The fourth round of No Kings actions on Saturday, Oct. 17, traded the rally for the ballot box, with more than 3,000 events nationwide built around early voting and turnout rather than the street protests that drew millions to the three previous rounds.
Organizers said the aim is turnout so historically high that the Trump administration would find it hard to claim there was fraud. The White House brushed that off earlier this week, saying the fact that organizers are talking about voting proves there is no king and no authoritarian government.
Public Citizen Co-President Lisa Gilbert framed the shift as deliberate. The events are “a strategic move and a critical one to help people exercise the most tangible aspect of their power that counters all the abuses we’ve been seeing, which is voting,” she said, calling it “a massive day of voter participation.” She added: “It’s so critical that people vote, that they vote early, that we show in a landslide that this is not an acceptable way to govern.”
The day looks less like a march and more like a get-out-the-vote operation. In downtown Phoenix, protesters planned to walk to the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center to drop off ballots. Two Indianapolis groups planned to march to the governor’s residence.
In Atlanta, Black Voters Matter set up a party with food trucks and music before heading to a polling place as a group. Chester, Pennsylvania, got a tailgate at a ballot drop box, and in Ferndale, Michigan, and Eagle County, Colorado, participants in superhero costumes rode decorated bikes and wagons to vote.
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