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Kenai Peninsula Votes

Kenai Peninsula Votes

Host Kathleen Gustafson was joined by Alex Koplin, Heath Smith, and Terese Lewandowski with Kenai Peninsula Votes for Wednesday’s Coffee Table.

Kenai Peninsula Votes has three main goals, encouraging everyone to vote, fostering educated

and informed voting, and advocating for secure and safe elections. One of the ways KPV works

to achieve these goals is by supporting community engagements. Alex Koplin talked about the

event KPV put on at the Homer Public Library. He said its purpose relates to

community engagement.

“We talked about issues about voter voting and elections. But the main idea is and I

think Keith will talk about that, too, is we want to hear different points of view in regards to

election and voting. As we all know, we've just had a whole bunch of communication about this

subject, it's not been really pleasant to listen to. And so the idea of community engagements

was to have all points of view shared and listened to, and it's not a gotcha thing. It's more of

trying to understand where everybody's coming from,” Koplin said.

May 12, 2022 is the registration deadline for this current special election primary. That includes

updating your mailing address. Terese Lewandowski with KPV said you have to register if you

want to vote in the upcoming election.

“So you have to have both those in place and you can go to the excuse me go to

the state election website page@elections.alaska.gov. And do that the their their website

elections page is very easy to maneuver,” Lewandowski said.

Former council member Heath Smith said one of the main goals for KPV is connecting the

community with the democratic process.

“Our primary function as KPV is to be advocates to participate. Because we don't want

anyone to lose trust in the process. We want people to understand that their voice counts. And

so I really would encourage everybody to kind of be on board with what's in place and

participate. Because, you know, there was a quote that I wrote, read the other day, it's by Marian

Wright Edelman, and it says, democracy is not a spectator sport,” Smith said.

You can find more information about KPV at facebook.com/KenaiPeninsulaVotes. You can hear the full Coffee Table online at kbbi.org or as

a podcast on your favorite app.

Simon Lopez is a long time listener of KBBI Homer. He values Kachemak Bay’s beauty and its overall health. Simon is community oriented and enjoys being involved in building and maintaining an informed and proactive community.