From Nov. 1st through Nov. 5th, Jason and I documented and broadcast the Get-Out-the-Vote work in two key PBN states: Mississippi and New Mexico. Before we even set foot in the states, we had high expectations for this project.

For one thing, we wanted to give people a minute-by-minute account of what was happening on the ground. We wanted to let the voices of the people be heard as to why they were voting, what issues brought them to the polls, and what it felt like to engage their communities through door knocking and phone banking.

We wanted to capture the energy and momentum of what we knew in our gut was a historical moment: young and old working side by side at the doors, first time citizens casting a ballot, the record number of registrations and turnout of a peoples who have endured a historical legacy of disenfranchisement at the hands of our political institutions–African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, women, and young people.

We also wanted to spotlight the ingenious ways our partner organizations were merging their electoral work to build upon a grander vision.
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Right on @anotherpundit! The grassroots groups in New Mexico, Texas & Mississippi (incidentally, where Brigid, Samiya & Jason are now documenting civic engagement and voter mobilization all through election week) are great partners and friends. Follow us on Twitter, and check out info about more info on the South X Southwest Experiment!

Follow The Project, PBN’s live, daily, multi-media civic engagement project every day through November 7th. To lead us off, PBN is publishing a few critically important pieces that look at the importance of sound investment in effective civic organizing. Click here for updates.

During the 2006 electoral season, PBN partner Kentuckians for the Commonwealth learned first hand how paratrooper tactics disrupt years’ worth of work in their communities. According to nationally based, numbers-centric guidelines, national groups did a better job targeting the KFTC’s population, and reached more people.

But a closer look shows that while KFTC contacted a third of the people the national paratrooping group reached, they did it for a tenth of the money. KFTC’s numbers, unlike those of the paratroopers, reflected three person-to-person contacts for each individual counted. KFTC’s contacts included civic education and leadership development on a personal level – a crucial benefit that lasts, and one that you can’t get from mailings or robocalls.
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Follow The Project, Pushback Network’s Election 2008 Multi-Media Project online through your social networks, at our Project Updates Blog, or on Friend Feed and watch history happen with updates all day, every day through Election Week!

We’re going to the battlegrounds of New Mexico and Mississippi November 1-7, 2008, to show what the work our partners are doing to fuse community organizing and voter engagement and mobilize people of color, poor people, and young people looks like — in action and in near-real-time using photos, videos, micro-bloggging and more. Check back each day to see where we are with preparations, and see the organizing work happen through the post-election wind-up November 7th.
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From June 25 – July 2, 2008, PBN’s Mississippi and New Mexico State Alliance Partners will come together with grassroots organizers from Texas to expand on South X Southwest, an ongoing project working to build Black/Brown progressive partnership across traditional cultural, geographic and political barriers. The meetings will take place in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and 41 Mississippi leaders will travel by bus across the Southwest to participate.