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Souls to the Polls: Group canvasses Milwaukee to encourage Blacks to vote

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There are widespread efforts in Milwaukee to encourage the Black community to vote in the upcoming November midterm election, reports the Associated Press. Souls to the Polls is a group that recruits canvassers at churches. The canvassers are trained and go door-to-door with pamphlets with information on voting. “A lot of times people think their votes don’t count, but if everybody thought that way, then we would have no one voting,” said Derrick Etherly, who’s canvassing with the group. Wisconsin saw its lowest voter turnout in the 2016 election for any presidential race in the past 16 years. Predominantly Black neighborhoods in Milwaukee had some of the largest voting declines. The Rufus King neighborhood on Milwaukee’s north side is one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods and has a high incarceration rate of Black men. The neighborhood had a 14-percentage point drop in voter turnout between the 2012 and 2016 elections, according to city election data. Anita Johnson, who leads canvassing efforts for Souls to the Polls, said the state’s voter ID requirement was one of the factors that led to the low turnout. The 2016 election was the first time the ID requirement was in place, which Johnson said caused confusion. “Other people just didn’t like the candidates that were running so they felt like, ‘Well, I’m just not going to vote’,” she said. Some residents have other priorities. Remington Duke, 29, said he’s focused on supporting his family and doesn’t believe his vote will change the government. “I mean, voting is not going to help,” he said. “You know I need to stay focused on whatever I’m doing, how I’m going to eat, how my kids (are) going to eat, how I’m going to pay these bills.”

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