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The Voter Organizing, Training and Empowerment (VOTE) 2008 Project works with twelve organizations from throughout the region to boost their capacity to involve members in defining, shaping and leading policy issues critical to their constituencies and advancing their missions. The project makes the connections between public policy arenas from the legislature to the ballot box and grassroots organizing.
VOTE focuses on organizations in communities not often heard in the public square -immigrants and refugees, youth, Native Americans, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, people of color organizations and women. The Center supports a movement building approach to policy engagement that encompasses voter registration, education, and mobilization as tools to strengthen the leadership and capacity of groups that continue beyond what happens in any given electoral cycle. VOTE 2008 is designed to assist membership based organizations to take a movement building approach to electoral politics in order to:
- Register voters in priority constituencies
- Educate and engage those new voters (motivation and mobilization)
- Expand the organization’s regular leadership through thoughtful training and leadership development programs
- Have political analysis that looks at the issues at hand on election day with a longer term perspective
- Keep members civically engaged after the election
VOTE 2008/2009 participants cut a wide swath across the region, with groups from five states, with an amazing array of constituencies. The Oregon VOTE organizations are: Center for Intercultural Organizing, Community Alliance of Tenants, Oregon Action, Oregon Student Association, Partnership for Safety & Justice, Rural Organizing Project and Voz Hispana. In Montana we will be continuing our work with Montana Women Vote, in Wyoming we will be working with the Equality State Policy Center and in Nevada, The Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada. In Washington State we will be working with Hate Free Zone and the Statewide Poverty Action Network.
If you are interested in learning more about VOTE 2008 or the Civic Engagement Program of Western States Center in general, please contact Nancy Haque, Field Director for Civic Participation and Political Power Program at nancyh [at] wscpdx.org or call at (503)228-8866 ext.105
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