Voter Registration Report from Southern Kentucky Chapter

Greetings from Bowling Green! 

The Southern Kentucky chapter had a blast with voter empowerment this year, registering 469 voters and having a ton of great conversations along the way. 

Our efforts began with regular tabling at the Community Farmers Market every Saturday, where we have made many good connections for future work. We also committed ourselves to canvassing often on the west side of Bowling Green, a low-income/minority section of town.  Our chapter meetings are held at a community center in this neighborhood, and members have given substantial effort over the years to forge relationships with residents of the west side. 

One of our biggest efforts in the neighborhood came on National Voter Registration Day (Sept. 25). We partnered with the South Central Kentucky Association of Black Social Workers and the WKU chapter of Omega Psi Phi, and got out into the streets for a little grassroots action!    

Our main events came the following weekend.  Bowling Green’s International Festival always provides us a great opportunity to reach a diverse crowd.  We partnered with students from the WKU chapter of Americans for Informed Democracy (AID, chaired by KFTC member Molly Kaviar) and pulled in 74 new registrations. We made great connections with both the festival-goers and the students in our partnership. That same weekend, Bowling Green/Warren County hosted the Starry Nights Music Festival. A few AID members camped out all weekend long at this event and worked hard tabling Friday night and on Saturday. 

Finally, we had a ton of success on the campuses of Western Kentucky University. Our first event was Project Affect, a campus fair for Bowling Green community organizations.  Local member Dana Beasley-Brown ran our table and found many students responsive to our issues, several of whom joined or plan to join KFTC.  She also registered 55 students! 

In the lead up to National Registration Day, we partnered with Western faculty, students, and community members, running a registration workshop and lending support.  We then followed up at Western’s South Campus the next Monday to get any stragglers and picked up 51 more voters! Best of all, we were able to actually get in the classroom with the students and discuss a few issues with them.

Finally, in the final two days of the registration season, we partnered with AID student members on the Western main campus. This resulted in 169 last-minute registrations, great publicity, and good conversations.  It was a thrilling end to our fun and fantastic local registration drive!