By Sahara Bulls, Jubilee Housing Staff Member

This November’s presidential election was one of the most important elections of our time. There were strong views on both sides of the aisle, and COVID-19 made voting safely hard to manage, especially for older Americans.

The Jubilee Housing Senior Club (Senior Club) worked diligently to make sure that its community was registered to vote and understood how to cast ballots in the safest way possible. On Saturday, Sept. 12, and Saturday, Sept. 26, the Senior Club, in conjunction with the Reed-Cooke Neighborhood Association, hosted a voter registration drive at Unity Park in Adams Morgan to help community members register to vote and request absentee ballots.

Equipped with masks, hand sanitizer and other personal protective equipment, members of the Senior Club and the Reed-Cooke Neighborhood Association registered over 30 community residents. Of the registrants, six were first-time voters.

Senior Club member Romaine Johnson said the idea to host a voter registration drive started with a question posed by members of the Senior Club: How do we get our [Jubilee Housing] seniors to the polls?

The election was expected to be tight, and Jubilee Housing employee and Senior Club liaison Constance Bradley-Bryant knew the importance our seniors’ votes held for them and their community.

“With the senior population increasing each year, demographics are in their favor,” she said. “Seniors understand the power they have. They understand that, with their health and livelihood so heavily dependent on government assistance, voting becomes much more than a mere exercise in civic duty,” Bradley-Bryant continued. “They must vote so that they will not be forgotten and so they will be heard.”

Because of the pandemic and the age of the senior community in Jubilee Housing, voting in person could have been risky. To make sure those residents’ voices were heard this election, Johnson reached out to Reed-Cooke Neighborhood Association. “We knew we had to make sure that those who wanted to vote could,” she said.

The Senior Club was passionate about registering as many voters as possible before the election. Members hosted another voter registration drive on Tuesday, Oct. 27.

For information on how to register to vote, click here.