"It's Your Life" Singer Francesca Battistelli asks Young People to Register

Musician Francesca Battistelli is making a point to encourage young people to register to vote. She's got a great new song, "It's Your Life," that speaks to the issue.

Listen to it here.

New Mexico PIRG Challenges Unconstitutional Voter Registration Law

On July 24th, New Mexico PIRG, represented by the Brennan Center, filed suit on behalf of New Mexico PIRG, the Southwest Organizing Project and the American Association of People with Disabilities, challenging the state's unconstitutional voter registration law. The law requires voter registration groups in New Mexico to meet one of the shortest deadlines in the country - 48 hours -  for the return of completed forms, and imposes hefty civil and criminal penalties, including fines and even jail time, if voter registration volunteers and employees do not adhere to restrictive and cumbersome rules for signing up new voters.

As Katryn Fraher, a senior at UNM and leader with New Mexico PIRG, described to the Associated Press, the law significantly reduced the number of students willing to volunteer in New Mexico PIRG’s 2006 UNM campus voter registration drive and presented a real challenge to our efforts to register young voters there in 2006.

Virginia Debate in the New York Times

Our Program Director, Sujatha Jahagirdar, was quoted in today's New York Times story, "Voter Registration by Students Raises Cloud of Consequences." The debate in Virginia was sparked by local voter registration policies that discourage students from registering at their college address. Read the story at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/education/08students.html.