Wanna do something?
How about helping implement the 50-state, 435 District Plan to Register millions of high school and college students in August through November.
If you are interested after reviewing the Plan below, please let me know in (a) the comments; and (b) by Kos Mail. My goal is to get Kossack volunteers from as many CD’s as possible.
Now is the perfect time to prepare for an all-out drive beginning in August.
1. Identification: The first step is identifying all high schools and colleges in each Congressional District.
You can do that right now.
2. District Teams: Choose a person or small group responsible for voter registration in each CD.
A. About 35 out of 50 states have already had primaries for House and Senate candidates. In those states contact the campaign about adopting this or a similar plan.
B. For the other states, contact the District and County parties about adopting this or a similar plan.
C. If neither A nor B happens, find a group in the District willing to take this on (e.g., Young Democrats, 90 for 90.org, Model UN, Social Justice clubs, affinity groups, AA, Latinx , black, and/or Asian Student Unions, March for Life (#Neveragain), unions, local indivisible groups, parents’ groups.)
3. School Teams: For each school or college, identify individuals and groups who could lead and participate in registration efforts, based on the kind of groups in A or B
Confirm each school has a core group to carry out the registration program.
Use posters and social media to publicize the beginning of the drive.
Recruit teams in smaller subdivisions (state legislative districts) to assist with this.
Be sure all teams are familiar with local, state and school laws and regulations re voter registration.
Register the school’s efforts with Headcount.org
Note: There are many resources to help guide a voter registration drive, including Yosef 52's diary listing many sites and groups providing assistance for registration drives. The steps below are just my suggestion based on reviewing a few of these. Rock the Vote has an excellent detailed guide, and Swing Left has great resources.as does
4. Launch Day:
Obtain necessary permissions from the school administration and designate a day to begin the drive (“Launch Day”). If permission is difficult or impossible to obtain, select nearby off-school site frequented by students. Prior to Launch Day — publicize through social media, posters, flyers, etc.
On Launch Day
a. In person:
1. Staff centrally located tables in cafeteria and/or other heavily trafficked areas for students to fill out and return forms.
2. Distribute (and if possible, collect) registration forms in each 11th and 12th grade homeroom and/or social studies classes.
b. Online: Spread links to voter registration sites through texts, emails and any other appropriate social media. Include directions depending on state. For example, many states permit direct registration online. For others, e.g., New York, instructions should include how to print and either mail in or bring to one of the school leaders on or before the Collection Day (see below).
c. Continue to distribute forms and promote registration online in the two weeks prior to Collection Day.
5. Collection Day
Two weeks after Launch Day, staff same tables to collect paper registrations printed from online; distribute and collect new registrations.
Continue to spread links for registration online.
Continue to have forms available at school.
6. Assessment:
Consider methods to gauge success throughout the process, e.g., list names of turned in forms; ask students to confirm by text, email etc. that they have registered online; check registration in online registration records.
So please sign up (Kos Mail or Comments) for the first step — identifying schools and colleges.