New York Group Launches $9 Million Youth Voter Drive

[TheJillMill]

3. Advantageous Position

I'm a 72-year-old 30-year adjunct associate English professor (thank you Union for the official title) who gets to hang out a good part of the week with 18 and 19-year-old students and some even feel inspired to take my other classes, so I feel I have some influence among youth. I will connect with this New York voter project and get something started for community college students in the Southern Tier/Finger Lakes Region of New York. Last week a student stayed and asked me to talk to him about two issues on his mind. One was (it was Election Day) if he could just vote that day after I encouraged students to do so if they could. I asked if he was registered and he looked at me blankly. I connected him with the link to register online with his New York State ID and realized I just helped create another voter (not to mention disseminated the education needed among youth). I had a very frank discussion with him about democracy v. fascism. Now is the time to get people registered and excited. I tell them to register and practice voting early on, for the school boards in May or any election that comes up. Other than Ithaca in our region, upstate New York is red as can be.