Since the beginning of this year, 160,000+ people have signed up to take part in democracy in 10 counties that represent about 80% of the voters of Colorado. Steve thinks all these people have registered to vote because "everybody is aware of what's going on". Read more about this and other things that Steve thinks in the Rocky Mountain News (but careful not to look at the ridiculous photo). 

New Era Colorado will be doing voter registration at the next two Etown tapings: Punch Brothers featuring Chris Thile and and Tift Merritt on Monday, July 28th, and Ray LaMontagne and Ingrid Michaelson on August 8th, both of which will be taped at the Boulder Theater.

Etown is an exciting radio broadcast heard from coast to coast. Every etown show is taped in front of a live audience and features performances from many of today's top musical artists, as well as conversations and information about the world around us.

Check out their blog for news, music reviews, pictures, video and more! 

Millions of new voters are going to be storming their polling places this November and many states are going to be using new voting technologies, a combination which will likely conspire to create long lines and poll workers that are none too happy.

According to an article in the New York Times, the U.S. is back-stepping away from touch-screen machines and galloping toward the paper ballots of optical scanners; this means that about half of all voters will use different machines than the ones they used in the last presidential election. With Senator Obama expected to attract voting-virgins to the polls, election officials say they are "worried that the system may buckle under the increased strain". The last thing any of us wants is to increase that strain by going to the polls and potentially enduring the weight of the buckling system on our shoulders and consciences.

But, there is a way out of this moral conundrum of wanting to vote but not wanting your vote to overload "the system" (such as it is). Mail-in ballots are our dark knight, swooping in to save the day. Signing up for a mail-in ballot just requires filling out the same voter registration form you filled out to register in the first place. But this time, check the "mail-in ballot" box and your ballot will magically appear at your home 3 weeks before the election. Then you can read the ballot initiatives in your birthday suit with a dictionary in hand, and mail it back at your earliest convenience (as long as your earliest convenience falls before the election on November 4th).

Vote naked and avoid the imminent polling place chaos. What's not to love?

Email Carrie@NewEraColorado.org for details if you want to help out! 

It's like mass transit--only for democracy.

As many of you know, it's been a longtime dream of ours to have a New Era Bus. And guess what? We just found a good deal on a beauty and it was love at first sight.

Now we need to raise the dough to take it off the lot before somebody beats us to it. If we all chip in a little bit, we'll have ourselves a bus in no time!

The purchase of a seat comes complete with a personalized inscription on the bus.  If you can't buy a whole seat, we need help buying everything from the wheels to windshield wipers and each comes with a certificate of authenticity.

The bus will be our vehicle for change and will make us more of the statewide organization we want to be. We'll bring back hands-on democracy by filling the bus with volunteer riders and knocking on thousands of doors in important swing districts around the state. And if we get it in time, it will be the party bus at the DNC in Denver next month!

BUY A PIECE OF THE BUS NOW!

Let's make history this year.  Get on the bus.

For more information on the Bus Project model, check out the Bus Federation--a coalition of youth political organizations in 5 western states.

Pop Quiz Time:

1. What is the single most effective way to mobilize voters?
   a) Visibilities
   b) Sitting on a couch and bitching
   c) Talking to ‘em face-to-face
2. What holiday always immediately precedes Election Day and has a built-in tradition of door-knocking?
   a) Halloween
   b) The 4th of July
   c) Festivus
3. What does everyone love?
   a) Rick Rolling
   b) Costumes!
   c) Voting
   d) All of the above

All of us who work in the field of youth engagement face big competition. The biggest competition we face – for volunteers, for attention – is not from one another’s organizations either. It’s from the Wii (which is sweet) and the bar scene and friends and loved ones. Our biggest challenge is overcoming that noise and building a politics that is fun and exciting and relevant to people’s lives.

That’s what makes Trick or VoteTM so freaking sweet. It’s the Best Way on the Best Day.

It’s actually such a sweet idea it doesn’t even really need an explanation. But here it is in a nutshell: Get some people who are a bit too old to trick or treat (go as young as high school and as old as the retirement home for your recruitment), rally ‘em in costume, meet in a centralized location, train these folks to canvass effectively, and knock some doors.

In short, we combine a cultural more (knock doors on Halloween) with hard-minded political research (knocking doors is an effective voter mobilization tool).

The result?

• More volunteers. In Portland in 2004, 850 canvassers assembled for the largest mass canvass in the history of the state. By all accounts, this year will be even bigger.
• More virgin volunteers. Out of that same crowd in Portland, more than one-in-three were first-time political volunteers who came out of the woodwork for a program well-suited to help our fellow citizens lose their voter virginity.
• More conversations. On Halloween evening, people are home – either waiting for trick-or-treaters or getting ready for their parties. They’re even prepared to open the door. And they’re definitely ready to engage in a conversation. All of which means that we don’t just hit more doors, we hit more doors in a more effective manner.
• More voters. Do the math -- more canvassers, more conversations, and more doors? More people are hitting the polls.

The Bus Federation (which New Era is a member of) wants to take Trick or VoteTM national this year – and we can do it with your help. If you’re part of a local or national organization that is serious about doing Trick or VoteTM, get in touch soon so we can coordinate our efforts. Contact Alex Aronson at the Oregon Bus Project @ 503-233-3018.  To get involved in Trick or Vote locally in Colorado with New Era, contact Carrie Jackson.

Just looking for a project for the fall and think you could pull off a kick-ass Trick or Vote in your hometown? Or even just want to assemble 15 of your closest friends and friends-of-friends and friendly-friends-of-friends’-friends and go hit some doors? Drop us a line. I swear to you, you’ll be glad you did.

Major props, by the way, to our friends at the Bus for this innovative program -- Trick or Vote is their brainchild.

Answers to the pop quiz: 1-b, 2-c, 3-a

Originally posted on FutureMajority.com.  Matt Singer is the CEO of Forward Montana, dedicated to training, mobilizing, and electing a new generation of progressive leaders. Forward Montana is a charter (get it?) organization of the Bus Federation.

I’m a firm believer in the idea that you should never regret anything. There is, however, one exception to this belief and the one universal regret that everyone should have is that you were not a fly on the wall of the offices of New Era when we were discussing what sexy aspects of this November’s election we can exploit and mold into one of our main objectives to tackle. After much deliberation, we found that what made our legs tremble the most were…

Do you know what frac water is?

If you live on the Front Range, I'll bet most of you said no. If you live on the western slope, I'll bet most of you said yes.

And that's the problem. There's an oil & gas drilling boom happening on Colorado's western slope and it's having a huge effect on the lives of folks over there. Here on the front range, eh, not so much.

It's time to help out our neighbors across the mountains.

You can help, no matter where in Colorado you live.

The Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission makes the rules that determine how oil & gas is drilled in Colorado. We need to tell the commission that drilling is ok, just as long as it is done responsibly. Protect our beautiful state, our wildlife, our air quality and the health of our citizens while you're drilling for Colorado's natural resources.

Go to ColoradosDirtyTruth.org to sign the petition telling the commission to implement common sense protections for Colorado.

Oh, and leave it like you found it. The Oil & Gas industry can afford to do it right.