Progress Pittsburgh

Requiring voters to show ID every time they vote is a barrier to voting. Contact your state representative and senator, and members of the relevant committees, and ask them to vote against such a requirement.

You can find your representatives’ contact information here.

The Senate Bill in question can be found here.

Here are some helpful talking points on the issue:

It makes sense that voters identify themselves at the polls.  In Pennsylvania, we already require first-time voters to do that.

• Voter registration is up in Pennsylvania.  We should be making it easier for people to vote, not harder.

• Photo ID laws discriminate against the elderly, disabled, poor, and minority voters, many of whom do not have the kinds of identification required by the proposed law and may not have the resources to get it. Thousands of otherwise eligible Pennsylvanians could be disenfranchised by this law.
• Pennsylvaniaalready has a commonsense voter identification law that ensures that eligible voters are who they say they are on Election Day.
• There have been no documented instances of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania and adopting an overly-restrictive, burdensome law here in Pennsylvania doesn’t make sense. The legislature would be dealing with a problem that doesn’t exist in Pennsylvania.
• The photo ID law amounts to a poll tax. Costs can be a significant barrier to obtaining a photo ID. Even when the ID itself is free, there are hidden costs such as transportation to various agencies and fees related to acquiring supporting documents like birth certificates.
• Elections cannot be fair if eligible voters are not allowed to vote.

Pennsylvania VOICE, a statewide collaborative involving more than 60 organizations dedicated to nonpartisan voter registration and protection efforts, has just released a preliminary report detailing its work on the 2008 Elections in Pennsylvania — and is already gearing up for the next series of elections. 

According to Pat Clark of Jackson/Clark Partners, statewide consultant for Pennsylvania VOICE, the collaborative is looking for additional nonpartisan partner organizations to help in its ongoing efforts, and will be convening statewide meetings of its partner organizations in the coming months. Volunteers interested in helping with Pennsylvania VOICE’s voter registration and protection efforts are also being encouraged to contact the organization as it looks ahead to the 2010 and 2012 elections. 

Highlights of the 2008 election report include: 

• Registering 294,225 voters across the state during the 2008 calendar year (for the primary and general elections), or more than 41 percent of the approximately 711,000 voters registered statewide,
• Awarding 12 Pennsylvania nonprofit organizations a total of more than $40,000 in re-grants to support their work in helping to engage under-participating constituencies in the voting process, and
• Monitoring nearly 4500 calls on election protection hotlines during Election Day (November 4, 2008), including nearly 1400 reports of voter problems and issues, which were then investigated by collaborative personnel deployed statewide. 

The report, downloadable here, details the work that the collaborative did in reaching out to “non-voting or underperforming constituencies who rarely if ever are reached by partisan campaigns,” according to Clark. 

Clark notes that the organizations who have come together as part of Pennsylvania VOICE are “primarily community service organizations that will succeed in the peer-to-peer contact this effort requires. Those people who often get left out of the process trust these organizations.”  More »

Here are some blog posts, article and links that you may have missed.

• Meet the Real Joes – Keystone Progress is interviewing real Joes. We've travelled around Pennsylvania and we've met some very interesting people who we believe represent the reality of Joe-ness. Check out these video interviews
• Our Vote Live | Allegheny County, PA – This site lists real time lists of voting problems that have been reported in Allegheny County. Check it out if you want to see what issues are being reported here. This site also offers reports for all of the US.
• Trick or Vote! – October 31st – Nationwide GOTV canvass

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeP208 - Click here to see other events around the 2008 Elections in Western PA. Know of an election event in town? Please leave the a comment with the event details here. Click here to see the Progress Pittsburgh Calendar.

Everybody VOTE, is a nonpartisan collaborative that works to increase voter participation by people who have traditionally been left out of the political process, including young people, minorities and low income communities.  This Monday Ocober 13, Everybody VOTE is having a fundraiser at the Shadow Lounge from 7-9pm.  $15 gets you great Indian food made by Alik Widge, free Everybody VOTE schwag, a night of awesome music and schmoozing galore.  There will be a cash bar, so we can eat, drink, be merry, and support a great cause all at the same time!

Everybody VOTE partners with national organizations including the Center for Civic Participation’s Pennsylvania VOICE initiative, and the Nonprofit Voter Engagement Network. They partner locally with the Black Political Empowerment Project, the Urban League, the Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership, and over a dozen participating nonprofits in the Pittsburgh area. They partner statewide with the Pennsylvania VOICE network of over 60 nonpartisan organizations.

Their network of partners has registered over 200,000 new voters and is contacting 1.2 million registered voters who would otherwise be unlikely to hear from partisan campaigns.

More »

With the presidential election just under 30 days away and the voter registration deadline behind us – it is now 100% focus on election day. Here is a video that looks at some of the Election Protection efforts and challenges in Pittsburgh in 2004.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqSkzJ9eV2k[/youtube]

For more information about voting and voting rights in PA…

• Visit www.EverybodyVote.com
• Follow EverybodyVote on Twitter
• Join the EverybodyVote group on Facebook

More »

Image via CrunchBaseJust 1 day left to register to vote in the great state of Pennsylvania to vote for the Presidential election in November, 2008.

If you are on Facebook there is an easy easy to make sure your friends are registered to vote. The Everybody Vote Facebook application! http://apps.facebook.com/everybodyvote/

Everybody VOTE is a non-partisan voter registration and mobilization campaign created to increase voter participation in Pennsylvania and dedicated to expanding the role of the state’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations in voting and elections.

This application allows you to register to vote, as well as verify if you and your friends are already registered.

Help spread the word:

• Add the Everybody Vote Facebook Application
• Be a fan on the Everybody Vote Application Fan Page
• Join the Everybody Vote Group on Facebook

More »

Here are some blog posts, article and links that you may have missed.

• GLUEspace » Blog Archive » Open Your Eyes, Raise Your Voice, Click Your Ticket – Does your city have 311? Like 311, SeeClickFix allows citizens to record and track wrinkles in urban living.

  Some tickets have been clicked in GLUE cities (Buffalo!), and we are looking to build momentum for this project in Pittsburgh. I just clicked a ticket along my daily bike route. Any burghers ready to click?

• Facebook | Dirty Coal Wants to Buy Your Love During Thursday’s VP Debate – Text Messaging to Counter the Dirty Coal Industry Spin!
• VoteForChange.com – Register to Vote | Early Vote | Find Your Polling Location – Last day to register to vote in PA is just 4 days away – register to vote or check to make sure you are registered to vote today!

Here are some blog posts, article and links that you may have missed.

• Football-Obama Double Feature – This Thursday, August 28th, Barack will accept the Democratic nomination for president in front of 75,000 people in Denver.But before he delivers his speech, the Steelers will be playing at Heinz Field.

  Join the Campaign for Change, a special surprise guest, and thousands of fired-up Obama supporters to watch both the game and the speech live on the big screen at the Pittsburgh Coliseum.

  Event Details:
  Thursday, August 28th, 7:00 p.m.
  Pittsburgh Coliseum
  7310 Frankstown Avenue
  Pittsburgh, PA 15208

  For more info, call (412) 867-6673

  Sign-up at the right to receive an e-ticket or stop by the Pittsburgh Campaign for Change Office at 213 Smithfield Street to pick up a paper ticket.

Image via WikipediaYou may or may not have noticed that the Obama campaign and everyone else is going all out with the voter registration this summer.  Howard Dean will be making a tour of rust belt cities doing Voter Registration (and some fundraising – see post on the $25 event at the Church Brew Works here and I am sure there will be a $1000+ event too).

Looks like the tour will be in Pittsburgh from 8:30-9:30 am on Friday August, 15, 2008.

If you are interested in helping with voter registration here are some other groups in Pittsburgh:

• League of Young Voters
• The Obama Campaign is organizing all sorts of events