Nationwide LGBT Voter Mobilization Program announced

WASHINGTON, D.C.- The Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Caucus of the College Democrats of America (CDA) and LGBT youth community leaders have launched "Pride at the Polls." This innovative program is designed to educate, register, and mobilize the LGBT community to help elect a Democratic President and Democrats at all levels.
The program will be centered on LGBT pride season, which typically runs from late May through the end of July. LGBT Pride festivals, which attract hundreds of thousands of LGBT-receptive voters each year, have proved to be one of the most effective venues to reach LGBT voters.
DNC LGBT Outreach Director Eric J. Stern will be coordinating the DNC's involvement in the Pride at the Polls Program.
"I am thrilled to be joined by so many fantastic leaders from the LGBT youth community," Stern said. "Not only will we be running this program with Steven Borg and Victor Flores-Gutierrez from the College Democrats of America, but we will also have the benefit of receiving strategic and programmatic counsel from current DNC member Clinton Bench and former DNC member Alexis Blizman-two of the finest youth organizers ever to come out of the Young Democrats of America."
The goals of the program are to establish a Democratic Party presence at as many LGBT Pride events as is possible, increase the visibility of the LGBT community within the Democratic Party, and give a diverse group of community leaders an opportunity to engage in a process that will help support the election of a Democratic president.
"It is critical that we focus on organizing in the LGBT youth community, especially given the fact that people in our community are becoming politically active at an earlier age," Flores-Guiterrez said. "This program is also an important part of CDA's overall get out the vote plan because the 18-35 demographic-LGBT and non-LGBT-is the most supportive demographic of our issues."
"George W. Bush wants to make our community second class citizens forever. We cannot afford to sit this one out," Bench said. "It is time for the LGBT community to join the DNC's efforts to take back the White House in the name of equality and basic fairness."
To find out more information about the Pride at the Polls program, please visit the DNC's interactive home of the program at http://www.democrats.org/LGBT.