NATIONAL CHECK IF I CAN VOTE DAY

I am posting this every so often, so as many on DU will read as possible.

I am proposing that every liberal/progressive web site, blog and organization, along with every State and County Democratic Party chair declare October 1, 2008 as NATIONAL CHECK IF I CAN VOTE DAY. This would require a commitment to send out an email, fax, text or phone call to nudge their supporters to check and see if they are still registered to vote. To make this fun, I would also ask all those who are able to, to host potluck house parties and screen a film about the electoral manipulation that has taken place during the past two presidential elections.

Just Tuesday their was a news item on Yahoo that told of 300,000 folks in New Jersey who thought that they were registered to vote, were in fact not on the rolls., They either had been purged, or were never put on the rolls in the first place. On Wednesday news came from Michigan in Republican County Auditors declared that those who are in any phase of home foreclosure proceedings will be dropped from the voting rolls. We all remember the problems that occurred in Florida in 2000 and in New Mexico and Ohio in 2004. Let us be proactive and make sure it doesn't happen again. I feel that by issuing this call, we can achieve three goals:

1) the practical aspect of making sure that our supporters are actually registered to vote and haven't been dropped from the voting rolls for one reason or another. By putting out the alert on this day, problems can be corrected BEFORE it is too late. Most states have a 30 or 14 day preregistration requirement.

2) if enough groups and organizations, blogs etc work in concert on that day, we achieve a critical mass. If that happens the main stream media will take note. We can then have spokespeople discuss the past electoral cheating that has happened.

3) it would put Republican State Secretary's of State, County Auditors and Poll workers on notice that the progressive movement will be much more proactive in protecting the voting rights of all and the integrity of the electoral process this time around.

This wouldn't take much. Just a blanket email, text or phone call on the part of an organization and a few minutes out of an individual's day to make sure this happens. I believe that this is a justice issue. As they say: EVERY VOTE COUNTS!!! In order for this to work though, it needs MASSIVE participation. If you feel this has merit, by all means run with it as your own and tweak it to how it best would reach your constituency. SPREAD THE WORD to all your friends, right to the liberal/progressive blogs and organizations that you are a part of and ask them to participate. For more information feel free to email me or share my email. (pgtsndr@yahoo.com)

In Solidarity-Mike Collier