Valerie Geleplay

Mr.Hussey

American History

27 April 2016

On April 26th, 2016, I got a chance to work with the Committee of Seventy to see how primary elections truly work..no word of the mouth but eye to eye experience. The primary election did not turn out to be what I expected, I thought the polling places would be located in different types. For example, me and two of my peers Shanni-kie Watson and Anaiah Davis visit places like McCreesh Recreation Center, Tilden Middle School, Catharine Elementary School and Morton School. I didn’t know that elections could take place in places like that I thought they would be held in office buildings not around the communities. The election to me was also very straightforward, you would go in the booth, vote for the candidate of your choice, receive your “ I voted today” sticker and walk out. Pretty straightforward right?

Another, thing I took from this experience was knowledge. When we were walking around meeting voters around our community and ask them questions I got a chance to get more insight on voting in case I would like to vote in the future. I learned the difference between popular and electoral votes, I learned that popular votes are what makes the electoral vote so our votes did help make a change even though it didn’t seem like it at first. When we walked around asking voters if they would like to answer a few questions on our survey provided by the Committee of Seventy a lot of people shut us down but a few were interested. I did not know that voting could be so secretive, I guess it was because we were with the Committee of Seventy and they’re known for being the ones that report when polling places weren’t organized or well instructed. Be sides the rejections we met a lot of nice people from the community. We even met a guy that ran one of the polling places and he helped us get a better understanding on how the voting machines looks and what to do and how to do it. If I had an opportunity to visit more polling places and meet candidates running in the election I’d would.

Cameron Lockett

Brian Hussey

American History

April 27, 2016

On Tuesday April 26, 2016 Clay, Hector, Tefay, and I volunteered to get questions for the Committee of Seventy.  At first we met up in the 44th ward of Philadelphia since Clay knew voting polls in the area. When the group all came together we first started near a local hospital. We took pictures of people handing out flyers to support their candidate, a diagram of the voting booth, and a sign saying that there would be a language interpreter. When we were all set up we then began to ask people questions. As soon as we started, we realized we might have some trouble. As the first person I approached to see if they could answer some brief questions quickly rejected me. It took me some time before someone to say yes to answer the questions for Committee of Seventy. While Hector and Clay found it fairly easy for strangers to agree to answer questions for them. We decided to leave the location though since most of the people were coming inside the building since it was a hospital, and they did not want to vote. Some icing on the cake though was before we left I asked an older man to answer some questions. He agreed and during the middle of one the questions he noticed the Committee of Seventy symbol and stormed off.  

After that we decided to go to a polling station around city hall. At that area we were able to get more people to answer the questions. I’m not sure if it was the location since we were outside a building in center city and more people voted there or if it was because the people there were just friendlier than the last bunch. Even still only got around seven to eight people to answer some questions. I guess I should have expected this as the citizens of Phildelphia are not the most avid fans of answering random questions. Especially when they are being asked by someone who is asking you political questions just after you vote. From this experience though I have gained respect for people who have the guts to ask people questions or ask for their support a whole campaign. As even if you’re motivated it can be soul crushing to hear so many no’s back to back.  

Image #1 talks about the information needed for people with disabilities to be able to vote.  

Image #2 talks about how if you speak another language you can get an interpreter to help you vote.

Image #3 talks about the things prohibited during voting and the penalties that you could receive

Kashia Bumpess

Mr.Hussey

American History

27 April,  2016

Primary Election Volunteer Experience

             My experience volunteering with the committee of seventy was surprisingly a good

experience.At first I thought it was going to be a bad experience because I didn’t want to spend my day off volunteering at polling stations but i’m actually happy I got the chance to do this because I learned a lot about voting which could benefit me when I can actually vote myself and also I met a lot of nice and interesting people.I volunteered in ward 5 so I went to the Land Title Building and the University of Arts..When I got to the voting stations it wasn’t really busy and a lot of people didn’t vote yet so I stood outside with my partners Jaidah, Tsion, and leyitha and associated with some of the other volunteers of the committee of seventy. When people finally started to come and vote I waited until some people came out to ask them questions.Not a lot of people stopped and actually answered the questions but the ones who did answered the questions to their best ability. I did have to explain what absentee vote is and I had to explain what questioned 3 and 4 meant some of the times.

         As I mentioned earlier when I was volunteering I met and associated with some of the other volunteers of the committee of seventy.Most of them were elderly didn’t really see a lot of young people volunteering. I did this one nice elderly volunteer at the Land Title Building she was telling my partners and I how it is good to get involved in politics at a young age and she even took our picture for us so we could send it to Mr.Mosely to let him know we was there.One question that I do have about the election is will these votes count in their presidential election to or not? .We couldn’t collect many artifacts like flyers because at the University of Arts the volunteers were standing inside the building even though they are not supposed to be inside the building.They were passing out flyers and we couldn’t get any because they were inside and we weren’t allowed to go in there and they weren’t passing a lot of flyers out at the Land Title Building. Some pictures we took are below and also pictures of the artifacts collected.

David Baker

Mr. Hussey

U.S. History

April 27, 2016

Volunteer Experience

As a student volunteer of the Committee of 70 my group and I walked around the Roxborough area assisting the elderly with the voting process as well as answering questions they did not understand.  Although the process was not fun, I thought it was interesting. My group was assigned ward 21. The four locations we visited were; Cook Wissahickon School, Andorra Branch Library, Houston Recreation Center, and Saul High School. The process was nothing like I expected, I thought that there would be lines of people at each location and that they would know what the questions ment. I was lucky to see maybe four people at each location and I had to read the background information for most of the questions I asked. I did not see anyone less than forty years old. Walker made it sound like were were going to be doing an amazing thing and help the community and meet new people. I am sure the data we gathered was important, but out of the dozen people I asked about five of them said they had time to answer my questions. All the people were trying to do is vote but people would keep giving them flyers trying to sway them to vote for whoever they wanted to win. When they exit the building they are bombarded with questions from other people and when they get to me they are tired of asking questions and they walk away or answer the question without any thought. I know the importance of voting, but it seems like it is more work then it is worth to cast your vote and I think this is why young people do not vote. One question I have is why can't we vote online? It would be more convenient easier to do, and you don't have to go anywhere.  But at the end of the day it was not a bad experience I walked away with a ton of flyers, committee of 70 lanyard, and a sweet Sean Stevens pen.

(Pink election Ballot)

(Andorra Branch Library signs)

(Sweet Sean Stevens Pen)

Lyza Newbern

Mr.Hussey

U.S. History

April 26, 2016

2016 Primary Election

On April 26, 2016 the people of Pennsylvania exercised their right to vote in republican and democratic primary election. The Primary Election is the election when you vote to who you want to see on the ballot for president in November. As a high school member of the Committee of 70 it was my duty to visit as many polling places in the 21st ward of Philadelphia, help voters with any questions they had about the ballot, collect sample ballots and ask voters

(Photo taken at the Andorra Branch Library)

after they voted unbiased questions to help better the government in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. We asked the voters five questions after they casted their ballot, (1) Would you support allowing voters the option to request and submit absentee ballots before Election Day without offering a reason or excuse?; (2) Would you support allowing voters the option to vote for a certain period before Election Day at a select number of early voting locations?; (3) Would you support amending the PA Constitution to create an independent Citizen’s Redistricting Commission's responsible for drawing Congressional and state legislative districts?; (4) Would you support allowing independent and third party voters to vote in primary elections?; (5) Would you support allowing young people aged 16 and 17 the opportunity to pre-register to vote? (Voters must still be 18 or older to cast a ballot)? Something that was interesting to me was when I introduced myself and told a woman what I was there for and asked her if I could ask her questions she asked me what kinds of questions I had. I then told her I was with the Committee of 70 and that it was a non-partisan group, she then answered the questions. I thought this was interesting because she would most likely not have answered biased questions. Something else that I was excited about was that the voters knew how to answer the questions I asked and did not need a background to them. In Ward 21 I went to 4 different voting locations, Cook Wissahickon School, Andorra Branch Library, Houston Recreation Center, and Saul High School. I had the best experience at the Recreation Center because of the people that were also their outside of the polling office. They informed me and my group that there was an African-American male that was furiated with the Proposed Charter Change Question #3, which we decided was worded incorrectly and could be threatening when read by an African-American male but not threatening when someone from a differently ethnicity and/or background is reading it. There were only two people out of 24 would not stop and answer the questions which is a lot less than what I was expecting.

(Photo of the ballot taken at Cook Wissahickon School)