Santa Maria Non-Profit Launches Campaign to Register First Time Voters

With the election only a few months away, The Central Coast United for a Sustainable Economy, ‘Cause’, has launched a voter registration drive.

Members of the organization are pounding the pavement to get people to register to vote and encourage first time voters to sign up.

“In both Santa Barbara and Ventura county, Santa Mari is the city with the lowest registration of voters aside from Lompoc that has a big military population”, says Hazel Davalos, a Cause organizer.

She says they are trying to focus on people who ordinarily wouldn’t vote. “The population that are usually less likely to turn out do, young people, immigrants and low income families,” she says.

She says 3 out of 5 people in Santa Maria are registered to vote and 3 out of 10 people voted in the last election.

For Henriette Thomason voting is nothing new, she has been doing it ever since she was old enough to cast her ballot. She’s now in her 80’s.

“It’s important that we exercise that while we have that freedom to do so they don’t have that freedom in a lot of other countries like we do,” she says.

Organizers say they plan to sign up over 1,000 voters by November.

They are also reminding residents that they can sign up online to register.