Voter+I.D.+Petition+Delivery

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media type="youtube" key="546i4fznVyI" height="480" width="853" =Eyes were opened today as 15 of the more than 2,200 of us who signed our petition against Pennsylvania’s new voter I.D. law delivered it to the Allegheny County Elections Bureau - in person.=

=On Tuesday, Aug. 14, we met at the county court house in downtown Pittsburgh. I made signs and had two printed copies of the petition with me. It was a busy street with scores of business people returning from their lunch breaks. When they saw the slogans on our signs, eyes widened, jaws dropped and foot traffic slowed so pedestrians could get a peak at who these strange people were. Some slogans in red, white and blue were: “Just Say No!”, “Count Every Vote!”, “Civil Rights First!”, “No Fraud Equals No Need for Voter I.D.”, “Poll Tax, Literacy Test, Voter I.D.?” and “Voting is a Right Not a Privilege!”=

=Two African American gentlemen stopped us to ask what we were protesting. When we told them, they asked to join us - one of them loudly chanting from the sign I gave him, “Civil Rights First!”=

=As the media started to converge on us, I gathered the assemblage to instruct them on what we were going to do. We also practiced chanting a call-and-response of “Just Say - NO!”, “Count Every - VOTE!” and “Civil Rights - FIRST!” A police officer asked us to please not block the sidewalk, but he was very friendly, knew we were within our rights to be there and we made a special effort to follow his instructions. After doing a few brief interviews with the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, and some others, we marched a street over to the county office building - home of the election bureau.=

=The plan had been for a small delegation of us to enter the building but the overwhelming majority wanted to come inside so we entered en mass. It took two elevators for the entire group to get to the 6th floor but we made it. Once on the right floor, we encountered two senior citizen African American ladies leaving the election bureau. They had been trying to get information on the voter I.D. law. When they saw us and we explained why we were there, they, too, joined us.=

=We entered the office, and the man behind the counter seemed stunned. The entire group could barely fit in the room. I politely asked him if Mark Wolosik, Division Head was there. He said Wolosik would not be in for the next few days. I had been prepared for this because I had talked to Wolosik on Monday when he told me he would not be in but that we could drop off the petition. I explained to the secretary why we were here. He accepted the copy and gave us a stamp showing that it had been received.=

=We then returned to street level. We chanted a few times and four or five of us shared stories about how the voter I.D. was affecting us, personally. A journalist from radio station 90.5 recorded the testimonies and interviewed me afterwards. At that point I thanked everyone for coming and they thanked me for organizing the event. We parted after only half an hour, but a half hour very well spent.=

=One of our group, Barry Specter, video taped the entire outing and will edit it and post it to youtube. I had already given an interview to WTAE-TV earlier in the day and gave one after the event to [|TalkingPointsMemo.com].=

=To everyone who attended the petition delivery today at Allegheny County Elections Bureau, thank you so much for coming. I think we had a pretty good turn out, and we sure got a lot of media coverage. Below are links to just some of it. Be on the lookout for possible articles in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and Tribune Review tomorrow or Thursday.=

=-Steven Singer=

=Some of our local news coverage can be found here:=

=[|WTAE - TV (ABC)]=

=[|KDKA-TV (CBS)]= = = =[|WPIX-TV (NBC)]= = = =[|WESA-FM (NPR)]=

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