With chants of “Our Voice, Our Vote,” two dozen immigrant and worker advocates celebrated yesterday National Voter Registration Day, and announced over 2,000 new voter registrations collected in Black and Latino communities across Long Island.
The summer voter registration push, and yesterday’s event for the National Voter Registration Day, were part of an escalating campaign by local community members and working-class and immigrant-advocacy organization to register and mobilize voters of color for crucial local elections on November 3rd. Advocates are working to win affordable housing, better schools and living wage jobs on Long Island.
Volunteers spent six weeks out in African American and Latino communities, like Brentwood and Hempstead, registering voters and informing them about the importance of voting in order to get the proper representation and change for our communities, according to Jessica Reyes, of SEPA Mujer, an organization that advocates for women’s rights.
“Fifty years ago, the United States passed the Voting Rights Act, and still today, we’re fighting for that right,” said Amol Sinha, Suffolk Couty Chapter Director for the New York Civil Liberties Union. “It’s so urgent for people to be registered, to organize, and for communities to voice their collective power to people in office… to make sure our leaders know that this is what America looks like,” Sinha said.
