New Era Colorado

Congratulations to Colorado-based youth organizers New Era Colorado for writing and shepherding a bill for online voter registration through their state house and senate. The bill is now on its way to the governor's desk:

Denver, CO - April 23, 2009 – The Colorado Senate voted 33-0 today on a bill that will soon allow Colorado residents to register to vote online at the secure Secretary of State’s website. This bill modernizes the voter registration process in Colorado, significantly increases voter accessibility, and saves taxpayer money.

Only 2 other states, Arizona and Washington, currently provide voters with the option to register to vote online. In Arizona, voter registration numbers increased by 10% in the first year of the online option being available and over 70% of registrations now occur online. When Washington instituted online voter registration in 2008, almost 40% of new voters registered online. In the first six months, half of the new registrants were under the age of 30.

“This bill brings the traditionally complicated and cumbersome voter registration process into the 21st Century. We do almost everything online these days—banking, paying bills, filing taxes—we should be able to do our civic duty of registering to vote online, too,” says Steve Fenberg, Executive Director of New Era Colorado, the lead organization that initiated, drafted, and lobbied the bill in the Legislature.

The online form will allow current Colorado voters to update their registration record with address changes and mail-in ballot status and will allow first time registrants to register to vote online if they have a Colorado Driver’s License or ID. For the first time registrants, the digitized signature from their Driver’s License or ID will be used as the required signature on a voter registration form.

“I think this bill can be a game-changer in Colorado politics—not in terms of Republican or Democrat victories, but in terms of the number of young people engaging in the democratic process. This is a big victory for New Era Colorado and young people across our state,” says Fenberg.

“We see this bill as a long-term opportunity to increase youth registration levels, but we also see it as a near-term opportunity to show our volunteers and interns how to participate in the legislative process,” says Carrie Jackson, Program Director of New Era Colorado. New Era Colorado members helped draft the legislation, wrote thousands of supportive letters to Representatives and Senators, and participated in committee hearings to help pass the online voter registration bill. These volunteers also helped New Era Colorado register over 11,000 young people to vote during the 2008 Election Cycle.

Rep. Joe Miklosi (D-Denver) sponsored the bill in the House, where it a received a 60-4 vote, and Senator Bob Bacon (D-Fort Collins) sponsored it in the Senate. It will soon head to Governor Ritter's desk for signing.

Sorry for my miss on the usual Friday blog, I was traveling home from the Inaugural festivities. But an exciting thing happened in the world of recognition of youth campaigning.... Campaigns and Elections Magazine - the end all be all mag for politico's who work in ... well... campaigns and elections had their regular post-election vote on best practices that worked and which were the super best for their Reed Awards.

Trick or Vote, the Halloween GOTV program that gets young people to canvas in costume just a few days before the election, was voted the best GOTV.

"Our volunteers just did amazing work on Halloween," said Matt Singer, CEO of Forward Montana in a release. "We managed to reach out to over five thousand households in Missoula, Bozeman, Dillon, and Great Falls."

"We might be too old to trick or treat, but we’ll never be too old to trick or vote,” added Rep. Jefferson Smith, founding chair of the Bus Federation, which oversaw the national Trick or Vote operation. “The really important part about this event’s success was our ability to translate a cool idea to being used all across the country. This was a shared success of the youth vote movement, with a number of local organizations using this model."

The Campaign & Elections’ Politics magazine Reed Awards were awarded by a prominent bipartisan committee of political heavyweights, including Morton Blackwell, Tucker Carlson, Tom Davis, Monica Dixon, Ben Dworkin, Vic Fazio, Martin Frost, Julie Germany, Shane Greer, Ken Khachigian, Mike Hennessy, Ron Klain, Mike Krempasky, Kevin Madden, Mark, McKinnon, Dick Morris, Terry Nelson, Christie Pelosi, Amy Pritchard, Larry Sabato, Ron Silver, Jamal Simmons, Michael Steele, George Stephanopolous, Robert Traynham, Joe Trippi, Suzanne Turner, Vaughn Ververs, Amy Walter, Christine Todd Whitman, and Reid Wilson.

Also, if you haven't seen, the Scary Man himself, Wes Craven announced Trick or Vote as one of his favorite scary videos on YouTube this Halloween.

If you don't have a Trick or Vote near you, don't worry... you can have one. Go to TrickOrVote.org and grab the tool kit and start gearing up early for a great Trick or Vote in your city.

• The New York Times reports that 6,400 voters in Colorado may be disenfrachised thanks to dishonest trainings and misinformation distributed by the Republican Secretary of State's office. Our friends at New Era Colorado are featured prominently in the piece fighting back against the disenfranchisement.
• The Obama campaign raked in the cash in September, pulling in more than $150 million. If you missed it, campaign manager David Plouffe noted that Students were one of the top donors to the campaign, along with retirees.
• For some reason, I've never seen this before. Check out YDA's Young Voter Revolution. Take the pledge and check out the tools and resources.
• The Wall Street Journal business and technology blog looks at some data from Rapleaf and says that different swing states favor different social networks. For instance, Wisconsin youth favor Bebo, while Virginians favor Black Planet and New Mexican youth are on Hi5. This bears more looking into.
• The National Review commissioned a hit piece on Campus Progress. Over at Pushback, Jesse Singal ably rips NR's piece to shreds.
• Zack has an awesome idea to make FaceBook an even greater peer pressure machine to encourage voter turnout and political discussion.
• Skaters in Wasilla fought Sarah Palin and won.
• The LA Times has a rundown on celebrity PSA campaigns.
• Meanwhile, Visible Measures tries to measure the impact of those viral videos to Get Out the Vote. The site looks at which of 4 major GOTV PSAs has the most views, and finds that Leo DiCaprio's celebrity-studded "Don't Vote" video comes out on top.
• The Hill looks at the campaign's presence online and finds Obama ahead, but McCain catching up.
• Are your parents pestering you about ACORN and "voter fraud?" Send them this article from the election law blog.
• Mashable! tries to show a correlation between online activity on FaceBook and offline events in swing states, but doesn't do that convincing a job of it.
• In The Nation, Cora Courrier asks if youth will finally swing the election.
• Finally, a little music to start your day:

When bad press like the ABC/Stossel Interview pop up, we hit back pretty hard so that reporters think twice about partaking in biased coverage, and to shape the media narrative about young voters. We should be equally full of praise when a traditional media outlet does a good job of covering the youth vote.

In that spirit, I want to praise Laura Fitzpatrick and Time for putting together an excellent piece about the many challenges that students face in registering and getting to the polls.

College Students Still Face Voting Stumbling Blocks

It's a quadrennial issue. Every presidential election finds college students wading through a swamp of murky laws and logistical hurdles to get into the polling booths. But this year, amid record interest — and primary turnout — among college students, experts say many campus precincts are sorely unprepared to meet student demand. And laws passed after the 2004 election, ostensibly to clamp down on voter fraud, could cause a slew of new problems that disproportionately hit student voters. Which means the question in 2008 isn't will the young voters deliver. "It's can the young voters deliver?," says Matthew Segal, executive director of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment.

This is a really excellent look at the hurdles students face that the rest of the public does not, including partisan registrars willfully excluding them, lack of polling places on or near campus, youth transience, confusing and misinterpreted residency laws, and lack of proper government ID. As I've said repeatedly, lower youth turnout is about lack of access, not apathy. The piece in Time does an excellent job in fleshing out a number of those barriers to youth participation.

Also, a big shout out to Matt Segal of SAVE and Steve Fenberg of New Era Colorado, who were both quoted in the piece. Great job guys.

Five really great, state-based youth organizations have decided to join forces to create a loose, national federation that can leverage economies of scale to the benefit of all organizations. In other words, the Oregon Bus Project, Forward Montana, New Era Colorado, The Washington Bus, and New Mexico Youth Organized just formed like Voltron to create the Bus Federation.

From their website:

The 2008 election marks the beginning of a historic opportunity, where young, progressive voters in Western states can fundamentally reshape the political landscape on a local and national level.

The Bus Federation, comprised of grassroots youth political organizations in five Western states, will draw upon its proven models of youth organizing to activate young progressive voters, develop the next generation of progressive leaders, and mobilize for immediate term electoral impact – laying the foundations for local and national breakthroughs in the 2008 election cycle and beyond.

You'll also note that some of these orgs come from important battleground states where the youth vote will be a key constituency up and down the ticket this cycle. If you're in those states, you should get involved or at least be aware of what your local Bus Fed org is doing and make sure that your own work is complementary.

...

While the Federation structure enables the different state organizations to tailor their programs to their states' unique political landscapes, it also enables the member organizations to share core programs – such as Bus Trips, the Trick or Vote Halloween Canvass, and Alternative Candidate Debates – as well as organizational best practices, common branding and messaging, joint purchasing, and key metrics of performance.

The website is pretty sparse now - just a shingle on the web, really. But if by creating a national federation, these local organizations can spread/share best practices, and save money on swag, polling, voter file subscriptions, etc., then this is a hugely important step in scaling up good work in youth organizing.

Today is Super Tuesday, but it is also Fat Tuesday, the peak of Mardi Gras. Fully cognizant of the fact that these should not at all conflict, the folks at Living Liberally, Young Voter PAC, Forward Montana, New Era Colorado, Democrats Work, and Traction are throwing election watching parties all over the country tonight.

From the Super Fat Tuesday website:

Super Fat Tuesday. Because election day should be celebrated. Because people want to experience politics together. Because New Orleans needs to be remembered. Because these campaigns have been so excessive, they are super fat...

So far there are over 27 parties scheduled in 19 states.

As for myself, this morning I schlepped over to the Municipal building in Downtown Brooklyn and cast my ballot for Sen. Obama. Tonight I'll probably stop by the Drinking Liberally party at the Tank in lower Manhattan before heading home to cover the results late into the night. Maybe I'll see some of you there.

Happy Thanksgiving - now go register!

A new PSA from New Era Colorado advertising the Feb 5th Caucus, hey... sex sells.

The NBC Nightly News and the Today Show are about to do a piece on the new trend in western states turning blue. They were tipped off by a great piece in the Denver Post about organizations like Forward Montana and New Era Colorado.

"The descendants of the rebels themselves - today's Western youth - are leading the charge for a more Democratic West. If the trends continue, the Republican Party may find itself in a world of hurt."

So NBC is asking what is going on and is the movement in the west a trend or a blip. We talk a lot on here about numbers we see move in various communities. Mike just talked to us about Evangelical Youth dropping their previous support of the President like cold Prada such that its caused a drop overall in Republicanism by 15% nationwide. So many different people and groups and communities are leaving the GOP but it doesn't always equal big win. That said - a win is a win and by all accounts trending red to more blue means a beautiful indigo wonderland of progressivism.

ED of Forward Montana and renown blogger Matt Singer says its due in large part to

"young progressive voters reacting hugely against one party rule"

And how else do you bring the youth to the choices but by utilizing alternative forms of outreach. Such as hosting CANDIDATES GONE WILD!!! Advertised by asking FMT members:

Are you "sick of boring candidate forums? Wish that you could learn about the candidates, have a beer, watch some comedy, and mingle with hundreds of other community members all in one jam-packed evening? You're Gonna LOVE Candidates Gone WILD!"

And from what it seems - they did:

"By making policy process and voting more understandable, we think we can create an atmosphere where caring about issues is cool.”

My question for people in my neck of the woods is how this kind of outreach and this astounding progress out west will effect Heartland trends.

So – Last week Colorado’s House and Senate approved the bill that will reduce the age requirement to run for office meaning it now goes to a full vote on the next state-wide ballot. This was part of the ambitious legislative agenda by a new organization in the state called New Era Colorado and this is indeed a new era in Colorado.

Colorado is one of six states that require candidates to be 25. All other states have age minimums of 21 or 18. According to the Colorado Daily.

”The CU student government's liaison to state legislature, Ryan Biehle, 20, thinks more young candidates will emerge.

“Once the gates are open people will take to it, I guess,” Biehle said.”

So, curious, as I tend to be, I decided to check out some younger candidates and how they are different – better in some ways.