Everyone knows our Voter Guides rock

Ashley DiParlo at WTAE interviewed our own Carly Dobbins-Bucklad about the League of Young Voters special DIY voter guide website, theballot.org — where you can see all the League non-partisan voter guides (including PA’s!) with information on all of the down-ballot candidates and referendums, as well as upload your own voter guide.

People and organizations can submit guides all over the country, so if you’ve got a friend in another state, pass theballot.org on!

Tags: ballot.org, candidates, DIY, election, election information, League of Young Voters, national, non-partisan, online, Pennsylvania, state representative, vote, voter guides, wtae, Youth

“Unlock the Vote” Poster Contest Winner announced!

Tags: allegheny county, download, election, Pennsylvania, poster contest, unlock the vote, vote for the future of PA, voter rights, Youth

Training future organizers

Tags: community, election, GOTV, Larimer, new voters, organizer, pa league of young voters education fund, Pennsylvania, pittsburgh, training, tunnel builder institute, voter turnout, young, Youth

What does your Auditor General do?

“The proper role of the state auditor general — Pennsylvania’s designated fiscal watchdog — is disputed by the two major party candidates for the position, who made appearances in Monroe County last week.”

Today the Pocono Record ran a story about the differing views two candidates for Auditor General, Jack Wagner and Chet Beiler, have about what the position is supposed to do for PA.

The two candidates featured in the article also responded to our Voter Guide questionnaire — read their responses here!

Tags: Auditor General, candidates, election, inform the vote, Pennsylvania, vote, voter guides

Standing up for America

Standing Up for America!

Terry and I spent the morning with our friends Jerry, Andy, and Kelly from the United Steelworkers at the US Steel Clairton Works making sure that everyone there was registered to vote before the registration deadline Monday. Thanks to the USW for bringing us in.

You may be wondering, why, standing up for America, is Terry crouching in this photo? I suggest spending a little time out talking to voters with him, and you will see that he does things his own way. Not that he is any less effective for it: there are a few people who will be out at the polls November 4 who would not have been able to vote this year without Terry’s dedication this morning!

Mac

Tags: 2008, canvassing, election, new voters, Pennsylvania, registration, steelworkers, voter

Registering Voters makes the News!

We got a spot in the Post-Gazette for our jail registration work in conjunction with Just Harvest; Goodwill of Southwestern Pennsylvania; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, ACORN; the Community Voters Project; Work for Progress; and Duquesne University nursing and political science students last week!

“Spearheaded by inmate program director Jack Pishke, it was the largest registration effort to date at the jail and the only one jail officials knew of statewide, in anticipation of the last registration day: Oct. 6.

In a dizzying two hours, the group helped to complete 456 new registrations and about 700 absentee ballot applications.

Unlike most of the younger volunteers, Ms. Rabinowitz, 67, of Park Place, had been in jail before. She was locked up with a group of organizers for two separate stretches in 1963, after the group was arrested for registering rural black voters in the south with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Those voters, she said, were scared because “they’d never had the right to vote before and we couldn’t tell them it wasn’t dangerous.”

The jail inmates today were just eager. And hopeful.”

Read the full article

Tags: allegheny county, Allegheny County Jail, disenfranchised, election, ex-offenders, inmates, pa league of young voters, pa league of young voters education fund, Pennsylvania, registration, unlock the vote, vote, voter, Voting

Wednesday Historical Markers, Now On Thursday

I am out of town and thus neglected to share a marker yesterday, but the guilt is weighing me down, so here is a favorite of mine from Canonsburg, hometown of Perry Como.

We will be out in the streets of that very town on Saturday, encouraging Canonsburgers to throng their polls on November 4th vote for the future of our great commonwealth. Anyone who wants to help would be welcomed with wide-open arms in our office in East Liberty at eleven A.M. We will also be stopping by a picinic, so there is a possibility of punch and pie. No promises, though.

-Mac

Tags: canonsburg, Historical marker, organizing, Pennsylvania, vote

Fighting (in court) for the constitutional right to educate voters!

We’re still locked in a court battled with the Port Authority over their refusal to let us advertise ex-offender voting rights on buses. But the ACLU has our back, and we’re waiting for our jury trial to be scheduled to see if they think the Port Authority acted constitutionally by rejecting the ad.

Here’s a summary, taken from Judge McVerry’s opinion against partial summary judgment in our favor:

“Plaintiffs, Pittsburgh League of Young Voters Education Fund (“Fund”) and American Civil Liberties Foundation of Pennsylvania (“ACLU”), brought this lawsuit on December 8, 2006 by filing an amended complaint pursuant to 42 U.S. C. § 1983 alleging that defendants violated their rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution by refusing to accept and display their proposed ex-offender voter-education advertisements.

Plaintiffs have filed the instant motion for partial summary judgment in which they contend that they are entitled to judgment as a matter of law on the issue of the defendants’ liability because 1) Port Authority designated its bus-advertising space as a public forum, 2) Port Authority acted unreasonably and committed viewpoint discrimination by refusing to run their advertisements despite having run similar advertisements in the past, and 3) Port Authority’s advertising policy is unconstitutionally vague.”

(Read the rest if you’d like…)

Tags: ACLU, advertising, allegheny county, American Civil Liberties Union, constitution, constitutional, court opinion, ex-offender, pa league of young voters, Pennsylvania, pittsburgh, Port Authority, rights, United States Constitution, Voting