Question: Is it legal to conduct voter registration in a church?

[In Truth We Trust]

[fugue]

1. Voter registration, yes

Campaigning for a particular candidate, no.

[In Truth We Trust]

3. Thanks for your response; bummer!

[TrustingDog]

2. don't think so, but there's lots I don't know, except...

Bush is making a buncho whole lotta new rules.

[Longbaugh]

4. .

Alot of states actually have their own laws stopping us from doing voter registration and advertising near polling places x(

[nosmokes]

5. no reason you shouldn't be able to register at a church.

campaigning for a candidate is a bit of a different story.

preaching to congregation that god wants them to vote for one candidate over another, or that voting for candidate x is godly and voting for candidate y is a sin should immediately be cause for loss of that institution's tax exempt status and a huge bill in back taxes.

[DemBones DemBones]

6. Some precincts have their polling places in churches.

As long as there is no preaching about who to vote for, it's OK.

[RebelYell]

7. Can a minister, pastor, priest, rabbi, whatever.....

....suggest who to vote for to his congregation?

[fdr_hst_fan]

8. If he does, then, IMHO,

his church should IMMEDIATELY lose it's tax-exempt status! I've been saying for years: TAX THE CHURCHES! That will immediately silence Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell FOR GOOD!

[ROC]

10. Double edge

It will also take care of countless black churches too

[RebelYell]

12. AGREED! Let them pay taxes too. nt

[AntiCoup2K4]

9. Voter registration in and of itself is not a partisan activity.

That's not to say that partisans don't register voters, because obviously that's a common practice on both sides. But since churches are often also polling places, there's no legal conflict of interest in registration. Where I have a problem is the tax exempt church pushing the Bush platform word for word (see the John Hagee thread I posted earlier)

[Czolgosz]

11. Catholic voters should be directed to votingcatholic.org

This is a fair-minded website which does an excellent job of illustrating that the Catholic Church is more than pro-life (in fact, "pro-life" is more than "anti-abortion" because Bush is probably the most anti-Catholic politician in America when it comes to the "anti-death penalty" aspect of "pro-life"). The Catholic Church is pro-worker's rights (including its strong advocacy for raising the minimum wage), anti-war (including strong opposition to the preemptive war in Iraq), and pro-social justice. These is a great quiz at votingcatholic.org that lets you vote on a set of issues and then grades your compatibility with Kerry, Bush, and the Church. The Church is much closer to Kerry than Bush.

Go take the quiz, it's eye-opening.