cast an informed vote.”

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