Be a voter this fall (UPDATE 2)

On the left is Leticia Perez, the first Latina
elected to any county board of supervisors
 in the Central Valley. Teamsters voter
registration helped put her over the top. 

(UPDATES 2nd graf with more recent information about California registration, adds ID of county supervisor in first photo, corrects UPS driver is registering in NoCal sted SoCal.)

Teamsters all over the country are busting their butts to register thousands of new voters. California Teamsters are especially active as they're fighting against Prop. 32, the potentially devastating Billionaire's Bill of Rights.

We've reported Local 856 in San Bruno set up registration tents and tables outside Delta Dental, where their members work. But there's been even more activity in California, as every single local is registering voters.   Between Joint Councils 7 and 42, almost 20,000 people became voters, and 90 percent of those are registered to vote by mail.

Joint Council 28 in Seattle is working with an immigrant rights group to test messages and outreach to their members who haven’t become voters or moved. They're trying out a phone app provided by Washington's secretary of state.

Said Joint Council President John Williams,

Business Agent Abe Taylor of Local 174 walked around warehouses and driver bays with his phone app and resolved hundreds of voter registration issues in just a few days.

Becoming a voter in NoCal.

Local 237 in New York City launched an aggressive September voter registration drive. President Greg Floyd said his local's 14,000 registered voters understand how important it is to vote since elected officials control many of their departments' budgets.

In New Jersey, International Vice President Fredrick Potter said his local, 469, is planning for a voter registration drive to coincide with a shop steward meeting and another at a local shopping mall.

David Robinson, president of Joint Council 43 in Detroit, said Michigan's working families lost a great deal when their collective bargaining rights were chipped away:

Now we are working with all the trade unions in the state to reverse that decision with a constitutional amendment. Re-establishing collective bargaining rights is one of the most important fights we’ve ever had.

If you aren't a voter, it's easy to become one. Just go to the Rock the Vote's website here. Or check out the Teamsters' web page to find out your state's deadline. Most deadlines are in October, so get cracking!