“Don’t wait until the last minute,” said Nedra Redditt, who is registering voters for the Nov. 4 Election. (Photos by Florence M. Howard)

“I’m going to call people and have them come by my office to sign their voter registration forms, then I’m going to personally hand-deliver them,” said Nedra Redditt, a real estate broker and co-owner of Ready Team Realtors.  

Redditt’s phone bank will be making calls this weekend – two hours on Thursday and four hours each on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 11-13.  She has 30 forms provided by the Memphis Branch NAACP and intends to have them all completed by Saturday so that she can start on a new batch next week.  Her self-imposed challenge is to register 1,000 people between now and Oct. 6.

A supporter of Sen. Barack Obama, Redditt said that the real estate market is slow at the moment so she has turned her attention to the presidential campaign and her earnest desire is to see a new regime in the White House.

“I want to be part of the trash-out crew for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” said Redditt with characteristic humor.  She said that trash out crews are the folks who clean up houses when people have been evicted or foreclosed and  who change locks on the doors.

Redditt, who has been in real estate for 23 years, is looking for change because the last eight years have been difficult for her business.

“I have lost all my money,” said Redditt, adding that she is not pleased by what’s happening in the real estate market or what has happened to her 401k since 2001. She said that in her business she’s also been involved in a number of foreclosures. “This is really serious,” said Redditt.

When she turns the forms she’ll collect this weekend into the Shelby County Election Commission on Monday, she may have a short wait.  There is a constant stream of activity at the Election Commission office.  People are checking to be sure they are in the system.  Others are filing out new forms.  And there are those who are seriously working on getting their voting rights restored.

Shelby County Election Commissioner O.C. Pleasant Jr. said that the influx of people and voter registrations during a presidential election year is normal. However, this year they have seen a much higher number of ex-felons who have been getting their rights to vote restored.  Brook Thompson, state coordinator of elections, agreed with Pleasant. He said that it is “like it is every presidential election” and that they’re starting to see a lot of voter registrations come from all 95 counties in Tennessee.

Thompson said there were a total of 3,700,000 registered voters in Tennessee for the 2004 Presidential Election.  According to statistics, roughly 65 percent – 2,400,000 people – voted statewide in the last election won by Gov. George W. Bush.   

Turnout in Shelby County was 400,000 voters with Sen. John Kerry getting the majority of votes. There is speculation that a jump in turnout for Shelby County could have turned the state from red to blue.  Asked what makes Tennessee a “red state,” Thompson countered with his own question – “Who says that?”   

Well, the media says it all the time, declaring states won by the Republican Party “red” and those won by the Democrat Party “blue.”  “We don’t register by party in Tennessee,”  Thompson said.

This week the Shelby County Election Commission briefly ran out of voter registration forms due to the excitement regarding the Obama-McCain presidential race. Organizations, including schools and churches that want to do voter registration, can pick up forms at the commission office.  Pleasant said that although several thousand forms have been given out at their office located at 157 Poplar, a number of organizations conducting voter registration do little more than pass out forms, allowing people to take the forms and turn them in themselves.  

Pleasant said it’s better if organizations collect the completed forms on site and turn them into the Election Commission since individuals often forget to follow through.  

“It’s not how many forms you pass out,” he said, “it’s how many get turned back in that count.”

In addition to hand-delivering her forms, Redditt said that she will be voting during the Early Voting period from Oct. 15-30 although she normally votes at her precinct on election day.  Excited about the candidacy of a man “who looks like my husband,” she said that she plans on helping get the vote out and give people rides to the polls on election day.

A member of New Direction Christian Church, Redditt said that she’s taking her pastor’s advice on faith and has already arranged airline tickets and hotel for her and husband, Futrell Redditt, to attend the inauguration of President Barack Obama on Jan. 20, 2009.

Here is a partial list of voter registration sites. If your organization has a site, please let us know. Send your e-mail to kajanaku@tri-statedefender.com.