Hundreds of voters are expected to cast ballots as a group Saturday as part of an event in Phoenix to boost early voting ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm election.
The voters on Oct. 24 will walk from the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown hotel to a nearby early voting site and take turns depositing their early ballots, organizers said.
The get-out-the-vote event will culminate in a day-long convention organized by several progressive groups aimed at shaping a policy agenda for elected officials to follow after the election to address the priorities of working families in Arizona, including rising housing, utility and health care costs.
The so-called Arizona Peoples Convention will be one of the biggest get-out-the-vote events in Arizona history, according
to Cesar Fierros, a spokesperson for Living United for Change in Arizona. LUCHA is one of the grassroots progressive groups organizing the day-long event, along with Activate 48, Chispa Arizona and Our Voice Our Vote Arizona.
More than 1,100 have registered for the convention and several hundred voters are expected to cast early ballots, Fierros said.
The convention will bring together working families, community leaders, grassroots organizers, and elected officials from across Arizona "for really what is a historic people-powered movement coming together to shape Arizona's future just days before Election Day," Fierros said during a conference call with reporters.
Instead of a political rally, voters will spend the day taking part in community-led discussions and workshops to identify priorities for working families and produce an agenda for elected officials to follow after the election, Fierros said. There will also be live music.
"Arizona families don't need a poll to tell them that things are hard. They see it in their rent, their power bill, their health coverage," said Reginald Bolding, a former Democratic state representative and House minority leader who is coalition director for Activate 48, a progressive advocacy group led by Black, Indigenous and people of color.
Arizona's Health Care Cost Contain system, the state's Medicaid and public health insurance program, covers nearly 1.8 million people, or about one in four Arizonans. said. Meanwhile, rent prices have increased faster than wages, and low-income people spend a disproportionate share of their income onrising gas and electric bills,he said.
All 90 members of the Arizona House and 30 members of the Senate are up for re-election, Bolding noted. Republicans hold a narrow majority over Democrats in both houses, 17 to 13 in the Senate, and 33 to 27 in the House.
The convention is intended to make sure elected officials pay attention to the priorities of working-class families regardless of who wins, Bolding said.
Arizona voters will vote on a ballot measure called Proposition 144 that would require all Arizona voters to show government-issued ID before they cast a ballot in any election, including those who vote by mail. It would enshrine in the Arizona Constitution that only citizens may register and vote in Arizona elections, which is already a state law.
The proposal was sent to voters by the Republican-majority state Legislature. Democrats, including Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, oppose the measure, saying it would dramatically curtail Arizona’s popular vote-by-mail system.
"What we know is that the people of Arizona, they are facing an insurmountable challenge of the present-day issues and present-day challenges," Bolding said. "But what we also know is there's an opportunity to actually solve those problems and the Peoples Convention is a gathering where people are helping create and shape the agenda of what they want to see and what they what to be true here in the state of Arizona coming up into election day."
The convention is timed to Vote Early Day, a national movement that supports early voting, organizers said. It is intended to remind voters tomail ballots by Oct. 27, the last day to mail in ballots in Arizona. Mail in ballots can also be dropped off at the polls on election day, Nov. 3
The convention starts at 10 a.m. and will conclude at 3 p.m. when people who bring their mail-in ballots will participate in a "march to the polls," Fierros said.
Folks will walk together as a group from the hotel to anearly voting siteat 424 N. Central Avenue to cast their ballots, Fierros said.
"What it is, is a demonstration of the power that the community has," Fierros said. "It's also just another effort by us to get people motivated and excited about voting."
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Why hundreds of voters will march to an early voting site in Phoenix
