The Polish-American Congress (PAC), Downstate New York Division has launched a campaign to encourage Poles to vote in the upcoming presidential elections.
Since the end of March, when the initiative was first launched, PAC representatives have been registering voters on Sundays in front of local churches.
“We started in Maspeth, by the Holy Cross Church,” says Frank Milewski, president of the New York Division of the Polish American Congress. “Then we showed up in front of St. Stanislaus, in Greenpoint, and after at Our Lady of Consolation, in Williamsburg. Last Sunday we went back to Greenpoint to registers voters attending St. Cyril and Methodius Church.” According to Milewski, in a bit over a month they have registered about 150 voters. “Many others took the registration forms home to fill them out submit on their own,” he added.
In the coming weeks, representatives of the NY PAC will be seen in churches in Ridgewood, Staten Island and Long Island. Other divisions of PAC, including the New Jersey chapter, will follow the lead of the Downstate New York pioneers.
“We are planning to use all means at our disposal and print brochures to appeal to the Polish community to register and vote. I hope our efforts will result in a greater engagement of Poles in the American elections,” said Ludwik Wnekowicz, president of the New Jersey division of PAC, to Nowy Dziennik.
To encourage people to vote, Frank Milewski says, “Members of the U.S. government care primarily for those who support them, so it does pay to vote.”
The New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) has also taken up the voter registration initiative, reaching out to immigrants as soon as they acquire the right to vote immediately following the naturalization ceremonies. According to Alan Kaplan from NYIC, since 1998 they have managed to register around 250,000 naturalized immigrants living in New York, 20,000 of them registered only in the last two years.
Registration forms and instructions on how to fill them out can be downloaded from New York Board of Election website: www.vote.nyc.ny.us. Information can also be obtained at (212) VOTE NYC.
