Regina Clemente (far left, front row) in York County, Maine with No on 1 staff/volunteers
Maine is facing an anti-gay measure on the ballot Nov. 3 that is very similar to Prop. 8 in California. If Question 1 is approved by Maine voters on Nov. 3, it would strip away the civil marriage rights bestowed on LGBT couples earlier this year by Maine’s state legislature and signed into law by the Governor. The “Yes on 1″ campaign in Maine is being run by the exact same firm that helped pass Prop. 8 in California, and is spreading the very same lies about how extending civil marriage rights to LGBT families would affect what children are taught in schools.
Many of us here at Vote for Equality worked on the ground in the Prop. 8 campaign here in California. We know how devastating it was to have worked so hard, only to wake up on Nov. 4, 2008 and find that our fellow Californians had voted to strip away the freedom to marry for our LGBT families. With our side having lost marriage equality in all 31 states where anti-gay marriage ballot measures have been voted on, a win in Maine would be a historic victory and get the ball moving in the right direction.
The entire staff of Vote for Equality — along with several VFE volunteers — have already, or will soon be traveling to Maine to work on the field efforts for Protect Maine Equality‘s “No on 1″ campaign. We’ll be publishing field reports from Maine from a number of VFE folks, chronicling their efforts to help ID supportive voters, have conversations with voters in door-to-door canvasses, and Get Out the Vote.
Our first VFE Blog from Maine is penned by Regina Clemente, Project Director of Vote for Equality.
Ogunquit In-Person Recruitment Team
Friday, Oct. 2
On the ground in Maine, with the goal of getting enough volunteers involved in York County to make the county produce at least 40,000 No votes to keep marriage legal! Tonight’s main action: bar recruitment in Ogunquit — the “Castro” district of Maine. Only three gay bars to work, though, so let’s hope people are ready to help out!
Saturday, Oct. 3
Just participated in a Maine canvass! It rained the entire time, but it was great! I talked to a man who had visible gun paraphernalia in his garage, and who started the conversation by saying that he thinks being gay is immoral. But, after several questions asking why he felt that way; hearing my story about my long term relationship with my former girlfriend; and getting him to think about how he would want his grandkids to be treated — regardless of whether they are gay or straight — he moved to saying he would seriously consider voting No on 1. It was a really great conversation! Most other voters I spoke with had already made up their minds, and several refused to talk about the issue… Off to a second canvass in a more rural area of Maine, in someone’s art studio in the forest!
Sunday, Oct. 4
Going to start to get Maine voters to vote early through absentee ballot — or by committing to go vote at their local townhall starting on the 15th. Maine makes voting very easy, but that still doesn’t mean that more than 50% of all voters will turn out in this off-year election. That’s why our job is to get all supporters in the bag as early as possible. Then we can focus on less likely and undecided voters. But not until our nearly 100,000 supportive IDs are accounted for! Which means we have to get a lot more people volunteering to turn out these voters!
No on 1 Coaches Training
Thursday, Oct. 8
The York County team has now trained 8 new phone bank leaders, so we can have early vote phone banks up and running in multiple parts of the County. And the team at University of New England, Biddeford is growing daily — and will be having their second on-campus student phone bank this weekend! Also, it seems like the rain has stopped for a few days, which is good for in-person volunteer recruitment (IPVR), but now we need to find where all the locals are! We had good luck at the post office this week, but need more locations to hit up to get more people invovled.
Volunteer Recruitment Phone Bank
Saturday, Oct. 10
The York team just finished another canvass — this time solely devoted to getting our strong supporters to vote early, so we can focus on other voters! And to ask them to volunteer to talk to voters at their doorsteps. More Ogunquit bar IPVR tonight to get the gays out to help! And tomorrow, we have three early vote phone banks up and running — including one at Stonewall Kitchen, home of the famous jams!
Monday, Oct. 11
I am leaving Maine today, but going home to Vote for Equality where we will be making calls to voters from L.A. every Sunday and every day of Election Week! Join us — this is the best chance we’ve ever had to keep marriage legal through a ballot initiative, because of the great groundwork that has been done, and also due to the fact that Maine is a lot smaller than California! But while there may not be that many people, we still have a turn out a ton of them if we’re going to win this thing!
–Regina Clemente
CLICK HERE to SIGN-UP for a Maine Phone Bank in Hollywood
DETAILS:
Sunday, Oct. 25 (10am-2pm) @ The Village (1125 N. McCadden PL, Hollywood)
Sunday, Nov. 1 (11am-3pm) @ The Village
Monday, Nov. 2 (10:30am-1:30pm) @ The Village
Monday, Nov. 2 (2:30pm-5:30pm) @ The Village
Election Day:
Tuesday, Nov. 3 (10:30am-1:30pm) @ The Village
Tuesday, Nov. 3 (2:30pm-5:30pm) @ The Village
York County Field Team & Volunteers
