Happy Election Day! Get out there and vote - podemos sanar el mundo!
Showing posts with label voting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label voting. Show all posts
Monday, November 3, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Help America Vote!
Today I volunteered a few hours of my time to help with a Voter Registration Drive in Middletown. The drive was co-sponsored by the Obama campaign and the local campaign for Matt Lesser. He's running for State Representative of CT's 100th district.
I was pretty nervous about it in advance. I didn't really like the idea of getting assigned a small section of my town and then knocking on doors to ask people if they wanted to register to vote. Also, I was apprehensive about my fellow volunteers since I used to think of politically active people as scary moonbat super-enthusiasts.
As it turned out, I didn't need to worry. The other volunteers were mostly retirees and college students who were inspired to take action because of the importance of the upcoming Presidential election. As far as I could tell, no one was a nutjob. :)
I was given the best possible assignment. No random walking and knocking on doors for me! Together with two older women, I got to register voters at an upscale assisted living community. We talked with loads of friendly old folks who were very interested in signing up to vote. Many of the residents were already registered and in between their bingo game and having their nails painted they were convincing their friends and the senior center employees to register too. It made our job very easy.
All in all, we registered about two dozen people while we were there. It's not a huge number, but it was worth it since each of the people that did register was genuinely happy for the opportunity to exercise their civic duty in November without having to deal with the hassle of signing up on their own.
I was pretty nervous about it in advance. I didn't really like the idea of getting assigned a small section of my town and then knocking on doors to ask people if they wanted to register to vote. Also, I was apprehensive about my fellow volunteers since I used to think of politically active people as scary moonbat super-enthusiasts.
As it turned out, I didn't need to worry. The other volunteers were mostly retirees and college students who were inspired to take action because of the importance of the upcoming Presidential election. As far as I could tell, no one was a nutjob. :)
I was given the best possible assignment. No random walking and knocking on doors for me! Together with two older women, I got to register voters at an upscale assisted living community. We talked with loads of friendly old folks who were very interested in signing up to vote. Many of the residents were already registered and in between their bingo game and having their nails painted they were convincing their friends and the senior center employees to register too. It made our job very easy.
All in all, we registered about two dozen people while we were there. It's not a huge number, but it was worth it since each of the people that did register was genuinely happy for the opportunity to exercise their civic duty in November without having to deal with the hassle of signing up on their own.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
An aside...
And now... Democracy in Action!
There are roughly seven million citizens of the United States living abroad right now. That is almost twice the population of the state of Connecticut. Until now, the only option for an ex-pat to vote was to secure a ballot by mail for their last U.S. address -- a difficult and time consuming task.
This year, registered Democrats have another option. There is an international primary election, being held Feb. 5 - Feb. 12, for all ex-pat Democrats who choose not to vote in a U.S. state primary. At stake are 11 delegates to the National Convention (actually, 22 delegates each with one-half vote). This under-represents the size of the ex-pat population, but is much better than zero voting delegates, which is what the DNC used to give ex-pats!
Even better, I was able to vote on-line this morning. It is also possible to go to a polling place in certain areas; Kyoto will have a polling place open on Feb. 10, for example.
Sorry, Republicans-living-abroad. The RNC doesn't give delegates to its ex-pat members...
We now return to politics-free Japan blogging.
There are roughly seven million citizens of the United States living abroad right now. That is almost twice the population of the state of Connecticut. Until now, the only option for an ex-pat to vote was to secure a ballot by mail for their last U.S. address -- a difficult and time consuming task.
This year, registered Democrats have another option. There is an international primary election, being held Feb. 5 - Feb. 12, for all ex-pat Democrats who choose not to vote in a U.S. state primary. At stake are 11 delegates to the National Convention (actually, 22 delegates each with one-half vote). This under-represents the size of the ex-pat population, but is much better than zero voting delegates, which is what the DNC used to give ex-pats!
Even better, I was able to vote on-line this morning. It is also possible to go to a polling place in certain areas; Kyoto will have a polling place open on Feb. 10, for example.
Sorry, Republicans-living-abroad. The RNC doesn't give delegates to its ex-pat members...
We now return to politics-free Japan blogging.
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