INDIANAPOLIS, July 22 (UPI) -- Young American men and women are fighting and serving in all corners of the globe to preserve our most precious freedom -- the right to vote.
Because, be under no illusion -- every other freedom we hold dear, from freedom of the press to freedom of religion is possible only because of our right to vote freely and elect candidates of our own choosing.
Voting is the most basic premise of American life -- the bedrock meaning behind "of the people, by the people, and for the people." And the "shall not perish from the Earth" part is not only our legacy, but also our responsibility.
For that reason, we must pay attention and give our support to a new grassroots effort called Freedom's Answer. It's a nationwide non-partisan campaign to make the election of 2002 the largest non-presidential voter turnout election in American history. Why? Because every vote cast is a strong and strident voice, an unmistakable message to anyone anywhere who doubts that our national fiber is as strong as any time in history --- and certainly since Sept. 11, 2001.
The Freedom's Answer campaign will commence on Sept. 11, 2002, and continue until Election Day, Nov. 5, 2002. Every household in America will be contacted by high school students and asked to remember why our men and women in uniform, today and throughout our history risk their lives to protect our freedoms at home and those of our friends and allies around the world. Everyone of voting age and not registered will be asked to do so, and everyone who is registered to vote will be urged to vote come Election Day 2002.
Why trust high school students, teenagers, with such an urgent and important mission? Because the strength behind Freedom's Answer must be drawn from the reserves of America's future. Our sons and daughters, our grandchildren, our neighbors will be organized into a youth voter corps in every school across America, and they will be asked to accomplish three goals:
First, register all their schoolmates age 18 or older;
Second, contact the neighbors on their block, remind them to vote if they are registered and help them to get registered if they are not;
Third, volunteer to serve as non-partisan poll workers on Election Day.
If, in the famous words of former House Speaker Tip O'Neill "all election are local," what better way to strengthen our democracy than to get our young people away from MTV, their computer screens and X-Boxes and onto the streets of our neighborhoods exhorting friends and neighbors to register and vote? Let us honor those lost last Sept. 11 with a clarion call to voting-age Americans nationwide. There can be no greater or more important way to memorialize their sacrifice than to strengthen that most basic tenet of our nation -- the right to vote.
More information on this program can be found at www.freedomsanswer.com.
(Peter J. Pitts is a senior fellow at the Institute for Strategic Communications and an adjunct professor at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University.)
