From communities across the Coachella Valley to cities throughout the nation, residents turned out in droves Wednesday, National Voter Registration Day, to register to vote.

Democratic Headquarters of the Desert was still counting new voter registrations on Friday morning, but Elle Kurpiewski, political development director, said the final tally will be north of 100.

“For the first time, we participated in the National Voter Registration Day, here in the Coachella Valley,” Kurpiewski. “Though organized by the Democratic Headquarters of the Desert, the project, like all our voter registration efforts year round, was nonpartisan.  We registered anyone who needed to register.”

The project took off, she said.

“Our nine Democratic Clubs stepped up with Courageous Resistance to secure sites and secure permissions,” Kurpiewski said. “The result was approximately 18 locations, including Country Clubs, a gym, the Pickford movie theater, Cardenas market, to name a few.  As this is a ten-year project, you can bet we will participate again next September.”

Joy Miedecke, president of the East Valley Republican Women Federated told Uken Report that the organization has register  “at least 100 new Republicans in the last few weeks.”

Caitlin Donnelly, education director, for Nonprofit VOTE, said, “We are still waiting on a lot of numbers, but we have some indications that we easily surpassed our goal of 250,000 new or updated voter registrations.”

Regardless of what the final tally is, we know for sure that this was the biggest “off-year” National Voter Registration Day to date, Donnelly said. “Shirley Chisholm famously said that ‘If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.’ Well, I think it’s safe to say that we are the table and the folding chairs keep coming.”

Find out about voter registration deadlines by state, voting times and locations, whether or not you’re eligible to register, and more. Visit the voter help page by clicking here.

 

Image Sources

  • register to vote: Shutterstock