“Let's get ready to rumble!!!” - Voter Madness

 (Below is an account from last week's incredible 48-hour-straight voter registration marathon in Louisville)

Most people in Kentucky know what Madness is all about. You hear people talking about it in bars, on the streets, at the grocery store, even in church. Fans are out in hordes – crazy outfits, team tees, homemade signs, cheering, dancing, shouting – going crazy. Lots of high-power individuals coming together as a team. High stakes, high scores, every second counts. The air crackles with energy and excitement.

Members of KFTC and Kentucky Jobs with Justice definitely know what VOTER Madness is all about. Starting Friday, October 5^th, our voter registration teams dominated the Louisville “courts” for 48 straight hours and the crowds went wild. From St. James Court to St. Stephen's Church, from Fourth Street Live to McD's at five, our team of 20 members, organizers and volunteers brought their A-game. The result? Democracy scored big. According to WLKY News, “The number of registered voters in Jefferson County has hit a record level of more than 500,000.”

Check out the replay reel:

*Three-pointer & Rebound! Outside Fourth Street Live we registered immigrant citizen cabbies from Morroco, Jordan, and Ethiopa, along with another driver who was reluctant to vote until he learned about our environmental justice work in his old home Floyd County.

*Nice Layup! We registered a young woman to vote in the midst of our late night Bardstown Road shift at a pizza joint. About an hour later, we met her again at a bar and wound up having a really great conversation about voting rights.

*Power Play! We had such a huge turnout of volunteers Saturday at the Portland Kroger that we broke into two teams to register voters at the Shively Kroger as well, scoring 100 registrations in one shift!

*She shoots, she scores! we had a news crew come out to interview member Emily Nordling, and she registered the reporter to vote!

*All-star Starting Line-up! Big thanks to volunteers Becki, Howard, Emily, Honey, Curtis, Chris, Kiara, Katrinia, Anthony, Donald, Elizabeth, Natalie, Tierra, Cierra, David, and many others who showed up!

We generated the craziness, fun, and excitement to raise awareness of the October 9^th voter registration deadline and reach as many potential voters at possible. Because despite all the campaign hype that comes with election season, much more is at stake than who wins or loses any given race. Consider this report back from organizer Kristah Lavalle:

“During Voter Madness I had a 5 a.m. shift at a fast food restaurant in downtown Louisville. We came with an expectation not of getting a lot of folks to register but of finding some that otherwise wouldn't have been able to register in time on their own. A Jobs with Justice organizer and I met our volunteer and sat down to give a crash course on registering voters. We quickly found out she didn't need one. She told us she had been registering voters on her own for months and she had turned in 200 registration cards on her own to the county clerk. Since she didn't need the lesson we let her talk to the first person we came across. He was 20 years old and had no real interest in registering. Katrinia asked if she could sit with him and tell him a story. She told him that she had an aunt who would always talk to her and her siblings about how important it was to vote, but with them being kids they never really paid attention. Then one day when she was looking through pictures she saw a picture of her aunt with her head shaved and saw a huge scar across the side of her head. Katrinia took the picture to her mom and asked what the scar was from. She told her that when her aunt was younger she was standing in line to register to vote and she along with other African-Americans were attacked. People started throwing things at them and she was hit in the head. Katrinia has been an avid voter since she heard that story and registers other people to vote every year. The young man she sat down with registered to vote on the spot. We were so lucky to have such a great volunteer with such a powerful story join KFTC and Jobs with Justice for our Voter Madness weekend.”

The story of Katrinia's aunt reminds us that this is no game, that our votes are our chance to assert our rights as individuals and communities, that when we vote “the voices of ordinary people are heard and respected in our democracy.” (KFTC Vision Statement)