Iowa Citizen Action Network Education Foundation

Election Day Registration

The Iowa Citizen Action Network (ICAN) is working with legislative leaders in the House and Senate and with the Iowa Secretary of State’s office to draft Election Day Registration (EDR) legislation. This is very reasonable voter registration policy, and is currently in effect in two of Iowa’s neighboring states, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

We believe that the folks we work for and with would be best served if barriers to civic participation were removed and if voter turn-out in their communities improved. We are working with state and national organizations to raise public awareness about the need for EDR and to urge state lawmakers to support this legislation.

This is a great opportunity to help underrepresented populations voice their vote and, in the process, to change the dynamic of power in our state. ICAN has been active in promoting civic engagement for its entire history – registering voters door-to-door with its field canvasses over the years, and running non-partisan voter mobilization drives in recent years.

Year after year ICAN’s civic engagement workers have run up against the voter registration deadline in the last days before an election and are put in the awkward position of having to tell otherwise-qualified voters that they cannot vote. Since many infrequent or first-time voters do not take notice of elections until they are only days away, when the newspapers and airwaves are full of nothing but election ads, many of them only become interested in voting after they are no longer allowed to get registered.

Please join the effort to make the most fundamental right we have in our democracy – voting – accessible to anyone who is eligible to participate.

Take action for Election Day Registration! Contact your local newspaper to combat the misinformation about EDR.

GOTV activists

ACTION ALERTS!

Contact your local newspaper to combat the misinformation about EDR.

Take action for democracy! Contact your state legislator to support Election Day Registration.

Please join us in thanking the Iowa’s Secretary of State’s office.