Elana & Elena's Blog - Archived Entry

Where we were in West Philly on Saturday is something like a ghost town. It was hard to tell which buildings were abandoned and which were just really run-down, sad places to live. But Dave MacD and I, plus an intrepid new Driving Votes tripper named EJ, spent the day talking to voters in this important part of town. We had lists of registered voters, including info on how many times everyone voted in past elections. We walked this four block by four block area get noon to seven, asking people if they’d sign a “Count on Me” to promise to vote and if they’d hang an ACORN sign in their window. The signs, saying “Another ACORN family that votes” seemed to be an easy commitment, and we encouraged everyone to hang them up on the spot, to create a community of voters. We saw many new signs when we left that evening. We also got positive responses about voting from most West Philadelphians. We heard a lot of “Bush isn’t going to steal the election again” and “This war is fucked up.” Some volunteered to help get out the vote with us in the days to come, some were interested in paid positions as canvassers. When people said politicians didn’t care about their neighborhood, we reminded them that registering to vote and voting are the best ways to make politicians pay attention to you, and that way too often areas like this get ignored, in favor of higher turn-out suburbs. Though we definitely faced some initial skepticism, we made many friends and got many promises to vote on November 2nd.
Here’s a photo of us at the ACORN office before hitting the streets. Pennsylvania is looking good for Kerry right now, and we think it’ll be even stronger when all these “infrequent” voters show up at the polls and make their strong voices heard. It’s not easy to go into a foreign neighborhood and ask people to promise to vote, but Philly is a friendly town full of people waiting to be paid attention to. Dave, EJ and I worked hard and made dozens and dozens of contacts with Kerry supporters who will be out in full force next week. Yeah Driving Votes! See you all in Philly.