Campaign to Boost Voter Turnout In North Carolina Underway

Common Cause N.C. To Launch ‘Vote For America’ Project

North Carolina Contact: Bob Phillips/ 919-836-0027

Common Cause President Chellie Pingree was a featured speaker at the national conference of the Fannie Lou Hamer Project in Durham, North Carolina on June 25-26. Pingree, in her remarks, vowed that Common Cause would continue to be a proud partner with the Fannie Lou Hamer Project in the struggle for meaningful campaign finance reform. The Fannie Lou Hamer project was founded five years ago to promote campaign finance as a civil rights issue. The project’s namesake, the late Fannie Lou Hammer, was a Mississippi civil rights leader during the 1960’s and early 70’s.

(photo from left to right) Spencer Overton, Common Cause national governing board member and board member of Fannie Lou Hamer Project; Keon Pettaway, Common Cause North Carolina student intern; Common Cause President Chellie Pingree; Ann McCracken, co-chair Common Cause North Carolina.

Conference participants included a variety of national and local activists including members of Common Cause North Carolina. Spencer Overton, a Common Cause national governing board member, also helped facilitate workshops. Overton is an executive committee member of the Fannie Lou Hamer Project’s Board of Directors.

While in the Tar Heel state, Pingree provided a big boost for the state’s Vote for America campaign by meeting with a variety of organizations interested in helping with the voter pledge card drive. Common Cause North Carolina plans to target young people, minorities and displaced workers to encourage them to register to vote, and then to get to the polls on Election Day. North Carolina currently ranks 44 out of 50 states in voter turnout during the last six presidential elections.

North Carolina native and Common Cause National Governing Board member Jim Goodmon also attended the meeting. Goodmon, a local broadcast owner, praised Pingree’s leadership in the ongoing battle against media consolidation. The issue has been in the news recently with last week’s decision by a federal appeals court to block the Federal Communications Commission from implementing new, relaxed ownership rules that would lead to a handful of corporate media giants controlling nearly all of what we see, hear and read. Pingree discussed that issue and others during her NC visit while being interviewed on a statewide radio public affairs program.