dennis's blog

Here's a dispatch from Williamsburg, Virginia, by Ben Thacker-Gwaltney, an organizer with the Virginia Organizing Project:

A perfect fall day set the scene for a group of fifty-five volunteers from the a service fraternity at the College of William & Mary this past Saturday. The pledge class from Alpha Phi Omega partnered with the Virginia Organizing Project to deliver door-hangers to over 4500 doors in the Williamsburg area in just three hours. Focusing on neighborhoods of color and low to moderate income communities, the door-hanger encouraged voters to come out on Tuesday and reminded them of poll hours and locations. It also provided the number of the local NAACP office--which is coordinating rides to the polls for the day--plus the election protection number 1-800-OUR-VOTE.

The City of Williamsburg set records this year with new voter registration levels topping 12%, a record for the state of Virginia. Many of those registrations came through the work of students who registered their fellow young people as well as other members of the city community. Working for the Virginia Organizing Project, W&M student Cherie Seise and her three co-interns knocked on almost 10,000 doors over the summer.

African-American neighborhoods all across the region mobilized to get their neighbors to the polls to vote today. VOP partners in the Grove neighborhood recruited a local church to serve as a clearing house for election questions and rides to the polls. Young people from the community distributed over 1,000 door-hangers this past Saturday from the VOP to help crowd the polling places today. Ms. Angela Dennis from Ironbound Square activated their phone tree yesterday. "Yes, we will meet down at the park for a little tea and then all go over to the Recreation Center together," she said.

Check out more stories at http://www.communitychange.org/vote

Check out this incredible, powerful video featuring Reynalda, a youth volunteer with New Labor in New Jersey. It reminds us what voting is all about:

And check out more up-to-the-minute news on Election Day from community organizers at our Blog:

http://www.communitychange.org/vote.

An unbelievable report out of Toledo, Ohio, of police officers ordered to wear riot gear to deal with possible unrest during and after today's election. We're still looking for more eyewitness accounts of this from the ground. Let me know if you know anything or have pictures to share.

Check out the story here:
http://communityvaluesvote.blogspot.com/2008/11/ohio-police-ordered-to-have-riot-gear.html

What the hell??!!

We just got this report from Adam Mason at Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement:

Sounds like a team of Republican Lawyers is challenging student registrations. This is something we are monitoring now. One of our staffers is a recent graduate from Grinnell College, so we got some word of this last night. It is also in one of our targeted areas, so we want to learn more about what is going on on the ground --- but just wanted to give you a heads up.

http://iowaindependent.com/8068/students-face-ballot-challenges-in-battleground-district

In response, the students have re-registered (same day registered) students who were challenged at their dorm room address, and there are quite a few questions in with county officials.

Read more news at http://www.communitychange.org/vote

Hi everybody!

I'm live-blogging Election Days all day today. It's pretty crazy here in NYC. Some of my colleagues had to wait HOURS on-line and that was already at the crack of dawn.

Now that we're all settled in, we'll be providing periodic updates from the field from community organizers across the nation.

Check it out here:
http://www.communitychange.org/vote

Aren't y'all tired of the same talking heads behind a news desk talking about the elections. Let's get our news from real, everyday people on the ground.

Dennis