Voter Engagement for Empowerment Project
November 6th is Election Day 2012! Planning to vote? Show your support by tweeting or facebooking you will with the hashtag #onevoicestronger.
Come to FUREE's Election Night Viewing Party on November 6th, from 7pm to 9:30pm. The event is free and open to all, even if you don't vote or are unable to vote. RSVP by contacting Dez at 718-852-2960 x307.
IMPORTANT VOTING INFO:
Voter Registration Status: https:// voterlookup.elections.state.ny. us/VoterSearch.aspx
Polling Location: http://gis.nyc.gov/vote/ps/ index.htm
Contact your local Board of Elections Office: http://vote.nyc.ny.us/html/ contact/offices.shtml
OVERVIEW OF OUR VOTER ENGAGEMENT FOR EMPOWERMENT PROJECT:
Our work is guided by our organizational assessment that we are fighting institutional racism, sexism and classism. Our members understand that we will never create a just society until we eliminate the structures that perpetuate inequities. At an organizational planning session in 2004, members decided that we could increase our ability to change policies that will create exits from poverty if we added non-partisan electoral work to our arsenal of tactics and that that work would have to be integrated in all FUREE campaigns.
Since then, we have collaborated with NY VOTE, the Push Back Network and the Right to the City Civic Engagement Workgroup, the NY State Voices Table as well as local community based and faith based organizations to carry out organize voters around social justice platforms.
To date, we have contacted over 25,000 voters and turned out more than 10,000 unengaged, low income and working class voters to vote. Organizing voters helps to build power for traditionally disenfranchised communities. It also opens opportunities to connect residents to elected representatives so that communities are built with all stakeholders at decision making tables.
Other victories in this work include increasing Census response rates by an average 4.2% in 13 of 14 target Census tracts in Brooklyn; supporting efforts to consolidate residents from Ingersoll Houses into NYS Assembly District 57, a Voting Rights Protected district and suing the NYS Board of Elections with the NYU Brennan Center, NAACP and the Black Civic Participation Project to protect the loss of votes in our communities.
Over the past few months, we've worked to reach the following goals:
1. Engage 3,000 unengaged voters around a community-identified platform for sustainable jobs, increased affordable housing for low income families and inreased services for families in need
2. Build a voting bloc of public housing residents in Brooklyn communities
3. Build a voting bloc of youth ages 18-25 around a sustainable jobs for youth platform
4. Hold elected officials accountable to the needs of low income and working class people of color
5. Register 1,000 new voters
If you're not registered to vote or have moved since the last elections, YOU CAN REGISTER TO VOTE HERE!
To help us achieve our members' goals and volunteer to get out the vote, please contact Desiree Marshall at dez at furee dot org or call (718) 852-2960, ext. 307
FUREE is a nonpartisan organization. We do not support or endorse candidates nor do we participate in any activities that benefits one party over another.
