UUA News & Events: Get Out The Vote!

Voter Registration

Congregational Stories

Minneapolis young adults gather together following a successful voter registration drive

Minneapolis UUs Focus on Religious Communities Making Social Change
(Minneapolis, MN) On September 16, 2004, nearly 150 people from UU congregations in the Minneapolis area attended the public dialogue "Not Someday, But Now: Religious Communities Making Social Change." UUA President Bill Sinkford joined four other Minneapolis panelists for this discussion, which was moderated by the Rev. Victoria Safford, Minister of White Bear UU Church in Mahtomedi, MN.

Panelists included Pastor Paul Robinson, President, Metro Interfaith Council on Affordable Housing; Sumbal Mahmud, lay leader, Islamic Center of Minnesota (ICM); Peter Nikitas, civil liberties attorney and activist, Jewish Community Action; and Pablo Tapia, Latino leader of Isaiah, a regional faith-based social change organization. Panelists shared examples of powerful social change work in an interfaith setting. MORE>>

Ohio UU Congregations Focus on Voter Registration and Mobilization Efforts
Seven UU churches in the Cincinnati area came together in early August at Heritage Universalist Unitarian Church to plan their voter registration and mobilization efforts for the remaining months before the November 2nd election. Sarah Craft, UUA Voting Project Coordinator, along with Shayna Strom from Project Vote Cincinnati and Evan Joiner from 1st Unitarian Church in Cincinnati met with over 30 UUs to strategize how they can be most effective at reaching out to the disenfranchised in the "excitable" state of Ohio. Members of UU congregations from Kentucky also shared experiences from their “bubble” state. Ms. Craft provided information about the UUA's national election 2004 campaign and its five areas of focus: voter registration, Get Out The Vote, voter education, voting rights advocacy, and poll monitoring. Information about all areas as well as the UUA's push for community partnerships can be found on the UUA Voting website.

Shayna Strom from Project Vote, a member of the Campaign for Communities coalition that the UUA is sponsoring, spoke with congregations about partnering with Project Vote for several registration and mobilization activities. Project Vote works with the ACORN community organizations and has a goal of registering 25,000 low to moderate-income people in Cincinnati and over 1 million people around the country. Craft, who works out of the UUA Washington Office, said, “It is exciting to see partnerships that have been formed at the national level come together on the ground." Rev. Bill Gupton, minister at Heritage UU observed that the participants were "ready to make a difference!"

For more information on the UUA's voter registraton and education program, please visit the voting website. To read more about the importance of voting, read the new Beacon Press book, "Taking Back the Vote" by Jane Eisner.

Members of the youth group at Follen Community Church in Lexington MA, www.follen.org , organized a voter registration drive at Lexington High School in the period leading up to the deadline for registering in order to vote on March 2nd, MA primary day and also Lexington town election day. They obtained the requisite forms and the list of voters registered from the Town Clerk's office, compared it to a list of seniors with birth dates, and personally approached those eligible but not yet registered. They also used announcements over the school's public address system and sent a persuasive email message to the LHS community, informing them of the number of unregistered young adults and the margin by which the recent town override vote lost, the impact of which is largely being felt in the local schools. They registered 60 of the 190 students eligible by age to register, bringing the total number of registered LHS students to 106!

The youth group also organized a successful school committee candidates' forum at Lexington High School, held on February 25th after school. All but one of the candidates appeared and about 30 students and faculty attended. Contact: The Reverend Lucinda Duncan.

On Sunday, March 28th, President Bill Sinkford preached at the First UU Congregation of Palm Beaches http://uu.northpalmbeach.fl.uua.org on the subject of Faithful Democracy. Located in the heart of the battleground over the 2000 elections, this congregation is gearing up for voter registration, get out the vote work, and poll monitoring efforts.

After the service, President Sinkford, parish minister Rev. Jose Ballester, and members of the congregation, along with visitors from nearby UU congregations, went to a local shopping area in a largely Haitian-American neighborhood to put their faith into action and register people to vote. As they registered people they received responses ranging from a hearty "thank you for being out here" to the more challenging response, "I know my vote doesn't matter - why should I vote?"

The experience has led the congregation to form a Voter Mobilization Task Force. They are planning a follow-up meeting to develop a plan set goals, and choose a community partner for their efforts. As Rev. Ballester said, "Sometimes you just have to jump in to get started. It's important to plan but there's nothing like experience to help motivate the planning process."

Here's an update to Portland OR story located at http://www.uua.org/news/2003/voting/congregational2.html
On the first Sunday of January 2004, 150 members of First Unitarian Church, Portland, OR, gathered in the sanctuary to kick off a voter registration drive. The event included the congregation's Peace and Justice Singers, a skit and an inspirational message from the Rev. Marilyn Sewell. In addition, one of the singers had written a folk song, “Register Your Name to Vote” and there were buttons reading, “Your Vote Counts More in 2004”.

“People were very excited,” said Elaine Carter, a coordinator. “We gave out 48 voter registration kits. We almost had more volunteers than we could use. This is an issue people have a lot of energy for.”

As of April, 600 new voters had been registered through this ongoing effort.

In January, the UU Fellowship of Columbia, SC (http://www.uu.columbia.sc.uua.org ) played a leading role in a coalition effort sponsored by the Center for Community Change and the National Council of Churches. The three-day event included a presidential candidates forum entitled Dialogue with American families, followed by voter registration canvassing in ten precincts with low voter enrollment, an interfaith service, and day long training on increasing voter participation.

The Rev. Patrick Price dedicated his Sunday sermon the week before the event to the role of faith communities in civic matters. Lead organizers from the congregation, Judy and Tom Turnipseed, offered a pulpit editorial seeking congregational involvement in the coalition event. Rev. Price participated in the ecumenical service and Judy Turnipseed served on the national planning committee for the event. Congregants not only attended but dozens sold tickets, served as ushers, coordinated logistics, and organized for the event.

UUs from surrounding SC congregations participated along with UU church members from the Northeast who came on buses from as far as Buffalo NY and from New York, Maryland, and Washington DC. Legislative Assistants Amelia Rose and Megan Joiner from the Washington Office also participated. [For their reports see Amelia Rose covers the Presidential Forum , Megan Joiner covers Friday and Saturday's community and faith-based forums . Member Judy Turnipseed writes: "Our church was the site of the first of two volunteer trainings and many individuals volunteered as ushers, bus captains and other roles during the day, as well as many others who just came and were part of the event. Then that night, more people brought food for the reception, acted as ushers and stuffed the packs of seeds we gave out as a symbol of hope and renewal.”

The event was broadcast live by CNN and C-SPAN (which also rebroadcast it several times) and received a huge amount of broadcast and print media, including by international press.

On February 21st , 110 people from 22 congregations in the Ballou Channing District gathered to hear a keynote address by Bill Sinkford on Faithful Democracy and launch their voter registration effort. The event was planned by members of the UU Church of Brockton MA ( http://www.uubrockton.org ) and Unity Church of N. Easton MA (UU) ( www.unity-church.com ). They are engaged in a partnership with the Coalition for Social Justice in SE Mass. The League of Women Voters and Mass Vote also participated as resources for these congregations. This event provides a great model for other congregations considering this work. Contact the Rev. Eric Cherry, Unity Church of N. Easton (UU), and the Rev. Robert Thayer, UU Church of Brockton. The event received prominent coverage in the local press, The Sunday Enterprise.

All Souls Unitarian Church in New York City, with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, sponsored GET OUT THE VOTE! on Sunday, February 15, 2004 to register youth and low-income voters. Their voting initiative is sponsored by the church peace task force, the UU United Nations Office, UU Service Committee and the church's young adult group. At the first meeting, forty people showed up ready to volunteer. Plans include getting potential voters registered in New York City, but also getting a caravan to go to Philadelphia since PA is a swing state. The group's focus and mission, however, is clearly non-partisan.

Amy Strano, the voter mobilization coordinator, writes, “The project of voter registration and mobilization is exciting work which I am pleased to be involved with. As leader of our young adult group, I'm aware of how few youth and young adults vote. This must change. Our voices need to be heard. I'm delighted that my faith community is committed to the use of the democratic process and that we are doing the work to make the democratic process a liberating reality.”

In Salt Lake City , the First UU Peace Committee set a goal of registering 1,000 new voters and they report they have already registered 200 in their first month's drive. Contact: Sonja Decker, chair of Dialogue for Peace Committee First Unitarian Church, Salt Lake City, Utah.

In Chicago, Third Unitarian Church members took part in the Chicago Public (CPS) High School registration drive. Their team consisted of all ages from high school to one 90-year-old member. At one school they had twenty people go to 20 classrooms with scripted presentations for 15-minute homerooms. In another they went into about ten homerooms and registered young people in approximately 24-minute sessions. In one class, a student got the teacher to delay handing out four suspensions arguing it would be better for all concerned if the students, instead, registered to vote.

Laurel Lambert was one of eight Third Unitarian Church members who took part in the Chicago Public (CPS) High School registration drive. She writes, “There were a number of p ositive aspects of the entire registration drive in the schools. Most important is the actual numbers of young people registered. Just imagine the potential impact of a couple thousand energized young folks in the voting booths - it certainly could affect the outcome of an election!"

Main Line Unitarian Church outside of Philadelphia is in partnership with the UU Church of Delaware County and a local peace group called Delaware County Wage Peace and Justice. The groups recently spent two hours on two different days at a transportation hub in Philadelphia and registered 51 voters. Those involved wrote, ” It was a wonderful experience and we were thanked by many people, both those who registered and others who felt what we were doing was valuable. We are planning to go again and a number of our small group ministry groups are interested in helping for their service project.” Contact: Nuala M. Carpenter

The Social Justice Committee of the Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation welcomed Richard Kimball of Project Vote Smart to their congregation on February 24th. About 75 people from the community were present to hear his presentation and to hear local Thurston County Auditor Kim Wyman speak about the new voting machines to be used in the general election and voting trends in the county. The SJ Committee plans table efforts, registration drives and other get-out-the-vote type activities all year in the run-up to the 2004 election. Contact: Howard Rosenfeld

Update to information on work done by the Madison, WI UU congregations at http://www.uua.org/news/2003/voting/congregational2.html
The three UU congregations in Madison, Wisconsin are working with community organizations and individuals on a project called Go Vote. The UUs contacted the local League of Women Voters back in November of 2003 to see what their plans were. That led to the decision to create a coalition to work on voter registration and get out the vote work. Members of the Wisconsin congregations, along with other coalition partners, have been "deputized" already as voter registrars. They will be doing voter registration in churches, at community events, and door-to-door in low registration neighborhoods beginning this spring.

They have a mission statement and are developing a collection of materials for volunteers. They're meeting monthly and are continuing to bring new groups into the coalition all the time.

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