August 2018 Co-Presidents' Message

August 2018 Co-Presidents' Message

Type: 
News

Hello to all and Happy Fall! September is upon us and school events and autumn activities are in full swing. We are so encouraged and inspired by the energy of this group! The Hot Topic for August was a great success and Drinks and Democracy was quite productive. September will prove to be even better! In addition to those events, we have around 30 voter registration events in the works for this month alone!!

One of the most exciting things we are bringing to these events is an innovative way to engage voters. We have a partnership with one of our new members, Amy Rutherford, a PhD student in Communications at KU. She is a captain with The Skimm's non-partisan "No Excuses" campaign. The Skimm is a news outlet (www.theskimm.com) which set a goal in 2016 of getting 100,000 people to register to vote. They met that goal only to realize that we also need them to commit to get to the polls! So, their goal in 2018 is to get 100,000 people to register AND to commit to VOTE. We are working with her on events such as one she has planned at The Oread on Sept 25, National Voter Registration Day. We are working quickly on developing a branch of LVW LDC on the KU Campus. The interest from students is exciting! With our free student membership and faculty engagement, we are hoping to grow an active group.

If you have a smart phone, try using the QR codes on page 8 of The Voter. To use the QR codes, point your phone’s camera at the code and the first one takes you to ksvotes.org. People can register, change their address and request a ballot by mail here. Then, and very importantly, aim your camera at the second code. This takes you to The Skimm's No Excuses site where you will "pinky promise" to VOTE. People will receive reminders to vote as well. The third code will take you to the LVW vote411.org site where one can learn about the candidates.

It's a wonderful system and I am convinced it will help us connect to younger voters! It will also help us educate voters and get people to exercise their right to vote once they are registered. Please try it out and share widely! Email or text it to all your friends, relatives and neighbors! Be sure to give us feedback as well! We will be out in force to achieve as much voter engagement as possible prior to the Oct 16 registration deadline! If you haven't yet participated in a voter registration event, now is your chance! And if you know of a venue that would be great for us to reach people, please let us know!

Thank you for all each of you do!! We are honored to work alongside you in #MakingDemocracyWork !!