Another Successful Year of the "Get Out the Vote" Campaign
The Mosque Foundation in partnership with the Council of Islamic Organization of Greater Chicago,  CAIR- Chicago and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights conducted the fourth election cycle of the New Americans Democracy Project (NADP) a non-partisan voter registration and Get out the Vote (GOTV) campaign on the southwest side. Maryam Al-Zoubi was hired to lead the efforts in the Mosque Foundation community in Bridgeview and neighboring suburbs. For two months Al-Zoubi and a team of youth volunteers from Universal and Aqsa School knocked on Muslim Americans' doors and registered 1,000 eligible citizens to vote and go to the polls on Election Day. October 5th kicked off the GOTV campaign and the long hours of door knocking, phone banking and talking to Mosque Foundation worshippers to encourage them to vote on November 2nd!
Imams Jamal Said and Kifah Mustapha continuously encouraged Mosque Foundation community members to vote and to remind friends, relatives and neighbors to vote. Volunteers handed out literature  before and after prayers encouraging people to vote early and informing them about absentee voting.
The Mosque Foundation, Aqsa and Universal schools mobilized the Muslim community to participate in a GOTV training conducted by Wellstone Action and to attend the ICIRR “One Nation One Dream" Candidate forum on October 18th at the State of Illinois building. CIOGC Chairman, Dr. Zaher Sahloul and Associate Director, Ahlam Jbara both posed questions to Alexi Giannoulias and Governor Pat Quinn on behalf of the Muslim community regarding racial profiling, citizenship and immigrant services. Community member Alaa shared her powerful story as an undocumented Muslim Palestinian student.
The Mosque Foundation, CIOGC, CAIR and ICIRR held a press conference at the Mosque Foundation on October 21st that was followed by a bus of Muslims going to early vote at Oak Lawn Village. “We affirm our commitment to civic duty and reject the cynical attitude at this difficult and important time of our country’s history.” said Oussama Jammal, Vice President of the Mosque Foundation.
The great work of the past several months came to a spectacular end with over 60 volunteers at the Mosque Foundation on Election Day. The youth started at 6 AM walking precincts in the Southwest suburbs leaving door hangers with polling place information for each registered household. At 7 AM, community members received a robo-call from Imam Jamal Said, and by 9 AM phone bankers started making live calls reminding people to vote and giving them their polling place information. By 10 AM the volunteers were back out door knocking to urge people to get to the Polls.
Election Day ended with Muslims casting their ballot on or before November 2. Nonpartisan efforts by mosques and other Islamic organizations registered 2,000 new voters and mobilized thousands more to the polls.
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