Police Try to Shut Down LYVEF’s Voter Reg Efforts in Atl!
Today, LYVEF and Lady Cartel affiliates went out to the Georgia Department of Labor on MLK Drive to bring awareness about the upcoming 2010 election by a voter registration campaign we started called the “Party with a Purpose Campaign”. The “Party with a Purpose Campaign” is a direct campaign to get young citizens, ages 18-29, to vote by targeting places that they are showing record numbers at such as unemployment offices, nightlife events, concerts, etc.
This act of what we are doing brings excitement and a sense of humility to me as an active young voter motivating others. I feel great knowing I can influence and encourage others to know that they can have a voice, and it will be heard. At first, I was scared because I didn’t know how these Georgia residents would react to our outreach, but I am pleased to say, we had a great response from this community. . .until the police came.
This was extremely challenging because these are the first days of our campaign and we never expected to be hit with this. I was shocked that we were informed to move away from the property, because we were influencing voters to vote Democrat or Republican. Un-true!! We are within our rights to converse about our youth getting registered to vote, so we have a choice in our future; today we had that choice taken away from us, by the law. So the question is, How can we get young voters to understand that this is way bigger than what we think?
Well, one set-back won’t hold us back. As a young voter I will continue to spread the word and influence my community that voting is not just old people that don’t want to see our point of views, and can’t relate to our problems. I say we can be heard and our vote does matter.
Next time this happens, tell them that it is your 1st Amendment right to register voters and communicate with them in public, (partisan or not).
As long as you are not blocking people from walking down the side walk, you are good!