Voting Rights Community Organizing in Georgetown
KFTC members living in Scott County have stepped-up in recent months to build our local campaign to restore voting rights to former felons. Scott County members are especially influential in this issue because they are constituents of Senator Damon Thayer, chair of the State and Local Government Committee.
We've had small kitchen-table meetings, class presentations, conversations between members, and a few larger events like tabling at the Pete Seeger concert on Georgetown's campus a few weeks ago. Scott County members have also been involved in all three of the meetings we've had with Senator Damon Thayer on this issue earlier during the legislative session.
Last night, we had our first ever KFTC Voting Rights Community Meeting in Georgetown, bringing everyone together to meet each other for the first time, develop an identity as a group, and plan more events.
Seventeen folks attended, including two former felons, three mothers of former felons, African American community representation, college professors, new folks, long-time KFTC members coming to their first meeting, and more.
"There are a lot of challenging public issues in which you have to carefully weight the pros and the cons. This issue is different in that I just don't see any cons. There's no reason for us not to be able to give these people the right to vote." - Linda Kubala, Scott County
We spent a lot of time talking about the Voting Rights issue, the path to win a constitutional amendment, the importance of Scott County in the fight, and some tentative ideas about what we can do locally to win.
We also spent a lot of time just getting to know each other and why we care about this issue. Very few of the people in the room had met each other before and we're starting to build connections and a groups identity."I have a young son who is incarcerated... When he comes out of prison, I want him to be able to make and impact - a real positive impact - on his community. He needs to be able to start by being a part of his community and to be able to vote and that's why I'm here tonight" - Elwanda McNeal, Scott County
Eager to keep going, they pushed to schedule their big next meeting *next week* - just seven days from now on Thursday, June 4th at 6:30pm at the Ed Davis Learning Center - 151 Ed Davis Ln, Georgetown.