Voting rights reform among workshops to be held at youth Powershift 2009 Conference

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From: Black Box Voting and Election Defense Alliance

Black Box Voting teaching youth activists how to do voting rights reform

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Ten thousand young, politically motivated and organized voters are descending on Washington D.C. this weekend.

Bev Harris of Black Box Voting, and Nancy Tobi of Election Defense Alliance are co-producing the important election rights segment at the youth-based PowerShift 2009 Conference #powershift09, with a hands-on workshop titled "Citizens Gone Wild: Taking Control of Our elections". Here are highlights from an interview by Joan Brunwasser about this, with the full article currently headlined at OpEdNews.com - http://www.opednews.com/articles/Nancy-Tobi-On-her-way-to-by-Joan-Brunwasser-090225-434.html

OpEdNews: "What do you and your team hope to accomplish at PowerShift 2009?"

Tobi: "We will energize the next generation of election integrity activists so that we can propel the movement forward and keep up the fight to take control of our elections. The youth environmental movement is composed of the children of the information age and they show it. They are smart, organized, and very savvy. They were the force that put climate change and green economy on the agenda during the last two presidential elections, and they are the force that got out the youth vote in record numbers to sweep Obama into the White House.

...

"During Election 2008 Black Box Voting and Election Defense Alliance joined forces with the youth environmental voting movement to launch "Protect the Count". This was an election night action designed to bring citizen oversight into the polling places to oversee the vote count.

"The leaders of the youth environmental movement impressed me immediately with their quick understanding of election integrity issues that many "gray haired ponytails" in the election integrity movement are still arguing about. Many "old-timers" in the current election integrity movement are still wasting a lot of time trying to play DC politics, trying to pass legislation like the Holt Bill."

(See Brad Friedman's feature on Bev Harris and Black Box Voting's stance opposing the Holt Bill: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6943 )

Tobi: "The younger generation understands, almost intuitively it seems, the value of standing for your principles to gain what you really want rather than compromising in order to gain questionable "wins" at any cost.

"The new generation understands, for instance, the myth of clean coal as easily as they can understand the myth of verified voting. "Clean coal" is sold as a compromise to enable industry to continue practices - such as strip mining and burning fossil fuels - that are fundamentally destructive to the environment. "Verified voting" is sold as a compromise to enable industry to continue practices - such as replacing election night public vote counting with post-election spot checks of secret computerized vote counts - that are fundamentally destructive to democracy.

"When I worked with them on Election 2008 Protect the Count, the youth organizers understood immediately that the most important thing was to get out there to the polls and practice citizen oversight on the elections. They understood immediately that citizen oversight is probably the most important of the founding principles of our nation and many of our state constitutions. They had no problem understanding that this is the highest priority we have in regaining control over our elections. And they suffered no delay in getting out there to protect the count! In New Hampshire alone, I had people coming in to protect the count from San Francisco, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Germany!"

OpEdNews: "What else do you want our readers to know?"

Tobi: "I think it is telling that the youth movement gave themselves the moniker "Power Vote" and now "Power Shift." They know their power, they used their power in their vote, and now they intend to weild their power.

"Power is a beautiful metaphor for this amazing new generation...This is the kind of movement that gets things done, and it is exactly the movement that America needs now."
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