No Spike in Ferguson Voting Registration After All
"There was
no dramatic spike in new voter registrations in Ferguson, St. Louis County election officials said Tuesday,"
Nicholas J.C. Pistor reported for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
"The county's election board had previously told some news outlets that 3,287 people were registered to vote in Ferguson since the unrest there began. Tuesday, officials said that number is actually just 128.
"Ferguson's total population is about 21,000.
"
Rita Days, the county's election director, said the discrepancy came from a check of the wrong database. The original search, she said, included voters in Ferguson who had modified their registration in some way (address, death, et cetera) — not just newly register voters.
" 'We have looked at it by hand and we now have the right numbers,' Days said. . . ."
On Oct. 2,
Yamiche Alcindor of USA Today reported, "Days said her office, as well as interested organizations,
have long stressed the importance of voting to community members. Despite many efforts though, there has been little interest in past elections. During local elections in April,
just 1,484 of the 12,096 registered voters in Ferguson cast ballots.
" 'The apathy regarding voters is rampant in this county' she said. 'I mean if we get 10 or 15 (percent of registered voters to vote), that's good.'
"This time, demonstrators are vowing it will be different.
"Community leaders plan to mobilize voters during the upcoming election and ensure that people make it to the polls, said
Anthony Shahid, one of the most visible activists who has been protesting in Ferguson since Brown's death. He hopes volunteers from other cities will help.
" 'We want to have a big rally,' Shahid said. 'You have to get people excited to make people understand that this is history. And it is history — no different than when President Obama came into office.'
"For Shahid, the election will test whether anger over Brown's death will translate into long-term political change. . . ."
[Meanwhile,
Margaret Gillerman and
Valerie Schremp Hahn reported for the Post-Dispatch early Thursday, "
Another police-involved fatal shooting of a teenager, this time in south St. Louis not far from the Missouri Botanical Garden, led to hours of protests overnight Wednesday and into Thursday morning as an angry crowd gathered quickly when news spread across social media. . . .]