Though the Eyes of an Intern: Letters to the Editor

This week in the Common Cause Massachusetts office, we have been focusing on a Letter to the Editor campaign for Automatic Voter Registration (AVR). Assistant Director Devon Nir and I have been delighted to facilitate the process, from writing sample letters to seeing impassioned pleas for AVR printed in local newspapers like the Lowell Sun and the Berkshire Eagle.

When Pam Wilmot, our fearless Executive Director, first told me what to expect from the project, she estimated that about 75 people would participate in the campaign. But we have already blown that number far out of the water with 115 people signed up to send in letters to their local papers. And we’re just getting started—the campaign is less than a week old!

So many people are eager to urge their friends and neighbors to support Automatic Voter Registration, which could not only make our voter rolls more accurate and secure, but also register up to 700,000 new voters in Massachusetts. Nine states and Washington, D.C. have already passed AVR, and the early results are very promising—in Oregon, over 230,000 new voters were added to the rolls thanks to AVR, and more than 97,000 of these new voters then participated in the 2016 election. 265,000 inaccurate addresses were also corrected.

Our democracy works best when it every vote is counted, and for that to be the case the everyone must have the chance to cast a ballot.

I hope our Representatives and Senators take notice of these calls for action and bring the AVR bill to a vote this session.

Sign up here to join the Letter to the Editor campaign for Automatic Voter Registration (AVR)!

Check out some published letters:
Berkshire Eagle
Lowell Sun
Berkshire Edge
Springfield Reublican