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White Plains Residents Register Voters On National Voter Registration Day

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. – Tuesday is National Voter Registration Day and several White Plains residents and organizations are teaming up to get residents squared away for the November election.

Tania Saiz helps HeadCount and the White Plains League of Women Voters register people to vote Tuesday.

Tania Saiz helps HeadCount and the White Plains League of Women Voters register people to vote Tuesday.

Photo Credit: Brian Donnelly
Madeline Zevon (right) of the White Plains League of Women Voters is joined by members of HeadCount and a local sorority at the City Center.

Madeline Zevon (right) of the White Plains League of Women Voters is joined by members of HeadCount and a local sorority at the City Center.

Photo Credit: Brian Donnelly
Brenda Hudson (left) registers someone to vote in the White Plains City Center Tuesday.

Brenda Hudson (left) registers someone to vote in the White Plains City Center Tuesday.

Photo Credit: Contributed

The White Plains League of Women Voters (LWV) has tables in the ground floor of the City Center, Renaissance Plaza and the White Plains Library until about 6 p.m. Tuesday. For the first time this year, they are partnering with HeadCount and the local chapters of the NAACP and a few sororities.

Tania Saiz, who received a grant from the White Plains LWV after graduating from White Plains High School in 1991, represented HeadCount at the City Center table.

“It’s a good mix,” she said. We all bring something different to the table. We all work for the same cause in a different way.

HeadCount brings 350 musicians and entertainers to National Voter Registration Day, who post and tweet photos with its “Register to Vote” clipboards. It’s team, which includes Saiz, is encouraging people to use the #celebrateNVRD to show support.

“Being a longtime resident for me it’s important to give back to this community and be a part of it. So, it’s a win win all around,” Saiz said.

Another group partnering with the White Plains LWV is Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority’s Pi Iota Omega chapter.

“I think it’s very important that as an organization we make sure citizens are aware of their responsibility to vote and enable them to vote as easily as possible,” said Brenda Hudson, of the sorority’s local chapter.

Registering people to vote is the biggest thing that the League of Women Voters does, said Madeline Zevon, a member of the local chapter. In addition to National Register to Vote Day, the group has several other get out the vote efforts, including its Vote 18 Program.

“It’s an interactive game where we teach them the history of voting in the United States, and then we have a mock election and then we register them to vote,” Zevon said.

The students act out the mock election as voters during different eras in which certain groups weren’t allowed to vote. When they get to the post-civil rights era when everyone can vote, 40 percent of the students are told to sit down because that is how many people choose not to vote each year.

"That makes it very vivid to the kids, and I think it really comes through rather than a lecture to have them involved," Zevon said. 

The Voter 18 Program is done at White Plains High School, the German School, Solomon and Schecter, Stepinac High School and the White Plains Youth Bureau. 

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