ROCK THE VOTE!

Today I volunteered at a Rock the Vote registration drive at the Bloomingdale's in Aventura Mall. I was really excited about this because getting people to vote is one of the things I feel really, really, really strongly about. I have my own political views, but I think everyone who is eligible should vote. I'd rather someone vote for an opposing candidate than not vote at all.

Anyhoo, I was there for about 4 hours. Unfortunately, my partner and I did not get very many people registered. There were four people doing the registration and we were split up into two different sections of the store. My table was downstairs near men's denim by the back corner of the store. It was a very low traffic area and because of Bloomingdale's rules we were not allowed to have any kind of signs telling people what we were there for. We also weren't allowed to solicit people, so we could only ask people to register if they walked past the table. This was very, very frustrating. The table upstairs got lots of people to vote because they were near the front of the store right in the middle of the walkway, whereas we were off to the side. I'm really glad that they were able to get a lot of people registered.

Even when we were able to talk to people it was still a challenge getting people registered. A lot of people just said no and kept walking before they realized what we were even asking them about. This is where a sign would have come in very handy. A lot of people were not U.S. citizens. One guy gave me this whole speech about why he doesn't vote and why he doesn't like politicians. Another guy said he didn't want to register because he didn't want to get picked for jury duty. I informed him that jury selection is done through driver's licenses and not voter registration. I think this is really what started changing his mind. He then said he didn't want "The Man" keeping track of him. I told him that as long as he has a license, social security number, and has taxes taken out of his paycheck "The Man" is already plenty aware of what he's doing. He finally registered. :)

I'm trying to figure out how to do more events that will hopefully be a little more productive.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE register to vote! It doesn't cost you anything. You can register from your house. You can vote from your house. And despite what many people seem to thing you really can make a difference. Remember, the difference between the 2 candidates in the 2000 presidential election was only about 500,000 votes. 500,001 people who thought their vote wouldn't count could've changed the election.