Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

by Stacey Abrams

Beloved national leader and bestselling author Stacey Abrams offers an empowering blueprint to ending voter suppression, reclaiming identity, and reshaping progressive politics.

Voter suppression has plagued America since its inception, and so has the issue of identity—who is really American and what that means. When tied together, as they are in our modern politics, citizens are harmed in overt, subtle, and even personal ways. Stacey Abrams experienced the effects firsthand, running one of the most unconventional races in modern politics as the Democratic nominee for the governorship in Georgia and the first black woman major party nominee in American history. Abrams did not become governor, but she will not concede. And the reason she won’t is because democracy failed voters. However, fixing suppression isn’t enough unless we understand how it works and how identity plays a pivotal role. Suppression and identity altered the 2016 presidential election—and will do the same in 2020. But progress can win, and here Abrams lays out how.

In Our Time Is Now, Abrams draws on extensive national research from her voter rights organization, Fair Fight Action, and her 2020 Census effort, Fair Count, as well as moving and personal anecdotes from her own life. Abrams weaves together the experiences of those who have fought for the vote and the right to be seen throughout our nation’s history, linking them with how law and policy deny real political power. So much hangs in the balance for the 2020 election, and the stakes could not be higher. Our Time Is Now will galvanize those seeking change. It will be a critical book by the expert on fair voting and access that will show us where we fall short, who America is now, and most importantly, empower us to become the democracy we’re meant to be.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Audiobook, Social Justice, History, Memoir, Race

298 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 9, 2020

About the author

Stacey Abrams is an American politician, lawyer, author, and businesswoman who was the house minority leader for the Georgia General Assembly and state representative for the 89th House District. She is a Democrat.

Abrams, one of six siblings, was born to Robert and Carolyn Abrams in Madison, Wisconsin and raised in Gulfport, Mississippi. The family moved to Atlanta where her parents pursued graduate school and later became Methodist ministers. She attended Avondale High School and was the school's first African-American valedictorian. While in high school, she was hired as a typist for a congressional campaign and was later hired as a speechwriter at age 17 based on the edits she made while typing.

In 1995, Abrams earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Interdisciplinary Studies (Political Science, Economics and Sociology) from Spelman College, magna cum laude. While in college, Abrams worked in the youth services department in the office of Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson. She later interned at the Environmental Protection Agency. As a Harry S. Truman Scholar, she studied public policy at the University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs and went on to earn her J.D. from Yale Law School.

Abrams worked as a tax attorney at the Sutherland Asbill & Brennan law firm in Atlanta, with a focus on tax-exempt organizations, health care and public finance. She was appointed the Deputy City Attorney for Atlanta at age 29.

Abrams co-founded and served as the senior vice president of NOW Corp. (formerly NOWaccount Network Corporation), a financial services firm. She co-founded Nourish, Inc., a beverage company with a focus on infants and toddlers, and is CEO of Sage Works, a legal consulting firm, that has represented clients including the Atlanta Dream of the WNBA.

Abrams has had an extensive writing career, penning several best-selling novels under the nom de plume of Selina Montgomery. Abrams is also the author of 'Minority Leader', a book of leadership advice to be published by Henry Holt & Co. in April 2018.

Reviews

[Jenna ❤ ❀ ❤ · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're American and you care about our democracy, you need to read this book.

Voter suppression is on the rise in America. When Stacey Abrams, a lawyer and State Representative from 2007 to 2017, ran for Georgia governor in 2018, she saw the results firsthand. 

I was shocked by what I read.

I felt sick. Physically sick.

I was aware of gerrymandering and horrified by the recent polling location closures in Kentucky (all but one was closed in each of the two most populous counties in Kentucky for the recent primary election). I did not, however, know the extent conservatives have gone to suppressing the vote of minorities and the poor in this country.

From literacy tests and poll taxes in the past to present-day restrictive voter ID requirements, voting booth closures, rejected ballots, and voter purges, conservatives show they will try anything they can to silence minorities and in so doing destroy our democracy.

As Stacey Abrams explains, "In a democracy, if we do not hear from everyone, the complexity of our communities goes unaddressed and our national ambition is incomplete." And, "The power and the purpose of our system is to enable the people with the ability to have their values represented and to select their leaders. Any time we erode that capacity, we are eroding the very republic we seek to protect."

Reading this book terrified me and it should terrify you if you care about democracy and freedom of the people.

Thankfully, Ms. Abrams offers us hope as well. She shares the actions she has taken to end voter suppression and the organizations that are also engaged in this fight. We need more politicians like her, many more.

She points out the things we as citizens can do and urges us all to get involved. If we want to save our democracy, we must do it now.  We are on the threshold of becoming an autocracy. Other democracies have fallen and we could too. We Americans are complacent, thinking it could not happen here. But it can.

Ms. Abrams discusses the history of voter suppression, the current situation,  authoritarian populism, and the nature of authoritarians. She points out how America's standing in the eyes of the world has been harmed with the rise of Donald Trump and how dangerous he is to our democracy and to democracies worldwide. We are not the only country leaning towards authoritarian populism and that scares me even more.

If you want to save our country, get involved, talk to your family and friends, and vote. If you get to the polls on election day and are told you are no longer eligible to vote or are not on their rolls, know that you have rights. Contact the Election Protection Hotline at 1-866-OUR-VOTE or check out this CNN article for further actions you can take. 

Your vote is important and it is your right. Do not let your voice be taken away from you. If you think your vote doesn't matter, the conservatives have succeeded in convincing you it doesn't. Know this: They wouldn't spend so much time, effort, and money trying to suppress votes if they didn't matter.

As Stacey Abrams reminds us, "Democracies rarely fall today because of military coups or foreign invasion. Instead, their death is gradual, coming slowly and over time with an erosion of rights and an accumulation of attacks on the institutions that form their backbone."

Read this book, learn what's going on, and learn what you can do to help. Most importantly, VOTE. And if you want to keep your right to vote, vote for the politicians who are working to protect that right.

YelloPain - My Vote Dont Count 

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

My opinion of Stacey Abrams just went up—way up. She is a ‘force of nature’ advocating that all Americans participate in our democracy. As you may recall, Abrams narrowly lost the gubernatorial election in Georgia; and she does recount her campaign and the efforts of her opponent—the then Secretary of State—to suppress her supporters’ votes. Indeed, the details of “the toolbox for effective disenfranchisement” includes closing polling places and rollbacks for early voting. These actions flow from the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in 2013.

She believes that voting makes us more aware of local issues and enables us to influence politicians to better serve us; whether it is fixing our roads or establishing a neighborhood park, or much more.

Abrams was reared in a family that valued voting. She recalls her parents taking their six children with them every time they voted. Her mother was a librarian and instilled in Stacey a deep love of learning. Stacey got her B.A. from Spelman College, her M.P.A. from University of Texas-Austin, and finally her Law Degree from Yale. She has also studied how America influences the democracies in other parts of the world.

Most recently, she has launched Fair Fight Action and Fair Fight PAC to combat voter suppression and Fair Count to address the matter of the census. Her commitment to democracy is inspirational. Highly recommend.

[Brandice · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you didn’t already believe voter suppression is real, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America will likely change your mind. As a Georgia resident, I was well aware of this problem but sadly, it’s not limited to just one state. Among the numerous issues detailed in this book, from voter protection to citizen engagement, Stacey Abrams notes that separate states have little incentive to adhere to rules without threats (often unenforced, by the way) from higher powers in the federal system.

Our Time Is Now is eye opening and informative. Abrams details the myriad issues pervading our voting system and outlines ways to address and correct these problems. PSA: This is everyone’s issue, not just those who have directly experienced voter suppression.

”Those of us who believe in the promise of democracy must become outraged about even a single act of suppression. In an honorable system, the loss of a single voter’s right to participate is a wrong that cannot be tolerated—and as Americans, we should know that a failure in the system weakens us all.”

Note: This is not a memoir. While Abrams does provide a few personal anecdotes, Our Time Is Now is a deep dive on the issue of voter suppression and how to combat it. It is a necessary call-to-action.

”Our time is now. We have the numbers, the mission, and the opportunity to start constructing the next best version of America. Each of us has the obligation to defend our democracy. This week, every one of us can ask five strangers if they have registered to vote or if they’ve recently checked their registration. If they haven’t, direct them to Vote.org. If they check and are missing, or if they have ever faced voter suppression, contact FairFight2020.org.”

[Skip · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is important, and kudos are due to the articulate Stacy Abrams for highlighting the perils of voter suppression in a democracy. Harkening back to a famous 1966 speech by Martin Luther King in which he urged his followers to participate by voting in order to be heard, and to register at least ten others in the upcoming primary. Abrams goes through the many painstaking efforts by those in power to disenfranchise the poor, the minorities using a myriad of dirty tricks, such as moving polling places, especially to police stations, voter ID 'exact match' verification, inadequate machinery, manipulating voting hours, gerrymandering, providing provisional ballots, making it difficult to obtain absentee ballots, and having elections on a work day. In 27 of 36 OECD countries, national elections are held on the weekend, and in two more, it is a national holiday, all to allow citizens the ability and not just the right to vote. Lots of compelling story telling by an agitator. Abrams tells a funny story about a civils rights leader (Hosea William) who said what cleans clothes in a washing machine is not just the water and soap, but the mechanism that shakes them. I think her strong political beliefs about populism and Trump detracted from her message, but unfortunately are things that need to be said now, before the 2020 election.

It is also time to eliminate the electoral college, which systemically denies the validity of one person, one vote since in two Presidential elections in the 21st century, the victor lost the popular vote.

[Ross Blocher · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America hoping to get to know Stacey Abrams better, thinking this would be mostly an autobiographical look at her life leading up to her 2018 run for the Georgia governorship. While elements of her story are woven throughout, what Abrams really delivers is a full-throated defense of voting rights. I was more than happy to read that book: voting is one of the few things I would call sacred, and I have volunteered since 2008 in almost every election as a poll worker in Los Angeles. Abrams is an expert on this topic, and I learned a lot about how representation works (and doesn't), particularly in other parts of the country.

For "a shining city on a hill", America has a troubled history when it comes to the most basic and defining practice of a democracy. When our Constitution was ratified, only land-owning white men (a small fraction of the total population) could vote. Only after a civil war (1870) did black men secure the right. Women had to fight until 1920 for the same status. In 1971, the franchise was extended those 18 years and older. While there have been federal mandates such as these, for the most part, it is given to states to administer elections as they see fit, creating a patchwork of systems with differing rules. Accordingly, voting progress has been complex and uneven, with advancements followed by setbacks. These impediments have been leveled disproportionately at minorities - particularly Black Americans - as subtler extensions of more overtly racist policies and practices that have fallen out of favor. Abrams walks us through this history, establishing context and patterns that illuminate the present.

One of the most recent and glaring setbacks was the Supreme Court's 2013 kneecapping of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The relevant portions of the act had an expiration date, but had been extended multiple times since 1965. The act ensured that certain states (at the time of the decision: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia) had to seek approval from Congress for any changes to voting rules, whether it was redistricting or moving a polling location. In a 5-to-4 decision along ideological lines, the majority figured that the act had achieved its purpose, was no longer relevant in today's climate, and was an onerous encroachment on those states' rights. As soon as the provisions were lifted, many of those states sprang into action to enact voter suppression measures.

The effort to suppress the minority (read: non-white) vote is extensive, insidious, and takes a surprising number of forms. I was reminded of my visit to a medieval torture museum, in which human ingenuity was on display in all its sadistic excesses. It's the darker side of creativity, and it's never just one thing: disenfranchisement exists at each stage of the process. One method is to control the vote by defining voting districts in a way that benefits one's preferred outcome. Let's say you have three districts with 60% Democratic registration. No problem: just redraw the lines so that you have two districts with 40% Democratic voters and just one with a clear majority of Democrats. Et voilà... now instead of losing three elections, your side wins two. Tactics like these went from "incidental" to explicit when the Hofeller files, a playbook of redistricting tactics by Republican strategist Thomas Hofeller, was posthumously released by his daughter. I wish I could say that this is a universal problem, but voter suppression is a Republican problem and should cause Republicans of conscience to do a lot of soul searching and representative-calling.

A prime tactic is to make it difficult to register in the first place. In some countries voting is mandatory, or voter registration is automatic if you are eligible. In America, voting is often treated as a "privilege" rather than the right that it is. For years leading up until the 60s, it was common in the South to administer lopsided literacy tests: at the discretion of a clerk, a white applicant might be asked to read a single line, whereas a Black applicant would be given a complex legal passage to read flawlessly or a complicated battery of 30 questions with a 10-minute time limit. An illiterate white person was excepted from the requirement if he was descended from voters in previous elections, hence the term "grandfather clause". These brazen tactics are gone, but a battery of subtler methods have taken their place. Even subtle hoops suppress representation, such as tying voter registration to obtaining a driver's license. Many people don't have driver's licenses, and most of those people are poor or disadvantaged. On top of that, a DMV office in a low-income area might close a few months before an election. Another practice is voting roll purges, in which people who did not vote in the last few elections (the cutoff point is inconsistent) automatically lose their registrations by the tens of thousands. Perhaps some consistent voters also get caught up in the purges. "Huh, weird. Oops!" Or perhaps an unannounced rule determines that new registrations now have a 90-day hold period, so new applicants don't get to vote until after the upcoming election is completed. Abrams highlights Georgia's "exact match" law, which requires a voter's ID to perfectly match the name on the voter rolls. This makes it easy to simply eradicate someone on a technicality. She won't find out she's no longer registered until she shows up at the polls and she's not on the list because her name has a hyphen out of place, or a missing apostrophe, or she changed her name, or some clerk made an error. The incarcerated are another huge target of suppression. If you have served your time, you should be able to vote, but many states extend voting blockages to people on parole, indefinitely to former felons, or often for minor convictions, such as drug-related charges. This affects tens of thousands of people in a statewide election and compounds racial and socioeconomic disparities.

Voting day itself is the prime battleground for voter suppression. The mere fact that voting is typically just one day is a huge problem. Tuesday is a workday, and if someone shows up to vote at 7 AM and sees a huge line, he may have to choose to go work instead and won't get another chance. Or maybe there are adverse weather conditions. Perhaps public transportation doesn't get anywhere close to the polling place. Explicit poll taxes may be illegal, but many de facto costs remain. Many states have extended voting to multiple days, which is a crucial step in the right direction. Unfortunately this is inconsistent, and many people simply don't know they can vote earlier. So many other things that can go wrong. Polling locations are often closed or moved without prior or sufficient notification. Voters are typically required to vote at their designated location, meaning they run out of time, or are given the wrong location by multiple precincts, or they don't show up on the list for one of the aforementioned reasons related to purges. Perhaps the new location doesn't have handicapped access or curbside voting. Maybe your language is not represented. Police or other armed guards may be present for "safety", but have the effect of intimidating potential voters. Deceptive phone calls or flyers or online campaigns say the date has changed. Locations run out of ballots. Technology malfunctions. Power goes down. Poll workers often have improper training or simply break rules, closing earlier or opening later than they should, turning away eligible voters, challenging voters to show IDs when they don't need to, treating voters differently based on race, or giving voters misleading information. Many of these problems push voters to vote provisionally. While it's an understandable step to verify that no one votes multiple times (I myself have administered hundreds of provisional ballots), not all provisional ballots are handled equally, and it's understandable that provisional voting has a connotation of "lesser" or "uncertain" voting. It's often difficult or impossible to follow up on the status of a provisional ballot, which may be rejected for a variety of technicalities. One chief discrepancy that affects provisional and vote-by-mail voters is signature matching, in which untrained processors may arbitrarily reject a ballot because they don't feel the signature matches the one in the official registry, or perhaps the birthdate is transposed or missing. Often times a personal bias influences which signatures are deemed to match. Voting by mail has its own issues in addition to the signature matching. States differ on rules, some requiring the ballot to reach the registrar's office by election day while others more leniently allow a vote to count if it is postmarked by election day. And yet, the post office does not always put a clear postmark on every piece of mail, so many ballots are rejected for not having one. Some states require postage to be paid. They shouldn't. Stray marks, stains, or cuts may invalidate a ballot as well. States are supposed to "cure" ballots by reaching out to voters to resolve a discrepancy with a signature or other problem, but this does not always happen.

These problems also extend to the counting and reporting of elections as well, and Abrams can point to many examples of valid ballots being discarded or uncounted in the tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands. In her own gubernatorial race against Brian Kemp (boo, hiss) in 2018, Stacey Abrams inspired record turnout in a perennially red state but still lost the election by just under 55,000 votes. She's happy to claim the moral victory but has refused to cede the election due to the numerous problems outlined here in an election which was administered by her opponent.

Abrams shares all these factors and more (there's a great chapter on the importance of the census in allocating resources to disadvantaged communities), giving the zoomed-out view of legislation and the numbers of affected voters, but also sharing personal and often heartbreaking stories of voters being left in the lurch. Voter suppression is designed to look like user error, and the disenfranchised are often blamed for their uncounted vote. They should have paid closer attention, acted sooner, or magically known about last-minute changes to the system. "Well, geez, sorry... maybe next time." Often times these restrictive measures are couched in the language of keeping the vote secure or preventing against fraud, and Abrams is quick to point out that systematic reviews have shown these worries to be unfounded. When analyzing over a billion cast votes, the instances of confirmed fraud numbered in the 30s. The key goal of suppression is discouragement, and Abrams wants to encourage all of us not to give up, and to realize that one side fights so strategically against voting because true representation is seen as the enemy. Let's not do their job for them. In this coming 2020 election, we are already seeing the voting suppression engine revving up, even from the President himself, and we need to be all the more motivated to get out and vote. At the time of writing, there are 64 days until the election. You can check your own status at Vote.org.

[Rachel L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent.

[P · Rating 1 out of 5]

So Stacy "Tank" Abrams is "A recognized expert on fair voting and civic engagement..."? Seriously? This would be risible if she weren't so obviously culpable in helping organize the fix against Trump in the presidential election. Georgia is a definite red state. Abrams and her lying, cheating cronies actually 'disenfranchised' way more than half the voters in the state through their "whatever it takes" strategy used to create the outcome they wanted - the constitution be damned.
God help us and America if she and her ilk ultimately prevail.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stacey Abrams lives up to her reputation. This woman is brilliant and does not know how to quit in the face of almost insurmountable obstacles. Definitely worth a read. rtc

4.5 Stars

Listened to the audiobook. Stacey Abrams narrated. She was excellent!

[Kacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hello, I’m back a few months later to say Stacey Abrams is a bad bitch and everyone should read this book.

—————————

Stacey Abrams is a fucking queen no ifs, ands or buts.

What a year, what an election, what a nightmarish four years. I started reading this a few months ago, as I started out at my new job - working directly on the election, as well as various ballot campaigns. I had lost my job in June, so I spent a few weeks trying to find something new. I had always enjoyed politics and social justice, so when I saw an opportunity to work for a progressive youth voting organization, I jumped on it.

A lot of the things I was learning in my job position are also discussed in this book. I worked directly with registering voters and guiding them through the voting process so I unfortunately learned all about our assbackwards election system and how it continually seeks to disenfranchise voters. Stacey Abrams is an icon of voter empowerment, especially in BIPOC communities. Knowing what goes in to this work, the dedication and endless drive to keep pushing forward, I can say that she is one of the most influential activities out there and given the opportunity she can do incredible things in our country.

Voter suppression is very real and very evident in the US. One of the most blatant examples was when Abrams ran for Georgia governor in 2018 and that is essentially where this book originated from. It’s a must read, especially if you haven’t looked much into election laws and how our system is formulated to make it very difficult to vote, specifically for marginalized folx. Stacey Abrams has worked her ass off these last two years in Georgia trying to overcome the very voter suppression she was victimized by. Georgia went BLUE, and there’s no doubt she played a key role along with other Black women activists.

Read this. Marinate in it. Let it horrify you, because it should. In a supposedly “free” democracy, they sure make it as hard as possible for every voice to be heard.

I love the US. I do. I hate it sometimes, I’ll say I want to leave, and I am disappointed, ashamed, and disheartened by half of the people that live here, but I have faith and hope that we can and will be better.

[Laura Sackton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This clearsighted, passionate, and incisive call-to-action is both a comprehensive look at Stacey Abrams's historic 2018 gubernatorial campaign and long career as an activist and politician, and a roadmap for political reform in 2020 and beyond. She delves into the history of voter suppression, the ways conservative lawmakers and a deeply injust, white supremacist system continue to disenfranchise marginalized and minority voters, and some of the ways both citizens and politicians can fight back. I found the section on the census and how to utilize it as a powerful tool for organizing, as well as her exploration of history of populism and the dangers it presents to the future of democracy in America especially insightful. This is a great book to read alongside Carol Anderson's One Person, No Vote, and a useful and inspiring resource for creating political change through local and state elections, voting reform, and grassroots organizing.

She narrates the audiobook and it's fantastic; it's like the best 9 1/2 speech you've ever listened to--smart, thoughtfully structured, engaging, well-researched. She strikes the perfect balance between passion and clarity.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only sorry she couldn't write it earlier. Frustration and rage at the accounts of voters being disenfranchised and the rampant corruption evinced by gerrymandering, long outdated electoral college system, so much illegal manipulation. Read in her own voice, I recommend the audio.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Winning is about ensuring that people who do not think they matter in our system believe that they can lift their voices up...When winning is all that matters, how you win has less and less relevance. My mission is to remind us that it is not about getting a job. It is about helping the voices of our people be heard. And that’s what democracy is. The power and purpose of our system is to enable the people with the ability to have their values represented and to select their leaders. Any time we erode that capacity, we are eroding the very republic we seek to protect.
- Stacey Abrams, Our Time is Now

The 45th occupant of the White House has stated over and over that he considers voting by mail to be an invitation to widespread voter fraud. His newly appointed Postmaster General, a generous donor, has made drastic cuts to the US Postal Service, which threatens the ability of millions of Americans to receive and return their ballots by mail in a timely fashion, which is what the Republican candidate hopes for.

Stacey Abrams’ book was a timely read, but it serves as a reminder that voter suppression is nothing new. It has been going on for decades upon decades. It has been going on since the days of Reconstruction when blacks tried to vote. Abrams writes of the 15th Amendment, which in 1869 gave men the right to vote regardless of color or race. Men. Women didn’t get that right until 1920. Yet, state and local governments to this day find all sorts of ways to prevent folks from casting their ballots. This isn’t just sour grapes, even though she experienced it firsthand in her bitter loss to Brian Kemp in the 2018 gubernatorial race in Georgia.

Abrams discusses numerous ways in which states and municipalities deter citizens from registering and showing up at the polls. The litany of ways, many of them legal, but not necessarily Constitutional, to suppress voters and create impediments to ballots reads like a Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. It’s a lot of information to get through. However, she points out that what is sometimes considered voter fraud, is “best described as misunderstandings.” She claims that national experts have trouble understanding complicated local voting laws, so how would the average person? “Fraud is a crime of intent,” she writes. Basically, she argues, suppression is on the side of those who want to make voting difficult for groups of people – people of color, LGBTQ+, and other minorities.

She also includes an examination of gerrymandering, which is the drawing of district lines to skew the outcome in favor of a particular political party. In addition, she makes an impassioned push for a complete, accurate Census! More than just counting each person, having an accurate accounting of individuals and demographics affects where federal dollars go for essential services like education, health care, and more.

I have seen Stacey on a number of news programs in the past month or so; now that I have read her book, I am more impressed than ever by her knowledge and her determination to ensure voting rights for all, and by her passion for the rights of all people. Stacey, you were robbed! But I have no doubt that you are a better, stronger person now, and that we ain’t seen nothin’ yet! And I am so hoping you are right: Our Time IS Now .

4 stars

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abrams is simply brilliant, and what energy she has!

[Justin · Rating 1 out of 5]

The authors main premise in the book is that she lost the Georgia Gubernatorial election due to wide reaching voter suppression. As you dive deeper into the book you'll notice vague and subjective accounts as she spins the web. A little outside research into the internal claims and you'll see at best they're half truths and at worst genuine distortions of the facts. The author has created a narrative that doesn't really match the reality of her close election loss.

Seeing that the core idea behind this book is untrustworthy the rest of the book follows suit. Its filled with awful political philosophies of identity politics, virtue signaling, polarization, and revisionist history. I have no doubt she has read and studied "Rules For Radicals" by Saul Alinsky.

In conclusion.....read the book if you want, but given its untrustworthiness I'd say it's mostly a waste of your time. I think the Kool-Aid drinkers will devour it, but critical thinkers will unpleasantly white knuckle it all the way through. Democrats want to win leadership of a country they loathe, so they can bring it to ruin, and rebuild some utopian paradise detached from the American experiment. If they accomplish this the light from the "City on a Hill" will truly be extinguished.

Follow up book suggestion:

"How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps" by Ben Shapiro

[Leslie (updates on SG) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every U.S. citizen should read this book. Personally, I would elect Stacey Abrams as leader of the world.

Abrams states that her mission is to "remind us that [winning elections] is not about getting a job. It is about helping the voices of our people be heard." The first half of the book depressed me with its stories of voter suppression, but her suggested policies are clear and sensible. For example, Abrams believes that the quickest way to abolish the Electoral College - a mechanism created to suppress votes and one that causes both parties to spend disproportionate amounts of campaign money on swing states - is for state legislatures to adopt the National Popular Vote Interstate Contract (more info here). Her passion to end voter suppression can be seen in her founding of Fair Fight.

Abrams argues for the importance of voting at all levels of government (especially since local politicians have more influence over the lives of citizens) and of filling out the U.S. Census (mission of her organization, Fair Count). I was also inspired by her development as a politician, culminating (for now) in her 2018 run for governor of Georgia. Even though she lost the race, her campaign dispelled the accepted "wisdom" that money is better spent on chasing elusive white swing voters instead of unlikely voters of color. For one thing, there are more of the latter.

Finally, I was persuaded by her embrace of "identity politics":

[A]s history and current-day behavior show, we continue to struggle, to believe that full citizenship belongs to all who are entitled to hold it. Instead, for more than 200 years, we've seen the act of voting thwarted based on identity. And we've witnessed the very identities thrust upon communities by the majority used as a justification for suppression and oppression. The result has been a silencing of voices and worse - a silencing of ideas and a disconnection from what people need to actively participate in our nation's future.

More memorable quotes:

The greatest politicians...never forget that the destination, regardless of identity, is the same: safety, security, and opportunity.

The formula for winning [elections] is clear: (1) reject the myths of who votes and why; (2) make early and sustained investment in outreach to an expanded voter pool; and (3) recruit and support candidates who demonstrate authentic and consistent beliefs.

[A]ny leadership in America must understand the international approach to global questions as well as the intersectionality of our policies.

The specific of the [authoritarian populist]'s message does not matter because it isn't about specific policies. His message is the politicization of social resentment and exploitation of people's fears...His opponents are enemies, traitors, or terrorists. Cast in this light, his opponents are no longer viewed by his own supporters as champions of an alternative political vision with which they disagree. Instead, the opposition is stripped of any claims to national loyalty...His chief enemy is anything approaching reason, consensus, or moderation.

[Delbra Gibbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

POWERFUL...a road map to change that WILL happen now! We ALL must do our part!

[Emmett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like I made the right choice by listening to Stacey Abrams read her own work here. Why not get the rundown on the widespread issue of voter disenfranchisement straight from the mouth of this hero of democracy herself?

Having lived in Atlanta for several years previously and still considering it a ‘home’, I was quite excited to see a candidate like Abrams run for governor. All of my friends there supported her; we all hoped for her success. Although she was not victorious, there was one good outcome of the election- bringing attention to just how corrupt elections in the US can be.

After Abrams’ loss, I was more aware than ever of voter suppression, but Our Time is Now still manages to astound. To see just how deep voter disenfranchisement goes, having it detailed out by Abrams, is just staggering. Despite Abrams’ calm, unemotional voice as she reads, the content of the book is enraging.

I appreciate how comprehensive this book is, detailing out voting policies and laws, as well as including personal anecdotes from disenfranchised voters. Despite the withstanding problems of the election system in the US and our voting processes, Stacey Abrams has already taken strides to bring attention to the issue and to begin repairing it.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone looking to learn more about voter suppression in the US- who better to tell you about it than someone who has fully taken up the fight against it?

[Jeanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I live in an area where I was Voter 37 at 11:30 when I walked to the library and voted for the midterms. There was only one person ahead of me, and I just sailed in to vote. The poll workers did not make me show an ID: two live on my street, I've worked with another, although not closely, and I know the other two from around town. My partner had voted several hours earlier, and they asked us about each other when we voted.

I don't know that voting needs to be this easy, but it shouldn't be like what many voters experienced: long lines, inaccessible polling places, ballots disqualified for spurious reasons, gerrymandered districts, and electoral college votes that are discrepant from the popular vote.

Problems are more severe for Black, Latinx, and rural voters, and voters with disabilities. And, the rules seem to be rigged against these groups and, especially, against those voters who might be expected to vote Democratic in traditionally Republican areas. I hope I would advocate for open, fair, and just voting, even if I could manipulate the vote to benefit me.

These problems do more than only affect the outcome on election day; they determine whether legislators choose to represent all of their citizens and vote for laws, taxes, and allocations that will serve them. They determine whether the world feels fair or unfair and the electorate empowered or feel hopeless. They tilt us toward authoritarian populism and make the world more dangerous.

Stacy Abrams read Our Time Is Now, which was a real pleasure. She is a strong, passionate, and engaging reader. Her voice and writing made me want to have her representing me in government.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please read this book.
Now.
Before your neighbor's vote is tossed out in the 2020 election.
This is Stacy Abrams' "Just Mercy," a call to action from a warrior and a professional on the front lines of an urgent and timely issue. Abrams was a state legislator who should have been governor if not for voter suppression, and is now a full-time voting rights activist.
So she really knows what she is talking about. And she has even sponsored legislation that limits voting rights (a reduction of Georgia's early voting period from 45 to 21 days, to save money in cash-strapped jurisdictions). She also has deeply researched the many forms of voter suppression, and has thoughtful and reasonable solutions.
Also, if you want a thorough primer on voting rights and vote suppression, read the first half (plus the afterword). The second half is certainly worth the read, especially for progressives, but it's a very different topic. She defends the oft-maligned idea of identity politics, and eviscerates Trump and populists in general. Not exactly fair and balanced, but she's not pretending to be.
And a note about Goodreads: Why do people give 4 stars, then write completely positive reviews?

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stirring call to action! Stacey Abrams is knowledgeable and uses this knowledge to show us how we came to be in this state of affairs and what we can do about it Full of dories that will stir you to action and keep you there. It only reinforces my great respect for Stacey Abrams.

[Victoria Hall-Palerm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finishing this the morning that we won one—likely two—GA senate races felt very surreal. Stacey did the damn thing.

[Agla · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good book. It really showed the multi-layer way voter suppression works and is actively being pursued. As a non-American all of it was crazy, I knew about it but seeing it all laid out like that still made an impression. I also liked that it wasn't too demoralizing, there were solutions and hope as well. I really liked the final chapter, in which she talks about her own "loss" in 2018 and her hope for the future. It is a nice introduction to the subject.

[Maia O'Meara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I may not live in Georgia, but I hope I’ll have the chance to vote for Stacey Abrams someday.

[Kusaimamekirai · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Winning is about ensuring that people who do not think they matter in our system believe that they can lift their voices up. For too long, politicians have treated elections as a single night of results. But as long as we make winning the only thing, when we make crossing that finish line and getting the crown the only metric, we are going to continue to lose our democracy. When winning is all that matters, how you win has less and less relevance.”

In 2018, Stacey Abrams lost the governor’s race to Republican Brian Kemp by a razor thin margin despite a myriad of very real obstacles in her way. A large one of which is that Kemp was, in a troubling and seemingly clear conflict of interest, also the Secretary of State in charge of the election he was running in.
Abrams did not immediately concede but eventually decided to not continue fighting the result (she makes it very clear that she believes the election was stolen from her but rather than litigate the result, she chose to organize groups committed to fairer elections).
While this book does make numerous references to her loss, its main focus is on the erosion of voting rights in the United States since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Be it through the removal of polling places in minority neighborhoods, voter intimidation, overly strict voter ID laws, gerrymandering districts, disenfranchising convicted felons who have served their time, or today’s attempts to delegitimize mail-in ballots, it seems that Republicans in particular are constantly thinking of new ways to get less people voting.
Abrams does a wonderful job chronicling the history of these machinations, particularly from the time of Ronald Reagan up to the 2006 Supreme Court decision that effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act.
As someone who keenly follows this topic, I was pleasantly surprised to learn many new things from this book. Abrams, as an organizer of a number of voting rights groups is extremely knowledgeable and in addition to identifying the problem we have today, offers some concrete solutions to prevent further Republican shenanigans in upcoming elections.
I guess if I had an issue with this book however, it would be it is extremely self congratulating. There is of course nothing wrong with being proud of what you have achieved. Abrams is an extremely accomplished politician and organizer. At times however, it does seem a bit overbearing. She frequently mentions a topic, and then follows it with something she has done to make it better. The following is a good example of this:

“While my 2018 campaign for governor engaged, organized, and inspired traditional voters and brought new voices to the table…by and large, our strategy worked, with the unintended consequence of perhaps working too well”

I’m not sure how not winning the election meant your strategy was successful, much less too successful. Passages like this feel kind of like humble brags. After I while I just wanted to say, “Yup, great campaign. You don’t need to remind me every other page.”
Some of the statistics she cites are a little confusing as well. Such as:

“But in fact, our campaign achieved historically high support from white voters; overall 25 percent of white voters supported the Abrams campaign for governor.”

I read this sentence multiple times to confirm it however I’m still unclear on what she is saying here. Is she bragging that 25% percent of white voters supported her? That number seems extremely low. Is that really a historic number? I’m not sure if she’s saying that this many white people voting, against expectations that white people only vote for white people, for a black woman is historic. If so, it’s a little sad and perhaps a little presumptive on her part.
Perhaps however in light of Abrams full throated support of “identity politics”, this sentence makes more sense. If you believe different constituencies primarily view the world through the lens of that community as Abrams does, then yes, you will be surprised if 25% of white people voted for you I suppose.
I’m not a fan of identity politics and didn’t particularly find the portions of the book Abrams spent advocating for it very convincing.
Criticism aside, her critiques of voter suppression are informative and powerful and more than make up for what I thought were some of the weaker parts of the book.
Ultimately, the book falls somewhere between a guide to voter suppression and how to prevent it, and a Stacey Abrams autobiography. Both are fine, but one wishes that more focus was paid to one over the other.

[Laura Hoffman Brauman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went into this expecting to learn more about voting rights and voter suppression -- and it delivered on that. It also did so much more. I learned a lot about the importance of the census and the impact that it has, not just on funding (which I knew), but also on districting, etc. I also found her examination and focus on the importance of not just making it possible for people to cast a vote, but also the need to convince people that their vote mattered and it was worth voting really eyeopening. I had no idea how many people were basically written off during campaigns as unlikely voters and just ignored. It matters because those votes aren't heard, but it also matters because if elected officials think segments of the people that they represent won't bother voting, they aren't necessarily motivated to protect their rights or address their needs. Excellent and timely read and a good book to start discussion on what we can do -- actual action steps -- if we don't feel our current elected officials serve the country well.

[Glenda Nelms · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Electoral College was never designed to protect small states against the tyranny of larger states—not at its inception and not today. Instead, it served to protect slaveholders from a loss of power then and to advantage a small coterie of states deemed competitive today.”

Eye-opening, timely, and important book about voting rights, voter suppression and democracy. This book is a call to action to get involved in civic engagement state and locally. After Stacey Abrams lost her gubernatorial race in 2018 to Brian Kemp by a small margin. Abrams accused Kemp of voter suppression and other deeds that help him win the election. She responded by actively and impressively fighting against voter suppression. She has been credited with helping to register an estimated 800,000 new voters in Georgia before the 2020 elections.

Our Time is now should inspiring us to take action in our communities and be a part of the solution.

[Eli Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not 100% aligned in policy, Abrams is a force of human being and the way she presents the case for voter suppression is compelling (and even if half of what she says is true, it’s still too much voter suppression in a democracy.) I learned a lot about the importance of the census, as well as populism rising out of other democracies. Informative, frustrating, and yet very hopeful that even among different ideologies (and different flavors of the same ideology,) Americans can and must take a stand for a fair and just democracy

[Maureen Caupp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Timely and informative.

I learned more both about measures to suppress voting, the importance of voting, and actions to encourage and enable people to vote.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stacey Abrams has a knack for breaking down highly complex legalese and opaque voter statistics into something the rest of us can understand. She provides actionable steps to diminish voter suppression in our country, and she does it with a heart that is so obviously, lovingly hell-bent on giving voice to those whose have been unfairly excluded from the electoral process. Abrams is the sort of person who ought to be in high office. And if she keeps winning suffrage battles at her current rate of speed... she'll have more than enough votes to make it happen.

[Rachelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

"We are strongest when we see the most vulnerable in our society, bear witness to their struggles, and then work to create systems to make it better."

This book is powerful and important, it opens your eyes to how real voter suppression is and how marginalized groups are truly underrepresented and steps we can all take to help correct the path our democracy is currently treading. Highly recommend this book to anyone looking to be more informed.