Pro-Life Group Launches Nationwide Christian Voter Registration Effort
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 16, 2006
Colorado Springs, CO (LifeNews.com) — A leading national pro-life organization has launched a voter registration effort in churches across the country in an effort to increase the number of pro-life voters and encourage them to vote this November. Focus on the Family hopes its program will bring millions of pro-life voters into the voting booths.
Focus on the Family will rely on inserts in church bulletins and voter registration tables after Sunday worship services to try to register millions of evangelical Christians to vote.
Polls frequently show evangelical Christians are the most pro-life when it comes to abortion, embryonic stem cell research or euthanasia and tend to have more passionate feelings on the issues than backers.
The effort builds on a successful effort launched by President Bush’s re-election campaign in 2004 to encourage Christian voters to turn out at the polls.
The Focus on the Family program will concentrate on eight key states with key Congressional and statewide elections, including Maryland, Montana, Tennessee, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Minnesota.
John Paulton of Focus on the Family Action, the political branch of the group that is sponsoring the effort, told the Los Angeles Times a non-presidential election year could see some Christian voters staying home.
"Any time you go from a big presidential year like 2004 to an off-year like this, there’s going to be a drop-off" in voter interest, he explained.
"It’s a question of how much," he told the Times. "You could argue that the fear of what could happen if many more liberal politicians take over could be very motivating to get out and vote as strongly."
The group is seeking church coordinators to head up the voter registration and get out the vote efforts.
Organizers tell the times they are being careful to make sure the drives are legal and follow IRS guidelines, which prohibit churches from endorsing candidates.
"Everybody knows where their audience is, and we know who our audience is," Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values, an Ohio-based group, told the newspaper. "Absolutely we can target who we want to register to vote. There’s nothing that prevents us from doing that."
Burress, whose group is working with Focus on the Family, said as many as 3 million bulletins will be distributed in 15,000 churches showing how to register to vote.
Related web sites:
Focus on the Family – https://www.fotf.org
