Democratic Women’s Club of Marco learns about voter protection

“In the year that we are celebrating the centennial of the anniversary of women winning the right to vote, we have the opportunity to select people up and down the ballot who represent all Americans,” Annisa Karim, chairwoman of Collier County Democratic Party, told the Feb. 11 meeting of the Democratic Women’s Club of Marco Island.

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Urging the 47 members present to engage as volunteers, she said, “Everything we do in the next 250 days counts.“ For more information, contact www.collierdems.org.

Marilyn Michales and Anne Daley also addressed the DWCM. Michales, a retired lawyer, leads the Voter Protection Group of the Collier County Democratic Party. The committee’s goals are to educate people on Florida voters’ rights and insure the integrity of election results. Michaels reminded attendees that Florida voters must register 29 days or more before an election and that a voter must have a photo ID with a signature that matches the signature on record. 

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Voters who vote by mail-in ballots can go to colliervotes.com to verify their ballots have been received.  In Collier County, mail-in ballots will be counted with the in-situ ballots. Michales urged the group to volunteer as poll watchers, to protect voter’s rights. Anyone interested should contact ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­collierdems.org to attend scheduled training sessions.

Margie Stein and Mary Beth Borre from Future Now also spoke to the group. Future Now Fund is focused on winning state legislative majorities and working with them to achieve goals for the common good. “We win state legislative majorities by focusing on strategic races and chambers, crowd-funding with ‘Giving Circles,’ and providing substantial on-the-ground support,” Stein explained. “Future Now is developing the most robust state legislative support system ever built, to help state legislators achieve meaningful results,” she said.

The last speaker to address the group was Barbara Wagner of the Mike Bloomberg campaign who explained that Bloomberg’s platform supports the causes he is passionate about including gun safety, climate change, education and women’s rights. She told attendees that universal health care is also very important to Bloomberg and that his plan would build on the ACA to reduce costs while allowing people to keep their existing private insurance. For more information, contact mikebloomberg.com.

DWCMarco welcomes and encourages all candidates and or their surrogates to contact the club if they are interested in addressing the group. A representative of the Bernie Sanders campaign spoke at the January meeting.

The next meeting of DWC Marco will be held Tuesday, March 10, at Mackle Park Community Center at 5 p.m. Members and visitors are urged to come prepared with questions for guest speakers David Holden and Cindy Banyai, who are running for Florida’s 19th Congressional District. More information can be found at the group’s website, DWCMarco.org and questions can be addressed to DWCMarco@gmail.com.