If you live in the Marietta, Ga., area and haven’t registered to vote and are a football fan, you have a chance Wednesday to make your voice heard at the ballot box and meet members of the Atlanta Falcons and NFL Players Association (NFLPA). The players are pitching in with the Atlanta-North Georgia Labor Council for a voter registration event from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches at 801 Church St., N.E.

No matter where you live, if you haven’t registered to vote, click here to find out how to register in your state. 

One Ohio election official said he frankly doesn’t care if the state’s attempt to curtail weekend early voting hours suppresses voting by minority and low-income voters. Meanwhile, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted suspended and will try to fire two county election officials who had the audacity to oppose his voter suppression tactics. 

Ohio AFL-CIO is protesting outside Husted's office today. They will march from Husted's office to the Franklin County Board of Elections for its meeting at 3 p.m. For more photos of the protest and updates, visit Ohio AFL-CIO's Facebook page here. 

A Pennsylvania state judge yesterday refused to block the voter suppression law that Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R) said “is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says the Pennsylvania law and other similar voter ID laws

are being pushed for partisan reasons to disenfranchise particular groups of voters.  They are cynical and wrong, and they undermine our democracy.

“For progressives and people of color, it’s hard to imagine a worse choice” than Mitt Romney’s selection of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) as his running mate, writes Imara Jones on the blog Colorlines today. He says the pair:

represent a retread of 40 years’ worth of Republican ideas on economics, race and the role of government. Not content to let failure remain dormant, they want to reanimate bankrupt concepts and take them to a whole, new level.

“Something is changing in America,” AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker told delegates to the Washington State Labor Council’s (WSLC's) convention.

The pieces are coming together and the picture is getting clear. We will change America. But we won’t do it alone. As mighty as our labor movement is—and here in Washington you are a powerful force—we cannot do it alone.

This Saturday, Aug. 11, join thousands of working families who are coming together in Philadelphia in the first major action of the Workers Stand for America campaign, the centerpiece of which is America’s Second Bill of Rights:

• Full employment and a living wage.
• Full participation in the political process.
• A voice at work.
• A quality education for all.
• A secure and healthy future.

While Pennsylvania’s new voter ID law is under federal investigation and on trial in a state court, new figures show that more than 1.6 million Pennsylvanians might not have the photo identification necessary to vote this November, including 43 percent (437,000) of Philadelphia’s voters.

This is a cross-post from The Huffington Post by Amy B. Dean, a fellow at The Century Foundation and co-author of A New New Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor Movement.

In 2008, young people in America—including many who voted in their first presidential election—rallied behind a youthful senator from Illinois campaigning on the promise of change and hope. Now the incumbent in the White House, Barack Obama, faces a difficult challenge in recapturing the youth vote for his re-election. Early this month, The New York Times reported that enthusiasm for Obama among voters aged 18 to 24 has fallen sharply since the past election cycle. And many of the young people interviewed in the article spoke of feeling alienated from politics.

So what is behind young people's disaffection? And what must President Obama do if he is serious about winning back the country's youth?
 

The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a formal investigation into Pennsylvania’s new voter ID law that, by some estimates, could disenfranchise nearly one in 10 eligible voters—mostly people of color, students, seniors and low-income voters. The bill mirrors other voter suppression laws Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed in recent years based on model legislation from the extremist American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

On Aug. 11, thousands of American workers will come together in Philadelphia in the first major action of the Workers Stand for America campaign, the centerpiece of which is America’s Second Bill of Rights:

• Full employment and a living wage.
• Full participation in the political process.
• A voice at work.
• A quality education for all.
• A secure and healthy future.