Civic Participation
Voting:
Registering voters for local elections: near election will be June – special election for Pleasanton City Council member position
Federal Elections Commission has election history
Click here to Rock the Vote:
http://www.rockthevote.com/home.php
Do not have to be 18 in order to register to vote, but need to be eighteen to vote
Voter Information:
Students need to be aware of the political activities around their community, state, and nation. This ranges from critical life-impacting policies to be taken (like education, college tuition, etc.). Students need to voice their opinions and participate in the democratic process.
Though the Senior civics classes teach students about civic awareness and responsibility, it is important that students are involved and aware about the community before the end of high school, before they enter the world outside
Some History:
American Democracy established by the Founders was intended to a be a representative form of government. This means that communities would elect representatives to go and vouch for their interests in a national conference called Congress. Although at the Founders’ time many voting qualifications and restrictions made voting difficult and true representation and slim possibility, since then it has been expanded from the original “white, propertied male.”
Key Establishments:
- 1828 Andrew Jackson’s presidency and the era of the “Common Man” – property requirements to vote abolished
- 1848 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott lead the Seneca Falls Convention, casting a Declaration of Sentiments based off of the Declaration of Independence, calling for, among other rights, the right for women to vote
- Post-civil war 15 th amendment eliminated race as a factor to voting, although states, which constitutionally controlled elections, putting many restrictions that almost eliminated any African-Americans voting
- 1920 The 19 th Amendment gave women the right to vote after nearly a century of battle and the movement of the suffragettes, like Alice Paul, in the early 1900s
- 1964 The 24 th Amendment prohibited poll taxes, allowing freer and fairer elections, especially in the South
- Voting Rights Act of 1965 expanded voting to more people stopping disenfranchisement of African Americans in the South
- 1971 26 th Amendment reduces the voting age to kids 18 years old and over
Elections:
The Special Election in November Find out more on the City Council site
Article about election:
http://www.pleasantonweekly.com/morgue/2005/2005_05_06.acandid06.shtml
Candidates:
Brian Arkin: http://www.smartvoter.org/2005/06/07/ca/alm/vote/arkin_b/
Dan Faustina: http://www.smartvoter.org/2005/06/07/ca/alm/vote/faustina_d/
Jerry Thorne: http://www.smartvoter.org/2005/06/07/ca/alm/vote/thorne_j/
--------------More updates about State elections and midterm elections soon!--------------
