It's Time to Get Serious About Getting Out the Vote

The daughter of the woman who works with me stood on line for four hours on Saturday in order to exercise her right to vote. She is young, she is African American, she lives in Georgia, outside of Atlanta, which has early voting. For states with early voting-- 30 states permit some form of early voting--the lines have been long and the turnout has been sensational. Florida, of course, made its early voting as difficult as its balloting was in 2000, the year of the hanging chad. Despite its efforts to suppress, by Monday evening already a million people have voted there.

Here are some worrisome facts: In 2004, according to the November 10, 2008 issue of The Nation, the anticipated surge in young, minority, and low-income families never happened despite enormous registration efforts.

"Turnout among black and Hispanic voters trailed that of whites by at least 7 percent; people earning more than $50,000 outvoted those making less than $20,000 by 34 percent and 72 percent of Americans 55 and over showed up at the polls, compared with only 47 percent of 18-24 year olds."

There is a way to remind the reticent voters in your life that they have to put themselves out this year. MoveOn.org's political action committee has a fabulously funny video to get the message out that every vote counts. It creates a phony news report that the election was lost to McCain by a single vote. You can personalize the video to your younger friends, first time voters, kids, nieces and nephews, anyone who might think waiting on line for four hours to exercise the right to vote is just too much to sacrifice. Click here and join the almost 7 million people who have personalized this video.