Voter Registration as a requirement

[Lady Pi Phi]

I think our founders would encourage us to vote and would be proud that we were all registered and that we were politically active, because afterall, that's part of being a good citizen.

However, there are many different ways we can be good citizens, and that part of a democracy is ones right to abstain from the political process.

So yeah, I definitly see our organization encouraging its members to registered voters, in what ever country they are from.

But as someone who is a registered and active voter, I still would be unhappy if it was a requirement for my organization.

[aephi alum]

It's not a requirement for us either. It would be difficult to make voter registration a requirement for NPC sororities, since often there are new members who aren't 18 yet, or who are international students, possibly from countries where women can't vote. (Women in Switzerland didn't get the vote until sometime in the 1970's, I believe - that's not all that long ago.)

I wish sororities in general encouraged women to register and vote. A lot of women, including a lot of our sororities' founders and early members, fought long and hard to get women the right to vote.

[Senusret I]

Originally posted by KappaKittyCat
When you consider the founding purposes of the NPHC organizations, however, the question takes on a different look. I pulled these off of the organizational websites (all emphasis is mine):So when you look at the stated missions of the NPHC organizations, it makes quite a lot of sense that they should require that their members be registered to vote in their country of citizenship. How else are they going to achieve their goals?

Although not every NPHC organization has this requirement, THANK YOU for doing your own research and gaining your own understanding.

[Peaches-n-Cream]

I wrote out a post about how you register to vote in New York, but it never posted so I guess it is lost in cyberspace. If you are interested in how to register to vote in New York, check out http://www.vote.nyc.ny.us/register.jsp for details.

I don't think that NPC sororities can make registering to vote mandatory, but I think that we can show our members how to register. It really isn't difficult or time consuming. At the time of the founding of all of the current NPCs, our Founders were not permitted to vote simply because they were women. Times have changed, and we should take advantage of the opportunities our Founders did not have.

[Shima-Mizu]

Originally posted by Peaches-n-Cream
I wrote out a post about how you register to vote in New York, but it never posted so I guess it is lost in cyberspace. If you are interested in how to register to vote in New York, check out http://www.vote.nyc.ny.us/register.jsp for details.

I don't think that NPC sororities can make registering to vote mandatory, but I think that we can show our members how to register. It really isn't difficult or time consuming. At the time of the founding of all of the current NPCs, our Founders were not permitted to vote simply because they were women. Times have changed, and we should take advantage of the opportunities our Founders did not have.

My state of voter registration ^^

[seraphimsprite]

This is a slight tangent, but I was just thinking. . . I think its really sad that some of our members would never dream of missing chapter elections, but they can't be bothered to vote for U.S. President. Or the chapters where everyone is "strongly encouraged" to vote in student government elections, but not federal. Although I'm a registered voter and I vote in every election, I can think of quite a few of my sorority sisters that fit this description.

[Kevin]

Originally posted by Peaches-n-Cream

I don't think that NPC sororities can make registering to vote mandatory, but I think that we can show our members how to register. It really isn't difficult or time consuming. At the time of the founding of all of the current NPCs, our Founders were not permitted to vote simply because they were women. Times have changed, and we should take advantage of the opportunities our Founders did not have.

Yeah.

Try this (this is what we do with our undergrad chapter).

Before each major election an alumnus from our alumni chapter will show up with a bunch of voter registration forms and pass them out to the actives while giving a talk about civic duty. It's good stuff.

A lot of our guys got really interested here recently because we had a US Senate primary that featured 2 Sigma Nu's out of 3 candidates -- one of 'em won (for more details, see my thread about it in the Sigma Nu forum).

[EXColony]

I have never heard of anyone that does require it, but I have heard that sorority girls on our campus are REQUIRED to vote in all SGA and Homecoming elections. MOST of the times they don't care who you vote, but just that you do vote. If you do not then you get fined. I've never heard it being enacted, but I know they get threatened ESPECIALLY if a sister is running.

JP

[Janerz222]

Slight tangent here. . .

Thought some of you might be interested in the Fraternal Caucus. I am still learning about this, but it looks like they put together the GO VOTE 04 program.

[axidhawkeye]

this of course is purly my opinion of course.
in the fall the new voter's project is working with the university of iowa's greek community to register people to vote, and i think that the encouragement to vote is a positive thing. one thing that greek life encourages is giving back to one's community, and one way is to vote. of course its an individual's choice to vote, but many people don't know how to go about it and that's why many people don't vote.

politics can be kept out of the house if you make the effort to keep it out. my grand big sis works for Bush/Cheney and she would pick on me when i was working for the Dean campaign, but we both knew when to stop and the girls in my house told us when it got annoying. it took effort on both our parts to make it work, but it did. eventually we knew who we could and couldn't talk politics around and the whole thing is a non-issue now.

i think that providing members with information to register to vote is a great idea and should be encouraged, but i don't think that it should be manditory.

[Little E]

To me there is a huge difference in requiring versus encouraging. Yes I think that we should be doing voter registration drives, and yes we should be helping provide transportation. But at the same time, I do not think we should require people to be registered. I feel like voting is one of the most sacred responsibilities and that it shouldn't be forced on others.

I commend Alpha Phi Alpha for their ability to have registration as part of membership, but I just feel that, at least in my chapter, the requirement would have cause more internal strife than necessary. I also would like to note the difference in the organizations. For Alpha, it was part of their founding, and has grown as part of their tradtion. The world needs more organizations like Alpha, espcecially in a world where people are still turned away from the voting polls because of their skin color. But to require it, would turn me off. It is a personal prefrence, no insult intended toward orgs that do require it. (Though I must say, to do it over again, and with the requirement already in place, I would still join. Though I'm not sure how it works in a state without voter registration cards...)

[pirate00]

Don't know if this was mentioned already, but the Freemasons in most jurisdictions ask on a prospective initiate's application if they are registered to vote and in what precinct. If an organization is to serve a pupose in its community and is supposed to be composed of members who care about their city, state, and nation, then it would almost be expected that we would vote during elections.

[meg85]

I think its a good idea for an org. to strongly encourage members to vote and make registering easier(educating members different registering options). However, I am strongly against mandatory voting for a chapter. IMHO, I would much rather have fewer people vote who truly are familiar with the issues, know the candidates, etc. than EVERYONE vote and have a few people who vote based solely on their parent's/friend's views or even worse, just flippantly tossing a coin. This is a really big issue to me. When I told my mom I wasn't sure if I was going to vote for my family's party of choice because I wanted to make my own decision, she was furious. However, I believe my vote counts just as much as hers does and I need to make my OWN decision. Well, since this is a political debate, let me just say sorry if I offended anyone, lol. *meg*

[cash78mere]

encouragement is the way to go. requirement isn't, in my opinion.

[swissmiss04]

My chapter doesn't require it. I think it would be a great philanthropy for a chapter to organize transport to the polls for those people who might not otherwise be able to make it (poor, elderly, disabled, etc).

There are always rumors here on campus that the Machine shuttles members to the polls during SGA elections and requires them to vote for "the" candidates. True or not, I also find it sad that the same people who are so rabid around SGA elections seem not to give a flip about national elections.