KFTC's non-partisan election website is now online at www.KentuckyElection.org with information about the May 17th Primary.

Visit www.KentuckyElection.org to:
- Learn more about candidates and offices
- Find your voting location
- Verify what party you're registered as
- Find a local  contact for a ride to the polls
- Get involved in KFTC's voter work in your community

Please share this link with friends and check back often because we'll be adding more content leading up to Election Day.

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Update 5/1/11:  There's now a print version of the Voter Guide available for download at KentuckyElection.org.  If you need several for an event, please contact our Voter Empowerment Organizer at Dave@kftc.org of 859-420-8919.

KFTC and Witness For Peace have joined together over the last three years to forge closer connections between coal-affected community members and miners in Appalachia and in Colombia. Foreign corporations, mainly U.S. ones, mine millions of tons of coal in Colombia every year, even though Colombia does not use coal for its own electricity. And, 80% of coal mined in Colombia is exported to the United States. To bolster this exchange, every year Colombians visit Kentucky and KFTC members visit Colombia. 

Join this year's tour!

Some County Clerks’ offices across Kentucky started "in-person absentee voting," this week, allowing people to vote in advance of the election if they meet certain qualifications, such as people who will be working outside the state or people who have a medical procedure scheduled for that time. 

All County Clerks’ offices must allow in-house absentee voting at least twelve working days before Election Day (starting Friday, April 29th) but many choose to begin it earlier.  Voters will have until May 16, 2011 to cast an in-person absentee ballot if they qualify.

To see a good press release from Secretary of State Elaine Walker with more details, click Here. 

The Alliance for Appalachia is having a New Economic Transition Call-in Series for citizens, activists, and experts alike, throughout the Central Appalachian region. This quarterly call-in series will provide space for a regional conversation around key topics in the economic transition effort in the region. This collaboration is not intended to initially foster a regional strategy but rather to share success stories and useful, replicable models for local economic transition, as well as to provide a place for those working on these efforts locally to troubleshoot with one another.

Our first call is scheduled for this Thursday, April 21 at 1 p.m, EDT. This call’s topic is Efficiency and Renewable Portfolio Standard: The North Carolina Example and a Dialogue with Central Appalachian States.

Toll free call in info: 1-913-227-1219, access code: 765402

The call will consist of a 20-minute case study from Ivan Urlab, executive director of the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, to be followed with 40 minutes of information and questions from those working on economic transition policy in Central Appalachia. We hope to host in informal dialogue, but please prepare with questions and updates relevant to the work happening in your area.

In his presentation, Urlab will discuss lessons learned from the creation North Carolina’s Renewable and Efficiency Portfolio Standard.  The North Carolina experience can inform groups working on efficiency and renewable energy policy throughout the Central Appalachian states. For more information on the North Carolina law, visit the DSIRE website. (http://dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=NC09R&re=1&ee=1).

Contact Katey Lauer if you would like to receive the PowerPoint that corresponds with this call ahead of time at Katey.Lauer@TheAllianceForAppalachia.org.

KFTC's Primary Voter Registration efforts wrapped-up this weekend with a door-to-door canvass in Lexington and a two-day Kite Festival in Georgetown, among other efforts.  In recent weeks, KFTC members registered voters at Berea College and at community festivals, and otherwise integrated it into the rest of our field work. 

In Scott County, KFTC and NAACP members held joint voter registration trainings and door-to-door canvasses, and also joined the Georgetown Hispanic Initiative in registering voters this weekend. 

Thanks to all of the KFTC members who lent a hand to help out in this basic function of our Democracy.

     

KFTC members from eastern Kentucky contributed towards building a region-wide research agenda at the "Appalachian Community & Ecosystems Health Summit" last week.

Approximately 100 researchers, scientists and community members, mostly from the Central Appalachian region, gathered at the summit sponsored by the Eastern Kentucky University Environmental Research Institute and Wheeling Jesuit University. 

Participants collaboratively created research and data priorities in several topic areas, including community health impacts of fossil fuel extraction, water, the true cost of coal and creating economies that sustain communities. The negative impacts that coal mining is having on the region's community health and the environment and the resulting lack of economic diversification was a constant focus of group discussion.

During the summit, West Virginia University's Dr. Michael Hendryx said that his studies show that all of the combined problems found in coal mining areas including poverty, pollution, unemployment, stress, etc. result in about 11,000 extra deaths a year.

Relying on the extensive academic and scientific knowledge in the room, the group also began compiling a list of studies already in existence on community and ecosystems health in Central Appalachia.

KFTC participants will continue developing this regional study compilation and identifying research gaps going forward. One member expressed a desire to take this information to Governor Beshear, noting that we don't have to wait until the election to show him the facts about what is happening.

Look for more information about this summit in the upcoming issue of BTS. And, check the blog and BTS in the future to read about existing health studies.

Today, Monday April 18th, is the deadline to register to vote for Kentucky's May 17th Primary Election.

If you're not sure whether you're registered, visit the Kentucky Voter Information Center HERE to find out.

If you're not registered, or need to update your voter address moving from one county to another, there's still time!  get down to your local County Clerk's office and register or download a mail-in voter registration card and get it post-marked today.

Note that only registered Democrats can vote in Democratic Party primaries and only registered Republicans can vote in Republican Party primaries in Kentucky.

17-year-olds may also register and vote in the May Primary as long as they will turn 18 on November 8th, 2011 or earlier.

If you have any questions about voter registration, don't hesitate to contact our Voter Empowerment Organizer Dave Newton at (859) 420-8919.

Be on the look-out for more information from KFTC closer to the May 17th Primary Election date to let you know where candidates stand on various issues and more.

If you're in the mood to "nerd-out" on interesting national voting statistics just released from last year's Election...

Click Here for a great analysis by Nonprofit VOTE

Some key points:
* Kentucky is ranked as the 24th best voter turnout percentage.  Up from 26th in 2006.
* Voter turnout was ten points higher in the nine states with Election Day Registration.  Two of the newest states to adopt Election Day Registration are Iowa (2008) and Montana (2006).
* Early voting by mail and in-person continues to rise.An estimated 27-29% of voters cast ballots early in 2010, well above the 19% who voted early in 2006.
* 42 million fewer voters cast ballots in the 2010 midterm than in the 2008 presidential election.

And in other Voter Empowerment news, the Voter Registration deadline is coming up on Monday.  There are great voter registration events all across the state this weekend, so come out and join us if you get a chance.

Last week, Dana Beasley Brown asked you to urge your Congressional representative to support the Fairness in Taxation Act. Thank you for taking that action!

Tomorrow, the House will vote on a budget bill that contradicts the principles that the Fairness in Taxation Act upholds and that KFTC supports. KFTC has long supported budget and revenue policies that are fair and adequate to the work of moving us forward toward a Kentucky we all want - a Kentucky whose communities are safe and healthy with opportunities for excellent education and secure jobs.  This Kentucky doesn’t happen without the adequate investment of public dollars in quality education, healthcare, safe neighborhoods, and sound infrastructure - a responsibility that should be shared equitably among all of us.

The Ryan budget proposal fails to meet these criteria.  The Kentucky Center for Economic Policy has released a report on the impact of Ryan's budget proposal in Kentucky.  KCEP says that it "would be devastating for Kentucky families" by eroding our federal government and making deep cuts to programs that promote basic economic security and health--and still do virtually nothing to reduce the federal deficit because it includes deep tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations.  

KCEP's report says that the Ryan plan would increase out-of-pocket Medicare costs for seniors by changing the federal program to a private voucher program to buy private insurance.  The plan would also deny health insurance to an estimated 261,000 Kentuckians by eliminating the Medicaid expansion scheduled for 2014.  And it would cut more than $2 billion from Kentucky's food stamp program (SNAP) over the next 10 years, cutting Kentuckians out, or cutting allotments, or both.  Further, by shifting those federal programs to block grants, it would also prevent SNAP and Medicaid from responding to rising costs and rising needs.

Finally, the Ryan budget would put in place a plan to nearly end most every other federal
program except Social Security, health care and defense by 2050.

You can read more about economists' analysis of the Ryan plan by starting with KCEP's report, which links to a bundle of reports by the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities. 

The House is set to vote on the Ryan budget tomorrow.  It's passage is not certain.  Calling in could make a real impact on stopping this budget in its tracks, and creating an opportunity for a better starting point in the discussion of next year's budget.

You can find your Representative's contact information here.

Orion Magazine's Erik Hoffner recently hosted a program called "Walking the Talk" with Wendell Berry and Teri Blanton about the Kentucky Rising action in the Governor's office earlier this year.  Also joining them on the program is oil and gas activist Tim DeChristopher who faces 10 years in jail for disrupting the auctioning of rights to drill federal lands.  The program is about an hour long and is very much worth your time.