Librarian's Rant

Lately I've been working to get folks registered to vote, and also to get folks to request absentee ballots. We have a huge elderly population in Iowa and many of them don't vote at the polls due to physical limitations, including the Iowa weather in November. Iowa has one of the most progressive mail-in vote systems in the country. I've been very impressed.

In that vein, America Votes, a coalition that includes MoveOn.org, is sponsoring a National Women's Election Action Day tomorrow. In particular they're focusing on single women, who did NOT vote in droves in 2000. To our shame, I feel.

There was a great quote my mother mentioned to me when we were discussing this last summer, which I paraphrase here: most young women won't let a man order their dinner, but they give up their right to make major decisions about their lives by failing to vote.

The America Votes push tomorrow will focus as follows:

This Saturday, women (and men) everywhere will join in a National Women's Election Action Day. Thousands of volunteers will take to the streets to register, recruit, educate, and mobilize voters to ensure that women stand up and are counted in this election.

Sign up now to take part, at:

http://www.americavotes.org/action/index.cfm?mg=moveon

Volunteers will participate in voter contact activities such as phone banking, door-to-door canvassing, campus organizing, activist trainings, and registering voters. The National Women's Election Action Day is being organized by America Votes, an unprecedented coalition including virtually every major progressive advocacy organization in America.