opportunity agenda

On Voting Rights: Protect...and Give Voice to Millions

Our mission is to empower parents to improve education for their children.


The voices of parents are often ignored – particularly parents in communities left behind by the powers that be. Key decisions that impact the education of our nation’s children are made by school board members and other elected officials, who are elected by popular vote to serve us – the people.


Parent power starts with the power of the vote.


We must fight any and all attempts to remove or suppress the voices of our communities.


As the Advancement Project points out, in 2011, a troubling trend took hold around the country as more than 40 state legislatures introduced measures that would needlessly increase burdens on voters through changes to voting procedures.


While these new laws vary from state to state, they all have the effect of making it harder to vote, especially for African Americans, Latinos and low-income citizens. These new laws will have a dramatic impact on the 2012 elections and beyond – making it harder for some to access their right to vote, and all but stripping this right away from others altogether.

The right to vote without fear of harassment or intimidation is core to our values as a community.

Our community members must have the basic right to assemble and to have their voices heard by our public officials.


And we must not have the right to vote diminished in any way. Our community must be allowed to vote our collective conscience, whether this right comes, as parents, to vote for a new direction for our children’s schools via a parent empowerment petition; as workers, to elect to have a union via card check recognition; or, as voters, to cast our selections for our next elected officials.


We find intimidation tactics deplorable, and voter identification policies and other obstacles placed in front of hardworking families to be reprehensible.

Parent Revolution will work with all who seek to protect the right of people to vote. Period. The stakes are high for our children, and they deserve nothing less than 100% of our effort.

To see what voting rights are impacted in your state, go to http://www.advancementproject.org/map.