FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AV MEDIA CONTACT:
Rhyane Wagner | Rhyane@alvalues.org
MED MEDIA CONTACT:
Colin Cole | colin@equitabledemocracy.org | (425) 308-8749
Alabama Values and More Equitable Democracy Launch “We Got Options” Narrative Initiative
New initiative uses storytelling, narrative research, digital organizing and public education to expand how communities think about political choice, power and representation
August 13, 2026 — Alabama Values and More Equitable Democracy (MED) today announced the launch of We Got Options, a new cultural narrative initiative designed to expand how communities understand and imagine political power, representation and the systems that shape whose voices count. Rather than beginning with the mechanics of electoral reform, We Got Options starts with a simple question: What if the political choices and systems we inherited aren’t the only options available to us? Through storytelling, narrative research, digital organizing, public education and community engagement, the initiative will challenge the assumption that winner-take-all elections, two-party politics and current systems of representation are inevitable.
“We’ve spent generations fighting to make sure our communities have access to the ballot, and that fight remains critical. But we also have to ask what happens after we cast that ballot,” said Anneshia Hardy, executive director of Alabama Values. “Does our vote translate into meaningful representation? Do our communities have real choices? We Got Options is about expanding our political imagination and creating space for people to understand that the systems we inherited aren’t the only systems possible.”
Beyond Red and Blue Series Kicks Off the Initiative
The initiative will launch with Beyond Red and Blue: Reimagining Representation in America, a five-part virtual briefing series beginning August 20, 2026. The series will bring together historians, movement leaders, organizers, electoral reform practitioners and cultural strategists to explore how America’s current political system developed, the history of communities fighting for representation, how proportional representation works and what alternative systems could make possible. The goal is not simply to teach people about electoral reform, but to move audiences from believing the current system is inevitable toward understanding that democracy is designed and can be redesigned.
“Our government fails to accurately represent us by design,” said Colin Cole, director of policy, outreach and communications at More Equitable Democracy. “Our government was originally intended to represent only some of us: the wealthy, the white, the powerful, the old. If we want to stop merely putting band-aids on the gaping wounds of our democracy, we must dismantle our winner-take-all electoral systems and replace them with systems of proportional representation, systems purpose-built for inclusion.”
“I’ve learned never to take democracy for granted,” said George Cheung, director and co-founder of More Equitable Democracy. “My career in civil rights, immigrant rights, and LGBTQ organizing taught me that lasting change requires more than winning individual fights. At a time when the U.S. Supreme Court is working to return us to the era of Jim Crow, we must fight not merely to preserve the status quo, which has never worked for all of us, but to change the rules of the game. Our democracy can, and needs to, be better. That’s why I’ve dedicated the last ten years of my life to dismantling our systems of winner-take-all elections and replacing them with systems of proportional representation.”
“People make sense of politics through culture, memory, lived experience and the stories we’ve inherited about how power works,” Hardy said. “Before people can build something different, they have to believe something different is possible. That’s what this initiative is about. We got options.”
LEARN MORE at www.wegotoptions.org and REGISTER for the first episode at www.wegotoptions.org/ep1
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Alabama Values is a grassroots communications organization working to raise awareness and increase engagement around community issues in Alabama. They work directly with grassroots civic organizations advocating to build power and break down barriers to civic participation for communities across the state.
More Equitable Democracy is a racial justice organization working to advance racial equity by transforming electoral systems and increasing representation for historically underrepresented communities.