TENNESSEE: Youth Canvassers Help Get Out the Immigrant Vote in Tennessee

This was shared by Karen Usselman at the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition:

They might be too young to vote, but they aren't too young to make a difference in their community! Election Day is a school holiday in Davidson County, and many high school students from the Salahadeen Center of Nashville are using the opportunity to knock on doors and encourage their neighbors to vote.

The students are mostly Kurdish, and they have been canvassing and phone banking for almost a week with the "Our Voice, Our Vote" campaign. The area they are targeting is one of the most diverse in Nashville, consisting of Middle Easterners, Asians, and Latinos, and many of their neighbors are first time voters.

The response to their campaign has been outstanding! Virtually all of the people the students talked to had either already voted or planned to, many of them as a result of earlier phone calls made by the campaign. Kasar, one of the organizers of the campaign, said "I've been in the U.S. since 1991, and I've never seen the immigrant community so excited about an election."