Effort underway to boost US voter participation(视频)

VOA 2012-10-17 10:39

分享到

 

Get Flash Player

Get Flash Player

Download

The US presidential election is approaching, and political parties and advocacy groups across the nation are making a final push to get people registered to vote and to the polls for the November 6th contest. Groups are mobilizing to get an underrepresented group of eligible voters involved in the process.

Shakei Haynes is helping college students register to vote in the November election.

He's been doing this since 2005 when he was 16-years-old. Now he's a political science student at Howard University in Washington. He says the job is getting easier.

"Mobilizing individuals to get registered to vote has not been hard at all because people understand the urgency. In this election, you have two different contrasting views of what America should look like over the next four years," said Haynes.

Some of these young African-American students will be first-time voters. Nearly half of the seven million African Americans ages 18 to 30 were unregistered and therefore not eligible to vote, according to the 2010 US Census.

Shakei says that is unacceptable and young people, especially minorities, should not be underrepresented in the political process.

"A democracy should be reflective of the people who are in it. If we can, you know, make that process a little easier for students then that is our job, and that is the reward at the end of the day," he said.

Howard student Jai Dungey is from New Jersey. She says everyone should know their vote matters.

"Voting is a right, it is a right. People need to realize that it is not a privilege. We should come together and just take advantage of this right we have been given and people have worked so hard to give us," said Dungey.

Corion Jones is voting for the first time. He's from the battleground state of Ohio. He feels his vote could help determine the outcome of the election.

"Everyone should be able to express what they want or what they feel in their own country, so the opportunity and the ability to vote is highly important," said Jones.

"Just encourage sort of those last few remaining folks we are trying to reach," said Gail Kitch.

Gail Kitch is chief operating officer with the non-partisan Voter Participation Center in Washington. Her group launched a voter-registration campaign by mail last year targeting young people of color and unmarried women.

"The young person is sort of primed to think they are ready to participate now, and this kind of a document mailed straight to them is exactly the kind of thing they are going to respond to," she said.

Now the push is on to make sure newly registered voters actually cast ballots in November.

相关阅读

West Nile surge keeps exterminator busy(视频)

Student street clinic helps homeless(视频)

Number of Chinese students in US dramatically expands

Unusual Mars rock surprises rover scientist

(来源:VOA 编辑:Julie)

 

分享到

中国日报网英语点津版权说明:凡注明来源为“中国日报网英语点津:XXX(署名)”的原创作品,除与中国日报网签署英语点津内容授权协议的网站外,其他任何网站或单位未经允许不得非法盗链、转载和使用,违者必究。如需使用,请与010-84883561联系;凡本网注明“来源:XXX(非英语点津)”的作品,均转载自其它媒体,目的在于传播更多信息,其他媒体如需转载,请与稿件来源方联系,如产生任何问题与本网无关;本网所发布的歌曲、电影片段,版权归原作者所有,仅供学习与研究,如果侵权,请提供版权证明,以便尽快删除。

中国日报网双语新闻

扫描左侧二维码

添加Chinadaily_Mobile
你想看的我们这儿都有!

中国日报双语手机报

点击左侧图标查看订阅方式

中国首份双语手机报
学英语看资讯一个都不能少!

关注和订阅

本文相关阅读
人气排行
热搜词
 
 
精华栏目
 

阅读

词汇

视听

翻译

口语

合作

 

关于我们 | 联系方式 | 招聘信息

Copyright by chinadaily.com.cn. All rights reserved. None of this material may be used for any commercial or public use. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. 版权声明:本网站所刊登的中国日报网英语点津内容,版权属中国日报网所有,未经协议授权,禁止下载使用。 欢迎愿意与本网站合作的单位或个人与我们联系。

电话:8610-84883645

传真:8610-84883500

Email: languagetips@chinadaily.com.cn