Tuesday, November 2^nd
Election Day

(Oct. 30^th in some places)

Protest Locations · Sign Up · Organize a Protest · Press Inquiries Organize a Protest Here are the steps to organize a voting age protest in your area: 1. Inform us.   Contact us to let us know you're organizing a protest. We need your name, email address, and the city of the protest. Your phone number and AIM screen name are optional, but appreciated. We will contact ASFAR members in your area to invite them to the protest. We will also post the information on this site.   2. Choose a time and location.   Pick an exact time and location for the protest to happen. We recommend that you stage your protest near a polling station, so that voters will see you as they enter and exit the building. If possible, choose a station that a major politician will be voting at, since media are likely to be there. The best time of day is late afternoon, when kids will be done with school. It is also recommended that you choose a backup date in case the weather is bad. Check the weather forecasts a week in advance so you can give advanced warning of postponement. When you have selected an exact time and protest site, please let us know so we can tell interested parties.   3. Get a permit.   Call your local police to find out what the process is of acquiring permission to hold a demonstration. The sooner you do this, the greater the likelihood of getting permission in time!   4. Make signs and print out literature!   We'll send you copies of Youth Truth (our quarterly ’zine), as well as “Lower the Voting Age!” buttons, for handout at the protest. In addition, you can print out copies of our voting age position paper. You may want to create flyers with the date and time of the protest, to hand out or post ahead of time. Here's an example flyer. Finally, you'll want to make signs! Here are some PDFs of poster templates you can print out, then blow up into full-size signs at Kinko’s or another copy shop:   5. Inform the media.   Write a press release for dissemination to local media. A sample of what the press release should look like is here. It should include the date, time, and location of the protest, as well as your contact information. If there is a rain date, include that as a footnote. Call all your major local newspapers, TV channels, and radio stations (even papers not in that city will be interested in covering the protest if someone from their coverage area will be attending). Fax them your press release. Then give them a reminder phone call the day before the protest happens.   6. Hold the protest!   All that's left to do is show up! Be prepared with answers to questions from reporters (you may want to read our voting age position paper). If you get a lot of people to come talk to you and think about the idea of lowering the voting age, your protest is a success! (Also, take pictures if you can, so we can post 'em online!) Good luck, and have fun!