Democracy Matters Wes Group Invites Public to Attend

Hello!
My name is Olivia Horton and I'm the president of the Wesleyan chapter of Democracy Matters, which is a national non-profit organization dedicated to campaign finance reform and political accountability. I would like to invite you to attend an event we are co-hosting with the Occupy Wesleyan group next Wednesday, November 16th at 6:30pm. The event will be held on the Wesleyan campus in the Public Affairs Center in room 004. We will be offering pizza for dinner at the beginning of the event. (I have attached a PDF of the flier for the event if you'd like to view that as well.)

The event will first feature a talk by the Executive Director of Democracy Matters, Joan Mandle, on political activism. She will be speaking from her position at the head of a national political advocacy organization about how we can effectively enact change in our government.

Following her talk, we hope to facilitate a discussion about the ideals upon which our government was founded, the nature of our current system, and the discrepancies between the two. Finally, we will talk about methods and strategies we can utilize to bridge the gap and improve our government.

We at Democracy Matters and Occupy Wesleyan urge you to attend and contribute to the discussion. Please spread the word within the community and invite anyone you believe might be interested.

We hope to see you there!

--
Olivia Horton

Wesleyan Class of 2014

Wesleyan Argus & Wesleying.org Election Articles of Note

Off the more traveled path of web reading this week besides the Press, the Patch, & the Eye, the Wesleyan Argus & Wesleying.org blog have had articles pertaining to similar election issues regarding registration of students to vote locally. With the issues this surrounding the registration of students and use of a p.o box vs. a physical address that took place earlier this week, several news sources have published articles of note about the issue. Ben Forshiem, president of the Wesleyan Democrats wrote a response to the letter by Eye writer & candidate Molly Salafia. Forshiem's response is published in the Wesleyan Argus & on the Middletown Patch that can be found here. Forshiem also elaborated in more detail in addition to his letter about his thoughts and stated he agreed with another commenter in a response to the issue on the Wesleying.org blog here.

BOE candidate and Eye write Ed McKeon wrote a response on the Wesleying.org blog, an independent student run blog a commentary on the issue worth reading. It can be found here:

http://wesleying.org/2011/10/27/community-voice-ed-mckeon-voting-with-the-townies/.

Eye writer and Wesleyan Biology Professor Stephen Devoto (Fishmuscle) wrote an article discussing student voters, and also asking them to take a closer look at 3 municipal candidates- all of which are locally running as Republicans ( Sebastian Giuliano, Debra Kleckowski, and Molly Salafia) he praised and asked readers to take a look at because "I think deserve strong consideration from left-leaning voters."

His article can be found here: http://wesleyanargus.com/2011/10/27/to-the-nearly-500-students-who-registered-to-vote-in-middletown/.

Salafia, McKeon, Devote, & Forshiem all discuss the same issue of voting locally from different perspectives. Forshiem, who is a student, wants students to vote locally. Interestingly,Salafia, McKeon, & Devoto, the Eye notes, all are in consensus regarding Wesleyan students voting in their current city of Middletown. All three approach this in a similar way; they support college student's of Middletown voting in the municipal elections so long as they educate themselves with the relevant local issues. While each response to the issue is unique pointing out various ramifications; all three advocate researching all candidates to better understand not only the needs of their university that the candidates propose to meet, but also how the candidate will meet the needs of the other citizens of Middletown.