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What's happening in the federal IT community
By Tuesday, June 17, 2008 | 11:07 AM
Political pundits predict that college students will turn out in record numbers to vote in November, and the American Federation of Government Employees wants to make sure they know their rights, in case they are turned away at the polls. AFGE launched on Monday pages on MySpace and Facebook called Voter Protection. (The social networking sites require registration to view the pages.) "College students will account for a large portion of the voting population this election year. Most of them are new voters, making them easy to deceive," said Andrea Brooks, national vice president of Women's and Fair Practices, in a prepared statement. "It is our objective to have more of these students successfully cast a ballot."
Reports have indicated college students have had trouble voting in past elections. During Indiana's primary in May, a college student in South Bend was not allowed to vote because her only identification was from the private college she attended. The ID did not comply with the state's new photo identification law. During the same primary, some Purdue University students weren't allowed to use their state-issued photo IDs to vote because the cards lacked an expiration date, and students in North Carolina who had registered by the deadline were not allowed to vote, according to an article posted on bnet.com.
The MySpace and Facebook pages, created by two AFGE student interns, provide voting tips, including links to boards of elections, and voting options.
Comments
Just as long as taxpayer money wasn't used to pay them
dan ketter | Thursday, June 19, 2008 | 4:00 PMThis is all well and good. Be sure to inform the students of their responsibilities, as well as their rights and priveleges. They have a responsibility to learn and comply with the law, and work through proper channels to change the ones they believe need improvement - every Boy Scout learns this in Citizenship in the Nation merit badge studies.
They also have a huge responsibility to cast a vote which considers the impact on their fellow citizens. Voting for candidates who intend to raise all kinds of taxes and reduce one's ability to conduct business and exercise control over rightfully-owned property and civil rights (the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was recognized by the Founding Fathers as a right even before 1787) places burdens on Americans that college students have not had to bear. They should consider how they would vote after having paid their first few years of SSI, Medicare, Federal Income tax, State Income tax, City Income tax, property tax on their home, and license fees and tax on their dogs and food, and THEN see how they feel about "change we can believe in" utopian slogans. After one has taken responsibility for his or her own behavior and self-sufficiency, it becomes obvious that more fellow citizens should do the same. Private charities begin to shoe themselves as the more efficient means of lifting the down-trodden here and abroad.
Railing against "Big Oil" and the GOP is chic in 2008. By the time they buy a home, and start raising boys and girls of their own, I predict many will want to protest "Big News Media (AP)", "Big Colleges" for their bias and indoctrinations, and "Big Hollywood" for the corrupting influences, and "Big Government" for the marxist damage to America.
I believe the decision to place a page on MySpace was very wise. It does indeed reach a lot of people young and old. We have many generations that are now computer savy and much is done only on the computer now.
The MySpace site is not only social; it can be an information highway with pages covering many important and interesting topics with many resources. I myself, even in my mid 40ties, have a page with 500+ friends and will search to add Voter Protection to my friends list as soon as I get home.
The keys are to get the word out for people to add them to their friends list and to get "Voter Protection" as a featured page on the home page of MySpace, if only for a day.
Two thumbs up to the UNNAMED AFGE student interns! However you do have your work cut out for you now to get the word out and keep it up and running! Good Luck!
Lisa S. | Tuesday, June 17, 2008 | 2:39 PM