Voter Drop Box Removal in Luzerne County

by Brian Dugas

Not sure how engaged you are with local politics, but recently there was an important decision made that impacts many people in Luzerne County. The Luzerne County election board announced the removal of the drop boxes for the November elections due to security concerns raised by the PA Department of State.

The right to vote is one of the most important rights we have as American citizens.  For many years that right was denied to many segments of our population, only changing after much suffering and several major significant political movements throughout our history.  But is the right to vote now guaranteed to everyone?  

Recently, many states have passed laws that make voting more difficult for a large segment of our population.  These laws frequently impact low socioeconomic populations through restrictive policies, challenging identification requirements, or limiting access. Because of these restrictions there are many people who just don’t vote because it’s too time consuming or difficult.  It’s these people that we need to share our fire of commitment with.

Today, after the service, we will be personalizing letters to people with low socioeconomic status in the State of Pennsylvania urging them to get out and vote. The organization we are working with is called Vote Forward.  Here is a little bit about it:

Vote Forward’s flagship voter contact program trains and supports volunteers writing personal, heartfelt letters to potential voters with an easy-to-use online platform. The majority of our letter-writing campaigns are nonpartisan campaigns, supporting our core 501c(3) and 501c(4) social-welfare mission, which focus on mobilizing potential voters in communities that have historically been marginalized in the political process—such as people of color, women, and young voters.

Vote Forward is an organization that is supported by UU Justice PA, and we have participated with it before.  If you would like to join us today, we have the letters that we will personalize, the envelopes, and the stamps in the back office.  Depending upon the number of participants, this should not take us more than a few minutes, but we will start off with some instructions. Because the letters are personalized, it is important that the right letter gets in the right envelope, and there and some instructions on what your personal message should and should not say. 

So if you would like to feed that fire of commitment that was hopefully lit today, please join Beth and I in the back room after refreshments.