COPE organizing to bolster fall vote Continued from page 1 Armed with city registration forms, COPE and other community groups will be seeking thousands of registrations between now and Aug. 20. Council’s Non-Partisan Association majority voted last spring to kill the door-to- door enumeration that has been the method of putting Vancouverites on the voters’ list for decades. The 9-2 vote — COPE alder- men Libby Davies and Bruce Eriksen were opposed — replaced the system with a mail-out form and brochure. The effect is that there are at least 100,000 less people registered for the civic race this fall than for the 1986 election. The other result is that people on Van- _ couver’s east side — predominately work- ing class people, low-income earners, immigrants who do not speak English as a first language — are grossly under-rep- resented on the 1988 list. East side polls also turn out votes for COPE and other progressive candidates. “Obviously, that decision was taken for political reasons,” says Harris of the council decision to cancel the regular enumeration. _ To counter it, COPE and several com- munity organizations plan door-knocking, street displays and several other methods to redress the electoral imbalance. Under the new scheme the city has sent registration forms to most names on the 1986 voters list. It also mailed brochures — in many cases without the accompanying form — to every household in Vancouver. “Because of that system, thousands of people didn’t get the registration forms. Many of those people are tenants who have moved since the election, so the process has favoured homeowners,” Harris says. City supervisor of elections Gil Mervyn acknowledges that the system favours homeowners. He says it represents little change since registration of homeowners is easier through access to addresses from the B.C. Assessment Authority. Mervyn, who is also assistant to the city clerk, says that 154,439 voters had been registered by July 11. In 1986, 292,007 were on the voters list. Because of a change to electoral law which stipulates British subjects may no longer vote in Canadian elections, and because some ineligible people were on the list two years ago, the city estimates some 270,000 will be eligible this year. With that calculation, more than 115,000 voters are still not registered. In an exchange of letters published in - community newspapers, former COPE alderman Bruce Yorke charged that the mail-out system discriminated against more than 100,000 voters. Mayor Gordon Campbell, an NPA member, replied that all those who were registered now will be the ones most likely to vote in November, and . those left off the list are not interested in voting. In a rebuttal Yorke charged: “This elitist attitude completely ignores the facts. . that people living in relatively low income areas, and all tenants, are forced by all kinds of circumstances to move frequently and hence have never received the mailed out registration forms.” Harris says city council could have opted to send registration forms to all households nal. disenfranchising people.” (there are 142,858 according to the city) instead of the brochure, through Canada Post. “The initiative is left up to the individual voter to register, and that’s a cop-out,” she charges. An examination of two polls shows the geographical imbalance in voter registra- tion. Poll 14, bordered by Victoria Drive, ' Grandview Highway, Clark Drive and Adanac Street, listed 721 homeowners as voters in 1986. So far, only 318 Poll 14 homeowners are registered in 1988 — 44 per cent of the 1986 tally. For tenants, the figures are 1,957 in 1986 and 792 this year — 40 per cent. By comparison, 1,092 Shaughnessy homeowners in Poll 72 were registered in 1986, while 852, or 78 per cent, are now on the list. For tenants the figures are 544 in 1986 and 332 now: 61 per cent. The city’s registration program also involves supplying forms to stores such as 7-11 and Mac’s Milk. But there are no posted signs advertising the forms. Additionally, a three-week radio and tel- evision advertising campaign has ended. COPE REGISTRATION ORGANIZER, SUE HARRIS .. Canadians mark Mandela’s 70th In Vancouver they lit a birthday cake, filled out birthday cards and sang liberation songs across the street from a special bill- board message in honour of Nelson Man- dela’s 70 years — the last 25 of these in prison. The Vancouver rally Monday mirrored those in Toronto and other centres around the world — including in South Africa itself — as millions of people made known their opposition to the country’s abhorrent system of racial segregation known as apar- theid. An estimated 400 people crowded into the parking lot of a bank at Cambie and Broadway streets, in sight of a large bill- board that for a week wishes the leader of the African National Congress a happy birthday and calls for his release by the South African white-minority government. Local ANC representative George Lai called Nelson Mandela a symbol of the courage and determination of the South African people to be free. Mandela is a “great nationalist”, Lai said, but “not the type who calls to drive the white man into the sea, but the type of nationalist who calls to secure freedom and the good things of South Africa for all its people.” Mandela, jailed 25 years ago for treason, has refused all offers to be set free from Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town on the condition that he renounce force as a means of ending apartheid and minority rule, or leave the country. Lai said the congres, is “not. against negotiations, but the regime must set the 2 « Pacific Tribune, July 20, 1988 climate to make such negotiations possi- — ble.” Those conditions include the release of political prisoners, the “unbanning” of the ANC and of political organizations, and lifting the state of emergency, he said. Cliff Andstein, secretary-treasurer of the B.C. Federation of Labour, said Mandela’s courage — he keeps in good physical and mental shape despite virtual isolation and being allowed only brief visits from his family — can inspire Canadians to main- tain their principles and struggle against apartheid. He said Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s telegram to the apartheid government cal- ling for Mandela’s release could be streng- thened by meeting the demand of “every legitimate people’s organization in South Africa” to isolate the regime. “A real birthday message to Nelson Mandela from the Canadian government would be a message to their foreign minister which says, “As of this date, Canada breaks diplomatic relations with South Africa and we impose complete and total sanctions.’ “That, sisters and brothers, is the struggle that we in Canada have to ensure so that in the very, very near future, there is no trade, no movement — nothing goes to South Africa from this country, and nothing comes, except the liberation of Nelson Mandela and the South African people,” Andstein declared. Rally organizer Sadie Kuehn announced city council will be asked to name a Van- couver park or street after the imprisoned ANC leader. In Toronto some 1,200 people gathered outside the Ontario legislature Sunday where a People’s Picnic organized by the ANC heard Canada’s congress representa- tive Yusuf Saloojee call for full sanctions against the regime. “If apartheid is not dismantled, we’re going to have a bloodbath,” he warned. “We give thanks for the life of Nelson Mandela,” said Anglican Archbishop Ted Scott. (Scott hosted a press conference in Vancouver July 15 in which he told of the courage Mandela showed when the archbi- shop met the ANC leader while part of the Eminent Persons delegation to South Africa two years ago.) Tens of thousands rallied in London’s | Hyde Park at the behest of Britain’s Anti- Apartheid Movement, while large gather- ings were held in Amsterdam and Rome. In London South African Anglican Archbi- shop Desmond Tutu said Mandela is “head and shoulders above any contemporary ° leader in South Africa. Any sensible government would realize that Nelson Mandela is absolutely essential for peace and stability in South Africa.” Several world leaders called for Mande- la’s release, and Soviet leader Mikhail Gor- bachev sent the ANC leader a birthday telegram. In South Africa itself, a police ban — overturned too late by the courts — was used to prevent large support rallies. South African security forces broke up a concert at the University of Cape Town. The demon- strators left the university hall after chanting “happy birthday” and releasing balloons in the ANC colours. . “the NPA is effectively Mervyn says that the ad campaign had “no significant effect.” . “We found we were still receiving the same amount of applications per day — about 100 to 150,” he reports. Harris says that some six to seven volun- teers show up daily at the COPE registra- tion office, but stresses that many more volunteers are needed to reach the target figure of 30,000 registrations by Aug. 20. “We need lots of volunteers — preferably people from the neighbourhood in which they'll be working,” she advises. i COPE’ registration plans involve public displays — they set up a table at the Van- couver Folk Music Festival last weekend — street registration, area blitzes and a “Copemobile” that will be on the road in another week. Some community groups are running their own registration campaigns. Michele Valiquette of the Grandview Woodlands Area Council says the group will have a table at the upcoming La Quena coffee house festival and its members will “hit the streets” for a registration drive Aug. 6. Council member John Shayler says the organization is also pushing for an exten- sion of the Aug. 20 deadline — the election — takes place in November — and for council to institute door-to-door enumeration in the fall. Stephen Learey of the Downtown East- side Residents Association reports registra- tion figures as low as 28 per cent of the 1986 figure in polls in the district. DERA will be hiring a co-ordinator to oversee door-to- door registration drives in neighbourhoods, housing projects and hotels. He says city council turned down a DERA request for funds for the drive. _ Learey notes that Canada Post provides no mail forwarding service for hotel dwellers, who number in the thousands in the Downtown Eastside. Mervyn says the city will be placing advertisements in local-newspapers for the next few weeks, and will set up registration centres in all Safeway stores, four London Drugs outlets and popular shopping centres for the first three weeks:in August. Those who miss the Aug. 20 deadline will also be able to register, with two pieces of ' identification, on election day Nov. 19. The requirements are Canadian citizenship, 19 years of age and three months residence in the city. But whatever the projects, nothing will replace a full enumeration as an effective means of registering voters, say those involved in the community-based drives. Shayler notes the city’s current system discriminates against physically handi- capped, those who do not speak English well, and low-income people who live in — so-called “illegal” suites or apartments from _ which they must frequently move. “The NPA is effectively disenfranchising — people. They want to fix the election and — this is how they are doing it. Our job is to make sure they don’t get away with it,” — Harris asserts. _ The COPE office is at 1314 Commercial — Drive. The phone number is 251-2963.