Launched in 1974 by the legendary Willie Velasquez, Southwest Voter Registration Education Project (SVREP) grew out of the Chicano movement to become the largest and longest lasting nonpartisan Latino voter participation organization in the USA. From its inception, SVREP has incorporated the dynamism, energy, and ideas of Latino/Hispanic young people in its community activism and voter mobilization endeavors. Since 2000 alone, SVREP has launched groundbreaking nationwide programs such as Latino Vote USA, Latino Vote 2000, Campaign for Communities 2004, and the Ten-Four Campaign (10 million Latino voters Registered by Election Deadline 2004). Under current SVREP President, Antonio Gonzlalez, and Vice-President, Lydia Camarillo, these and other activities helped to nearly double the number of Latino voters, from 5.4 million in 1994 to over 10 million by the time of the 2006 Midterms.
SVREP is devoting unprecedented resources to its YouthVote campaigns to register and activate voters: online, using cell phones, community canvasses, and through efforts presently taking place on high school, community college, and university campuses nationwide. SVREP, the industry leader in community-driven field campaigns, will register and turn out tens of thousands of new voters under the age of 30 on November 4, 2008. And that's just the beginning. SVREP will enlist and mobilize many more through its Movimiento 10-12, Campaign for Communities, and Latina Vote initiatives: new voters with the power to make change!
Actions you can and should take during the Spring, Summer & Fall of 2008:
Register everyone who is not a felon on parole, US-born, and will be 18 or older, or who will be a naturalized citizen by this year's General election, and 18 or older by November 4, 2008!
Re-register everyone to vote who has moved, (changed their address) gotten married, or gotten divorced since the last election, as well as everyone who wishes to vote for in a Party-specific Primary/Caucus, wants to vote-by-mail because of convenience, or needs to vote as a Permanent Absentee for this election, because of personal or professional reasons!
This sentiment is not a fad like a lower back tattoo, a tribal arm band, a belly ring, a pair of pink ugz boots, (sans/avec laces) or a "metro" make-over for broadcast It is an invitation. If you have access to these words, then you also have sufficient opportunity to contemplate what is of greatest importance in your life, and our generation's place in history...
Much has been said about what our parents and others who came of age between 1960 and 1980 fought against/for and created. There are a seemingly endless-array of challenges across each of the populated continents, and even an impressive list of environmental/ecological obstacles confronting Antarctica and the northern Arctic ice.
Refuse to be overwhelmed!!! We can and must accomplish something truly epic. What begins as a hope, a dream, can lead to issues-championing, lantern-of-truth bearing.
Join us: We register people, get them to vote, and protect their ballots once they've been cast. We do this to honor those who gave everything to enfranchise those excluded by the Founding Fathers. More importantly, we do this because every vote is a ripple, and enough ripples will truly form a current with the power to change the world.
"Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation or social standards never can bring about reform. Those who are really in earnest are willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathies with despised ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences."
- Susan B. Anthony
"The ballot is stronger than the bullet."
- Abraham Lincoln
"One million more Latinos voted in '06 than did in '02. In places like Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, Texas and some of the other key states where Congressional seats changed, Latinos were a significant population. What you saw is a sort of wave or earthquake. Latinos were feeling dissatisfaction with the way the country was going, and particularly the issues of the war, the immigration question, poverty and environment, government and corporate corruption... Latinos turned-out in record numbers. And were able to follow, and be consistent with, the call by the community [to stand] against issues that were [in their estimation] anti-Latino, and anti-American. Similar to what happened with reactionary immigration reform calls, when Latinos gave voice to their feelings through the marches, Latinos spoke on Election Day, filling ballot boxes with votes cast for change."
- Lydia Camarillo
"Su voto es su voz."
- Willie Velasquez
