Dogs can’t vote. Cats can’t either. Just want to be clear about that in case you’re confused by all the coverage that’s being given to a handful of pets who have received voter registration applications from the Voter Participation Center (VPC). We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit with one mission: to register and turnout the most underrepresented and fastest growing groups in our country, the Rising American Electorate (RAE). The RAE, unmarried women, people of color and young people, makes up 53 percent of the voting-eligible population.
Since last September, we have sent out more than seven million voter applications and assisted more than 350,000 citizens with the registration process. That’s in addition to the one million citizens we have helped register since 2004. Out of seven million applications a few of them have gone astray, the result of errors in a mailing list. Two years ago that would be understood. But in today’s toxic operating environment, it’s an excuse to yell “fraud” and distract us from the real story – the crisis in our democracy.
More than one-in-three Americans, 73 million of us, are not registered to vote. And 60 percent of the unregistered are members of the RAE. These demographics are destiny. The continued growth in the RAE’s share of the population is inevitable; but the growth in their share of the voting pool is not. Our job at the VPC is to make it easier for these hard to reach, highly mobile citizens to participate in our democracy.
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