Free Republic

An activist group has launched a voter registration effort aimed at black voters at screenings of the “Black Panther” movie nationwide. Members of the Electoral Justice Project, an offshoot of the Movement for Black Lives, are seeking to “mobilize the black electorate” and increase political engagement with the #WakandaTheVote campaign, the website Blavity reported. Wakanda is the fictional African nation featured in the long-anticipated Marvel film “Black Panther.” Kayla Reed, Jessica Byrd and Rukia Lumumba founded the Electoral Justice Project last year, and told Blavity that the movement has been effective “because we meet our communities where they are,...

A recent Oregon law that automatically registers residents to vote when they get or renew a driver’s license has fueled a surge in newly minted voters. In January, Oregon was the first state to put such a law into effect and since then, California, Vermont and West Virginia have adopted similar laws. So-called “motor voter” laws are also being considered in other states. Nearly 300,000 Oregonians have registered to vote in the past 12 months and more than 75 percent of them those did so under the motor voter law, the Oregon Secretary of State’s office said Tuesday. In addition,...

The Hillary Clinton campaign on Sunday announced a voter registration effort led by illegal immigrants on the four year anniversary of President Barack Obama’s executive action to protect illegal aliens from deportation. According to a statement the campaign launched “‘Mi Sueño, Tu Voto’ (My Dream, Your Vote), to organize DREAMers to mobilize their communities and ask voters to consider what is at stake for their families in November.” “DREAMers have played a pivotal role in our campaign, advocating for families who constantly live in fear of deportation–so we’ve created a program that aims to turn these stories into action,” Lorella...

Campaign aims to register a million U.S. Muslims voters in anti-Trump move By Mana Rabiee FALLS CHURCH, Va. U.S. Muslim leaders hope to register a million voters from within their community to help combat what they say is the anti-Muslim stance of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. The United States has only about 3.3 million Muslims, but campaign organizers say Muslim voters could have an outsize impact in swing states that are key to the November general election, such as Virginia and Florida. "We want the Muslim community to understand that if you give up your rights voluntarily, no one...

hancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. often says Liberty University students are the best — and the results of his campus-wide campaign to register student voters locally is giving him one more reason to believe it. As of Monday’s 4 p.m. registration deadline, LU Commuter Affairs officials had collected and submitted 4,200 forms to the Lynchburg, Va., city registrar. “I’m proud of the students for stepping forward and registering and showing an interest in what’s happening in government. I think it’s a testament to how committed our students are to making a difference,” said Falwell Jr. Falwell is still receiving several links...

A nationwide movement to turn Hispanic immigrants into citizens and voters is focusing on Florida and four Southwestern states that may decide the 2008 presidential election. Hispanics make up a large share of the electorate in Florida, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada, and each of these states could swing either way in the presidential race. While New York and California are bound to cast their electoral votes for a Democrat and Texas almost certainly will vote Republican, Florida becomes the biggest swing state. The four smaller Southwest states have emerged as a battleground, partly because of a surge of...

The youth-heavy online hangout MySpace.com is launching a voter-registration drive to engage its members in civics. In partnership with the nonpartisan group Declare Yourself, MySpace is running ads on its highly trafficked Web site and giving members tools such as a "I Registered To Vote On MySpace" badge to place on their personal profile pages. "Young people in this country ... are really engaged in what's happening in their community and want to make a difference," said Jeff Berman, MySpace's senior vice president for public affairs. "The key is to make it easy for them to get engaged. By putting...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Taking a page from major corporations’ tractor-trailers that carry products and advertise their merchandise on America’s highways, the iVoteValues.com initiative has its own rolling billboard. The iVoteValues.com Mobile Voter Registration Rig and Information Center began its journey across the United States at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Indianapolis in mid-June. The 18-wheeler is painted in a striking red, white and blue motif. Inside the trailer are resources to aid voters in the importance of voting on Election Day and the necessity of considering biblical truths when entering the voting booth. From a Wal-Mart parking lot in...

A Democratic group crucial to John Kerry's presidential campaign has paid felons - some convicted of sex offenses, assault and burglary - to conduct door-to-door voter registration drives in at least three election swing states. America Coming Together, contending that convicted criminals deserve a second chance in society, employs felons as voter canvassers in major metropolitan areas in Missouri, Florida, Ohio and perhaps in other states among the 17 it is targeting in its drive. Some lived in halfway houses, and at least four returned to prison.

A bitter split within organized labor over control of $20 million earmarked for mobilizing voters is threatening to fracture a broader effort by liberal groups to ally themselves against President Bush's reelection bid in 2004.The dispute involves the new Partnership for America's Families, a political committee financed with $20 million from unions and as much as $10 million from individual, pro-Democratic donors. The partnership's executive director, Steve Rosenthal, former political director of the AFL-CIO, is pitted against Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Also at odds with Rosenthal are leaders of...

Thousands of overseas Americans are expected to be able to cast ballots from their home computers in the 2004 elections, the Pentagon said Monday. Military personnel and civilians alike will be eligible to take part in the federal government’s most ambitious experiment yet in Internet-based voting. THE PROJECT — known as the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment, or SERVE — builds on a smaller-scale effort in the 2000 elections. This time around, the system will incorporate digital certificates as an added security measure. “Security is everyone’s first question about Internet voting, so we made security the driving factor in...

<p>WASHINGTON — Three conservative religious organizations have teamed up for a massive church-based voter registration drive leading to the 2004 presidential and congressional elections.</p> <p>The Christian Coalition, the National Pro-Life Religious Council (search) and the anti-abortion Catholic group Priests for Life (search) will target millions of Christians on four "National Christian Voter Registration Sundays" between now and next year's election, the groups announced Monday.</p>