ABOUT:
Vote It Up, Edgehill! is a self-initiated personal project that aims to encourage people in my community of Edgehill (located just south of downtown Nashville, TN) to register to vote for the upcoming elections in August and November. Wave 1 focuses on encouraging people in time for the August election by the July 3 registration deadline.
WHY:
The vote of Minorities, Poor, and Disenfranchised people have been historical suppressed by making it harder to access the vote or reducing their power by such actions as: Requiring IDs when voting, Complicating the process to restore your voting rights if one have completed their felony sentence, Gerrymandering, lack of same day voting registrations, inconvenient polling locations. This make it easier for certain people in politics to ignore or make life harder for the people they suppose to represent while actually serving themselves or other powerful influencers. Voting is the main way people have to choose those who will best represent them and keep those who are in power accountable for their actions. That why it important to vote even through things like the aforementioned hurdles. I want people in Edgehill to take back their power.
PROBLEM:
This project presents at least 3 problems of How to inform and make it easier for people in Edgehill to Register to Vote?, How to make this work with a low budget and a relative small amount of time?, and How to make this work within a standard channel of communication of our community, and while still reaching for the most amount of people?
a SOLUTION:
The solution I went with is to create a Mini-Guide and Poster (letter size) detailing how to Register to Vote online (GoTNVote.com) as well as where to pick up a paper voting registration form in the community on one side of the print and with one of four variant encouraging posters designs with quotes from civil right leaders emphasizing the importance of voting on the other side of the print. To keep the budget low the project was designed to be just a single page black & white print. The Mini-Guide and Poster was hand distributed to each Edgehill Public Housing Apartment unit fitting with the way we receive most announcements about what is going on in the community. Ultimately, I intended for people to turn the Mini-Guide as they are reading it to create a memorable experience and hopefully is likely not only to stand out but to help make the information stick with the reader. I also intended for people to post the print on their refrigerators as a reminder of important dates relating to the August Election and/or to have a nicely designed encouraging poster reminding them the importance of voting.
