State-Journal.com - Registration group targets KSU, low-income residents

Photo By State Journal/Kelly MackeyMax Thomas, left, and Neill Fox sit at a table in front of the Democratic Headquarters on St. Clair Street as they register people to vote.

By focusing on students at Kentucky State University and low-income residents, organizer Max Thomas says he's helped more than 1,000 register to vote.

"It's a labor of love," he told The State Journal.

The deadline is Monday and Thomas said he plans to continue canvassing door-to-door this weekend. However, Thomas is quick to share credit for the effort with his wife and 30 volunteers.

Franklin County Clerk Guy Zeigler said Thomas' team has been busy and is likely one of the largest efforts in recent years.

For the last six weeks, Thomas and the other volunteers have been going door-to-door on Holmes Street and Thorn Hill and have set up tables at Pic Pac, Wal-Mart and Save A Lot. They also register voters at high school football games.

Although Thomas supports Democratic presidential candidate Barrack Obama, the voter registration drive is a non-partisan effort, he said. Thomas said he doesn't ask voters if they are Republican or Democrat and accepts registration cards for either party.

"I have a sincere interest in getting everybody registered to vote " Republicans, Democrats and Independents," he said.

"Being a black African American, the right to vote is engrained in me. Everybody should use that right to vote."

Thompson, 53, is a retired state employee and said his team registered about 500 students at KSU during a weeklong effort on campus.

"The students are really involved this year, and they are wanting to vote," he said. "They just didn't know how to get registered."

Volunteers also registered several hundred low-income residents after targeting areas like Prince Hall and Holmes Street, Thomas said.

"People are really happy to see us," he said.

Many are eager to register because they are enthused about the presidential contest between Obama and Republican candidate John McCain, he said.

Thomas even took his table and forms to a family reunion in Shelbyville in August and registered 30 relatives.

"They were just so happy, they thought it was the best thing," he said.

Zeigler said voter registration has increased in the last few weeks and is on track to be above average.

Absentee voting also started last week and so far 31 have voted on a machine in Zeigler's office, he said. Zeigler has also received 191 absentee requests for paper ballots which is above average and will likely increase, he said.

Because the election is still five weeks away, Zeigler said it's difficult to predict turnout. Local voter turnout for the 2004 presidential election was 73 percent and Zeigler said it will probably be within the same range on Nov. 4.

42.	Posted by Freedom October 6, 2008
	Eddie, you are hilarious. You make this post worth reading. By the way we are not in a recession by definition. Do you need me to define recession again for you? I know you don't like it when definitions don't meet your desires but the heck with the details. I am just glad I made such an impression that you remember me from a year ago. At that time you said we were in a recession and we weren't, again so much for details. Just be prepared with this downturn that the people with money that create the jobs will withdraw capital when the taxes increase and you will see a depression at the same time a recession by definition is realized. Oh and by the way there is no right to vote. The constitution states you can't be denied voting privedge based on certain criteria. If it were a right, it could never be take away from you which the privledge to vote can. ie convicted felons. Civics 101 government school but some of it stuck.

39.	Posted by doesitreallymattereddie? October 3, 2008
	It's no use briangeier - Freedom is the same person who's been saying for a year now that our economy isn't in a recession. But good work bg. gmo, yeah, that is what they are saying, 'even the uniformed and under educated' as you label them, have a right to vote. Maybe you should have paid a little more attention in school yourself. Particularly in your social studies classes, I know they covered it, you know, that part about THE CONSTITUTION! Get over it b/c it all really doesn't matter - does it eddie? I've got more republican views than democratic, yet most of the vocal republicans that speak on here, really have no idea what they are talking about. BTW GMO & Freedom, while I'm not religious, Sunday school is something I attended, and perhaps you both should have as well - or a sermon for that matter. God (from whichever endoctrine) likes it when you help, feed, and aid the poor, uneducated, and underpriveldged... since most republicans are also religious, chances are good, your both going to spend a lot of time with that one guy, oh what's his name, Lucifer. SOCIAL services are not the problem. The 'accepted' SLAVE laborors from Mexico that do not pay into the systems and have large families pulling $ out of those systems (i.e. welfare or even local schools) are imho. I say 'accepted' because I lay this blame on the shoulders of the Republican party that has been in charge for the past 8yrs.

38.	Posted by briangeier October 3, 2008
	gmo, first off, don't you find it ironic that you are complaining about people who expect the government to take care of them, and yet you are only in the place you are at because you worked at a government job? i'm sure that whatever branch you worked in, we could identify major areas of wasteful spending. everywhere, there is corruption and lack of oversight. so when we criticize spending, we should sharpen our understanding by putting things in perspective. i'm not a liberal, and i don't think everyone deserves to be nannied by the government. but when i look at the government, and if i'm trying to reduce its spending, i'd look at the huge chunks of money being wasted on defense and corporate subsidies and tax breaks just as much, if not more, than the extra dollars going to people on welfare who should be doing something else.

37.	Posted by briangeier October 3, 2008
	miramar, you're right: the definition of "social services" needs to be defined before we can really talk about what is being spent. as far as i can tell, "welfare", that is, aid to low-income people and families, accounts for less than 1% of federal spending. http://finance.yahoo.com/taxes/article/102817/How-Your-Tax-Dollars-Are-Spent but if you're talking about social security, medicare, education...these add to the percentage. just medicare is something like 13%. http://encarta.msn.com/media_461566684/U_S_Government_Spending.html but i think we all agree that the elderly should be taken care of. ...or do we also want them to lose their social programs. that would save your tax money! the point stands: the handouts via welfare programs, even if they are a complete waste of money, don't even account for 1 penny of your tax dollar. now, the billions of dollars that went missing in iraq? subsidies to the richest corporations in the world? there's some silver coins. oh, now i remember the saying about those that want to blame the poor for taxing the country to bankruptcy: the chick second to last on the pecking order pecks hardest.

35.	Posted by miramar October 2, 2008
	I have done my homework. I also realize that a lot of things that are social services are called other things, like CRA. For those of you out there wondering where this mortgage crisis came from, look back to Carter and Clinton for the Community Reinvestment Act. This charged banks with providing loans to low income areas. Banks are watched closely and "highly encouraged" to make loans in these areas. This is a worthy endeavor in theory, however, if they don't have the income to make their current payments, how do they pay back their new loans? I will tell you, they typically do not. These are what you would call sub-prime loans. Banks created loans to offer to sub-par borrowers at the encouragement of the federal government. This is one of the reasons we are facing a $700 billion bail out. I don't know about you, but I consider the government telling banks to make loans to low income individuals that should not qualify for a loan a social program. It does not qualify as a social service program like welfare, but it comes out of my pocket just the same. Another program that is not classified a social service that comes out of tax payer coffers is subsidized mortgages. This is offered by the USDA. For inidviduals and families that fall below the median income, they can receive a 1-2% mortgage and many times $5-10,000 in down payment assistance. This is a great program and I am all for it. But I want people to face up to the fact that social services by any other name still come out of the same tax dollars. There are several billion dollars given away through this program and many like it every year. Before you talk about one penny of every dollar, make sure you do your homework and include everything that is truly a social service or subsidy. By my total, that is well over $800 billion. Sounds like more than a penny to me.