UPTOWN — Uptown community group ONE Northside aims to register 5,000 North Side residents to vote in advance of a statewide advisory referendum on increasing the minimum wage on Nov. 4.
The effort, spearheaded by volunteers and ONE staffers, started early this summer and so far has registered about 800 people "from Lincoln Park to Rogers Park," said ONE organizer Ellen Glover.
Municipal elections are coming next year. But Glover said the non-partisan organization's focus is to bring more voters to the polls for November's statewide elections, which include an advisory referendum about raising Illinois' minimum wage to $10 an hour from $8.25.
"That's one thing that we're really encouraging people to really get out and let their voice be heard on," Glover said about the referendum, which isn't legally binding. "We just want people to get out and vote on the things they care about."
Republican lawmakers in Illinois have charged that putting the non-binding question on ballots is a maneuver by their Democrat counterparts to ramp up Democratic turnout for state elections. But Democrats have insisted the referendum, though not legally binding, could help sway lawmakers on the fence about the wage increase and lend more power to future attempts to implement a law.
ONE Northside is about 4,200 short of its registration goal with a deadline of Oct. 7, when registration closes.
Glover said "we are targeting unregistered voters throughout the North Side," from old folks who have never voted in their lives, to new citizens and young people and people who need to register again because they've moved around a lot due to homelessness or being displaced from housing.
Earlier this month, a city taskforce appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel recommended raising the minimum wage for workers in city limits to $13 an hour by 2018.
"The minimum wage is to make sure that work pays," Emanuel said in early July. "Nobody who works should raise a child in poverty."
Critics of minimum wage increases have argued that the measures are potential job killers that will force employers to lay off workers, hire less or otherwise cut back in ways detrimental to their businesses. Supporters maintain a "living wage" is necessary to improve the quality of life and social mobility for many poor and working class individuals and families.
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