Press Release 10/20/2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 20, 2008

Contact: Eleiza Braun, (415) 420-4059, eleizabraun@massey-media.com

New Voters Share their Stories
Voting Rights Advocacy Groups Launch Site to Help Tell Real Voters' Stories

Millions of historically-underrepresented Americans have recently registered to vote, and are staged to take the polls on Election Day like a tidal wave. Many of these voters are from minority and low-income communities, and enthusiastic young people are jumping into the electoral process like never before. Voting rights advocates are launching a site,www.ElectionStories.org, intended to give them voice and let these new voters introduce themselves to the electoral stage.

These voters are new Americans like Maria Peinado in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who was recently sworn in as a citizen and is proud to be exercising her most fundamental right as an American, voting for the first time in November. They are Americans like Newton Bell of Orlando, Florida, a reformed felon who is voting for the first time in 24 years, responding to the need to participate in the historic 2008 presidential election. They are young Americans like Danielle McCrary, a senior at South Division High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The site www.ElectionStories.org displays video of voters from all walks of life and all parts of the country, shares basic information about them, and contains a means for linking up reporters with voters.

Partisan operatives in the past two weeks have been attacking voter registration drives and undermining the over-the-top enthusiasm that many Americans feel this election season for registering to vote and heading to the polls. The sitewww.ElectionStories.org will show that the new voters who are flooding onto the rolls couldn't be more real. 

Participation in our democracy among voters who were previously shut out of the electoral process is one of the overwhelmingly positive, lasting narratives of this election season.

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