After the Sunday afternoon service at Grace Temple Baptist Church in Tucson, Ariz., a crowd of more than 30 churchgoers filed into the adjacent hall for a voter education forum presented by the A. Philip Randolph Institute’s (APRI's) Southern Arizona chapter.

The crowd was a mix of young voters and those who’d been voting since before the 1965 Voting Rights Act was passed. It was a chance for everyone to learn the ins and outs of various ballot initiatives, as well as how and where they could vote early. Attorney Kristian Salter led the group through a “no spin, no bias” explanation of the various initiatives, breaking down the meaning behind each initiative’s wording and taking questions along the way.

The initiatives covered everything from funding for education and infrastructure to fundamental changes in how primary elections are run—all decisions that would have a profound effect locally.

Mary Carr, a bulk mail clerk and member of the Postal Workers (APWU), said she wanted to educate herself on the ballot propositions because she wanted to explain them to her son who would be voting for the first time. Now that she had the information, they would be able to fill out their ballots and vote early. She also looked forward to taking the information back to her union.

Lamar Leigh, an AFGE member and a health technician at a local Veterans Affairs hospital, said he attended because voters don’t normally receive in-depth information on ballot initiatives:

I plan to vote, and I want to make an educated decision [on these issues]. My vote does matter.

Sunday’s voter education forum was just one of many voter outreach programs the Southern Arizona APRI chapter has run during this election cycle. Earlier in the year, they held a successful voter registration drive in partnership with community food banks and will follow up with get-out-the-vote (GOTV) mailings to 1,000 of those newly registered voters.

More photos from Sunday’s event are available at the Arizona AFL-CIO Facebook page.