No doubt about it, this election is going to be very important for all of us, especially LGBT folks, women and minorities.
Since I’m all three (and left-handed, making me a quadruple minority), I was extremely concerned about the voter-suppression tactics being used here in Pennsylvania. My father is 87 and has voted in every election since he was old enough to vote. He’s survived polio, a heart attack, a stroke and post-polio and yet refuses to use an absentee ballot. He insists we get him to the polls to cast his vote in person even if it means hiring an ambulance to get him there. He hasn’t driven a car or taken a trip for 20 years and so has had no need for picture ID in years. I couldn’t tell you where his birth certificate is, so when they tried to implement the voter-ID law right before the presidential election, we were very upset. Thank goodness it has been overturned, but there are still some questionable things happening out there. My mother recently got an email from a friend telling her that if you push the lever for one candidate (in her case, Obama) and then tried to push the party button, it would negate your vote. Not true. Frustrating, but fortunately there is somewhere you can go to get voting questions answered. This week we spoke to Lauren Vidas, the voter-protection director from Organizing For America, to find out how to make sure every vote counts.
PGN: Where are you from?
LV: I went to grade school in Washington, D.C., and then my parents moved, so I went to college in Philly, St. Joseph’s University. Then I headed off to University of Miami for law school. Not a bad place to spend four years. I got my degree, practiced for a year in Florida, then moved back to Philadelphia, so I have the good, or perhaps bad, luck of taking and passing three different bar exams.
PGN: What did you do when you got back here?
LV: I was doing civil-defense work while trying to find a way out of being a litigator and a practicing attorney. I’d always been interested in politics, so in about 2007, I was lucky enough to get on [Philadelphia] Councilman [Bill] Green’s staff as a legislative aide.
PGN: And what did your folks do? LV: You may be shocked to hear they are both attorneys. My mom does family law, and my dad does more government-affairs work.
PGN: Sounds like a great feminine role model. LV: Absolutely. She’s a leader in her field and a partner at a large law firm. I remember going to work with her as a kid and sleeping curled up under her desk. PGN: What were you like as a kid? LV: I liked to read. I was a geeky little know-it-all. Looking back, I can imagine how annoying I was to be in a class with. I was the kid with my hand constantly in the air.
PGN: [Laughs.] So, to use another pop- culture reference, like Hermione from “Harry Potter”? LV: Exactly. I also played a lot of sports. I played softball, soccer, basketball, just about anything with a ball.
PGN: What was your best and worst sports moment? LV: Probably the worst was when I was about 11 and playing softball. My team was so far ahead they thought it was safe to put me in as a pitcher. Not so. Within 15 minutes, I had made the game exciting again.
PGN: That was a very diplomatic spin. LV: [Laughs.] Yes. One of my best moments was when I was playing rugby in college and tore a ligament in my knee during the last game of the season. I knew it had torn but stayed in the game and ended up scoring for our team.
PGN: Any siblings? LV: Yes, I have a sister who is eight years younger than me. We’re total opposites. It’s funny, I’m in my 30s and she’s in her 20s but you put us together and we revert back to our childhood.
PGN: My brother and I still have body-tackling fights over who’s going to sit in the front seat if we go somewhere with the family. LV: Ha! We just had a fight about that not two months ago.
PGN: What was fun about living in Miami? LV: My first year of law school I had an 8:30 a.m. class on Fridays. After class, we’d go straight to the beach. It was great because we’d have the beach to ourselves. I lived in Coconut Grove, which was a big counter-culture area back in the ’60s and ’70s, so the people there were an interesting bunch. It’s a very unique city and I loved being there. I love Philly too but every winter I question whether or not I should have left Miami.
PGN: I don’t know if I’d want to be somewhere with no seasons. LV: Yeah, it is tough. Growing up up north there are certain triggers for different holidays that you miss down there. For me, it’s the ginkgo berries, which signify that fall is coming. In Florida, they only have two seasons, summer and not summer. We have eight months of summer there where it’s unbearably hot and four months of winter where it’s beautiful.
PGN: What do you do here now? LV: I work for the OFA, Organizing For America, and my title is voter-protection director. After working for Councilman Green, I moved over to the mayor’s office where I worked in legislative affairs for a couple of years. The Obama campaign headquarters for Pennsylvania is located here in Philly, and my name came up when they were looking for someone who was familiar with election laws and the political landscape here in Philly and the state. The mayor was kind enough to support me in my endeavors and here I am.
PGN: What effect do you think the election will have on LGBT people? LV: My hope is that things like the inclusion of marriage equality on the official [Democratic Party] platform will motivate people to get more politically active and engaged. Elections matter. It’s how we as citizens can demand accountability from policymakers.
PGN: So what is your goal in your job now? LV: Our mission is to make sure that every eligible voter can get his or her vote cast and counted in a timely and efficient manner. PGN: No dangling chads? LV: The hanging-chad debacle, yes I was in Florida when that happened. I was clerking for the Florida Supreme Court, the same court that heard the Florida v. Gore case. Let’s just say there are interesting elections in Florida. So we’re here to make sure people have a positive experience voting. We want to make sure the polling place is moving in an efficient manner so people aren’t waiting in line for a really long time. To make sure if they are an eligible voter that they can vote right there on the machine as opposed to a provisional ballot, which is the ballot of last resort. Working with the local boards of elections and establishing relationships so that if problems do come up on Election Day, we can help them get things resolved. Another big piece of what we do is voter education. I’m very, very proud of our voter-protection team. We have a statewide hotline that is up and running, 855-834-VOTE (8683), and it’s a number where voters can call and do anything from checking to see if they’re registered to finding their polling-place location or get an answer to any other questions they may have about what they need to do on Election Day in order to vote.
PGN: What about things like the email that my mother got saying her vote would be discounted if she pressed the wrong sequence of buttons? LV: Well, that’s another thing we do, try to correct some of the misinformation that’s out there. For the record, if you want to vote the straight party ticket, you just need to press the button once and if the lights are lit up, that’s who you’re voting for. We encounter a lot of this and a lot of times it’s well-intentioned people; it’s usually just a rumor that gets started and people think they’re helping by passing it along, so we try to get on top of it and make sure the correction gets out there. We also have a number out there so people can pick up the phone and say, “Hey, I heard such and such, is it true or not?” and know that they have a trusted source on the other end of the line.
PGN: I’d guess that my mother’s friend was not trying to mislead her, though I imagine whoever started the rumor was not so benign. LV: Not necessarily. A lot of times the rumors start in fact. In the case of that email, we suspect it came from a state where those were the instructions you needed to vote and people mistakenly thought it applied here. Of course, in some cases there are people who are not well-intentioned and that’s unfortunate because we strongly believe that the more people who have a say and have their voices heard, the better off we are as a nation.
PGN: Hear that people: Vote! LV: [Laughs.] Yes, it’s very easy. When you go to your polling place, you’re going to see your poll worker who’s probably a friend or neighbor, because that’s how it’s structured, especially here in Philadelphia. Sign the poll book and walk over to the voting machine and make your choice. If you’re unsure about how to use the voting machine, you can go to votespa.com and, under “voting and elections” then “be prepared,” you can see a video on how to use the machine in your area. Or you can go to City Hall a few weeks before the election and they usually have a voting machine on the first floor that you can check out. The commissioner has very friendly and helpful staff members there to answer any questions you may have. But always remember that’s what the poll workers are there for as well. Or you can always call our hotline. PGN: That’s great information. What do you think made you so civic-minded? LV: I was always interested in politics, probably because of the household I grew up in. My grandparents always had the news on in the house and I distinctly remember going to the voting booth with my grandfather for every election.
PGN: Any nonprofit work? LV: Yes. I‘m on the board of my neighborhood association, I’m a board member of GALAEI and New Directions For Women. It’s very fulfilling to be able to help out the city and people you love.
PGN: Speaking of love, single or partnered? LV: Partnered. My girlfriend’s name is Maura.
PGN: Any hobbies? LV: Yes. I love to cook and I’m way too crafty. My girlfriend teases me about it all the time. Right now I’m learning to knit and I’ve been known to brew my own beer. I’m also an avid reader.
PGN: Who was the hardest to come out to? LV: My grandmother. We were very close and I was so worried that it would devastate her, but she absolutely rolled with it. Nothing changed, she’s an incredible woman. Now I even tease her and tell her it’s her fault because when I was about 13, she picked me up from school one day and on the way home we stopped at Hooters. I was absolutely mortified thinking, “What is she trying to tell me?” but it turned out her sister had told her that they had the best grilled-cheese sandwiches in town. Of course, all the Hooters girls were flocking to our table and fawning over us because they usually didn’t get too many kids and grandmothers in there. I tell her that was the tipping point that made me gay.
PGN: So let’s get to some random questions. Which family member had the greatest influence on your way of thinking? LV: My grandfather. He was the most patient and kindest person I’ve ever met. He always gave people the benefit of the doubt, which is something I try to do. If you expect good things from people, I think they will rise to that occasion. If you expect people to disappoint you, they will. PGN: Favorite piece of clothing, now or as a kid? LV: My cowboy boots. I got them on a trip to Nashville and they make me feel like an urban cowgirl.
PGN: Your screensaver? LV: A picture of my girlfriend, me and the First Lady.
PGN: If you had to describe your day as a traffic sign, what would it be? LV: [Laughs.] With less than a month to the election, definitely (Wo)men at work. PGN: I feel most at peace when … LV: I’m sitting on the beach at that 4 o’clock hour when all the families have packed up and gone and it’s starting to get cold so you wrap yourself up in the towel and settle in with a good book. That’s my Zen moment right there.
PGN: Best or worst Halloween costume? LV: I had both in one. My college roommate and I went as Homer and Marge Simpson. We painted ourselves yellow and the costumes were awesome, but we were still yellow after showering because our skin had absorbed the paint, so we ended up looking jaundiced for several days.
PGN:Name five things, not people, that make you happy. LV: Dogs, coffee, zombies, NPR, my scooter.
PGN: What do you say to people who think voting doesn’t matter? LV: I would tell them to speak to the Philadelphia city councilmember who won by 50 votes last year or the state rep candidate who won by a couple hundred votes in April. The 2000 presidential election margin was 527 votes. You may only be one vote — but that vote matters. n
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