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One Million New Voters for the Environment
Earth Day Network, in partnership with a diverse group of traditional and non-traditional allies, has launched an 18-month campaign to register and turn out 1 million new voters for the 2004 elections. Our long-term goal is to broaden the public perception of what the environment means and to create an environmental movement that is inclusive and diverse.
Our objective is to mobilize new registrants in 8 to 10 key states to vote for candidates who commit to policies that ensure healthy communities and a sustainable environment. By doing so, we hope to inject dialogue about environmental issues into the national debates of 2004. We will also work with get out the vote (GOTV) groups to ensure that these new voters and those already registered go to the polls on Election Day 2004.
A more diverse environmental movement is a more influential one. Our partners now include Project Vote, Southwest Voter Registration Project, Earth Communications Office (ECO), and NAACP Voter Project. We will be working with three other voter registration and get out the vote (GOTV) partners as well as over 50 groups that are currently working on community issues and GOTV in the 8 targeted states.
NEED
While the vast majority of Americans define themselves as environmentalists, most believe that the environment is not currently a concern of extreme gravity. The membership of mainstream environmental groups is also aging; average membership age is over 50 and almost exclusively white, even as national demographics are shifting rapidly to a more balanced ethnic distribution. Another factor is that many of the most highly publicized environmental campaigns cover issues that the majority of the population is removed from. Issues like energy policy and wilderness protection generally command national media attention and leave the community development and health issues that affect underrepresented communities in the shadows.
Campaigns on community-based environmental issues, such as asthma, toxic exposure, access to transportation, and economic development, are often waged at the community level. The absence of these campaigns in the national spotlight leaves a false impression that the issues are rarely at the top of the environmental agenda. As a result, environmental policy initiatives do not receive the broad, diverse, publicized support they deserve.
Meanwhile, the percentage of eligible voters who go to the polls continues to decline. In the 2002 elections, fewer than 46 percent of eligible voters turned out. Voting among many minority groups and people under 30 is in even steeper decline. Studies indicate that both political parties neglect youth, minorities, and single women, although for different yet equally disturbing reasons. Energizing and activating this constituency is critical to environmental progress in the United States. It is also a hidden resource for environmentally and socially responsible candidates if they are able to tap it.
EDN and our partners will emphasize environmental health risks such as asthma and exposure to toxics such as lead, diesel exhaust, and abandoned, contaminated sites, continue to endanger minority populations, the largest growing segment of the population but also the least likely to vote for environmental issues as a top tier issueWe will also develop messages that help younger voters become more fully engaged in the political process, harkening back to the original message that energized the Earth Day movement. The younger generations always have the largest stake in maintaining a livable planet.
EDN'S APPROACH
Earth Day Network will register and mobilize 1 million new voters and work with GOTV groups in November 2004, while continuing to keep sight of the long range goals of redefining and expanding the environmental movement to include communities that have not yet been engaged in connecting environmental issues to issues of health and quality of life.
The Earth Communications Office (ECO), Music Matters, Rock the Vote and others are joining EDN to diversify the group of celebrities who lend their voice to this campaign. ECO will create a clearinghouse of musicians and athletes, as well as Hollywood celebrities, to bring key messages to 18-35 year olds and emerging environmental constituencies. Celebrities will speak in the communities where they grew up and match those with congressional campaigns.
Working with MoveOn and other successful internet organizations, EDN and its partners will register voters on our sites, create e-mail voter registration campaigns, and internet educational outreach as well as create opportunities for other types of on-line activism. These efforts are already active and include built in mechanisms to track people who register for post registration communication and ultimately intense GOTV efforts.
About EDN
Founded by the organizers of the first Earth Day in 1970, EDN's mission is to build broad-based citizen support for sound, workable, and effective environmental policies. Since its inception, Earth Day has been the first experience in environmental citizenship for millions of people around the world. Today, EDN supports more than 8,000 organizations in more than 184 countries and 95,000 educators in the United States. EDN builds the capacity of our members to serve as positive environmental forces by forging alliances, teaching mechanisms for community action, and providing direct assistance.
Earth Day Network is uniquely positioned to achieve the goals of this voter registration campaign. For more than 33 years, Earth Day has convened 25-30 million people in the United States alone for annual Earth Day events. We continually maintain relationships with more than 1400 college campuses, and we are adding community colleges, state colleges, and historically black colleges to our program.
Web site: Earth Day Network
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