ACORN
A s s o c i a t i o n o f C o m m u n i t y O r g a n i z a t i o n s f o r R e f o r m N o w
To: Interested Parties
From: Cleveland ACORN
Date: October 8, 2008
Re: The Truth About ACORN’s Voter Registration Drive
With less than a month left until Election Day, we want to take this opportunity to update you on
ACORN’s work to turn the unprecedented excitement of this election season into a powerful and
lasting movement for change.
Nationwide, ACORN’s voter registration drive concluded Monday October 6th and we helped
register over 1,300,000 voters—most of them from low-income, African-American, and Latino
communities. This is the largest and most successful drive in our history, conducted in a total of 21
states, with the largest efforts focusing on 16 states, including AZ, CA, CO, CT, Fl, KY, LA, MI, MN, MO,
NV, NM, OH, PA, TX, and WI. Our largest successes included over 148,000 registrations in
Pennsylvania, over 152,000 in Florida, more than 217,000 in Michigan and over 238,000 in Ohio.
Roughly half of these voters are under thirty, and for many of them this will be their first vote ever.
Beyond registering new voters, we are continuing our work to educate and mobilize these new
voters around local and national issues. Voter registration is just the first step in building the
next generation of community leaders and activists who will continue to organize for change in our
neighborhoods for years to come.
Our historic registration drive has received national attention you may have noticed on the front
page of the Wall Street Journal, which profiled the tireless efforts of Denver ACORN member
Stephanie Willis, who has personally helped register more than 2,000 voters this election season. “I
wasn’t going to vote,” one of her registrants is quoted as saying, “but that lady right there, she can
make anybody vote.” Or you may have seen the story on voter registration in The Nation this
month, where Christopher Hayes discusses how difficult—and how important—voter registration
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