National Youth Rights Association,
North Dakota Chapter

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NYRA North Dakota News Archive

14 November 2002:  NYRA North Dakota is gathering bipartisan support for a petition to lower the voting age to 16.  We are moving as quickly as possible and will keep you updated.

To give you an idea of the process- Here it is:

1. We form an organizing committee to draft the language of the petition and submit it to the Secretary of State for review.  This may take a little time as we need to contact some prominent politicians from both parties to see if they would give us their support.  Having such people on the organizing committee would greatly improve the type of reception we would get in the political scene and in the public's eye.
2. The Secretary of State approves the petition language and we begin a period of up to one year in which we can distribute the petitions.  This poses a significant challenge that NYRA alone could not overcome, as both the signers and distributors of the petition must be 18.  However, the organizing committee will certainly have their friends to help out, and NYRA members and supporters over 18 can too.
3. We collect at least 25,688 signatures, and each distributor of the petition signs and notarizes an affadavit declaring that all the signatures on their petition pages were signed in their prescence.  The petitions are then sent to the Secretary of State, who will verify either a random sampling or all of the signatures.
4. If enough signatures are verified, the issue will be placed on the ballot for the next election.  It will attract massive national interest from the moment the petition is approved.  The following months will see a national debate on the topic of youth rights, and then, it's all up to the voters of North Dakota.

19 September 2002:  Please excuse the update delay!  NYRA North Dakota is still alive and kicking.  Right now, Billy Luetzen is taking surveys at Magic City Campus about the 'O'riginal Bar situation so that Cory and Chelsey can show them to City Councilman Ron Boen at a lunch sometime in the near future.  In a side note, it was not NYRA North Dakota that was responsible for eliminating age discrimination at a local mall as reported by themaneater.com (the online side of the newspaper at the University of Missouri - Columbia).  That was NYRA Tennessee Valley, and you can check them out at their website, which is under our Links section.

06 September 2002:  We've finished redesigning the NYRA site and we hope you enjoy it.  We've put up the meeting minutes from August 8th as recorded by Chelsey.
Cory has set up some forums at his website with an area for NYRA.  Check it out!

02 September 2002:  NYRA-ND is going to be doing a lot this month!  Starting tommorrow, we'll be distributing an anonymous survey at school to help us get ammunition for getting the dances at the "O"riginal Bar approved.  Also, NYRA-ND has been in contact with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and we're going to go up against the school's web filter!

29 August 2002: The meeting tonight dealt with many issues, particularly the subject of the "O"riginal Bar and Nightclub's plan to have 16-plus dances. Also discussed were our plans for a youth community center and relations with city hall.

10 August 2002: Today we received the Certificate of Incorporation from the state. Effective yesterday, NYRA North Dakota is an official nonprofit corporation! Hooray! We're also working on a modest site update to make it more organized.

08 August 2002:  Hello all.  Johnathan here.  The meeting today was pretty successful.  I was appointed Financial Consultant, Billy Luetzen was appointed Activities Consultant, and several people joined the standing commitees formed, the Action Committee and the Fundraising Committee.  The bylaws were approved, we talked about some key issues, filled out registrations, and then adjourned.  Jason Gagnon was appointed webmaster, so I may have a more supportive role in the development of this site.  However, I will continue to manage the e-mail list.

07 August 2002:  I've made a new graphic for the website.  Enjoy! 
In other news, The meeting tomorrow is sure to go well.  We got a lot of flyers handed out thanks in part to Cory and Billy Luetzen.  Be sure to bring your friends!

04 August 2002:  The NYRA national newsletter, "NYRA Freedom," has found a home on the web at http://www.nyrafreedom.org/.  They've included a little news about us.

30 July 2002:  Today marks the launch of the NYRA North Dakota website.  My name is Johnathan McClure and I will be the webmaster, for now at least.  Cory asked me to be webmaster of the chapter site as he is bogged down with the responsibility of maintaining the JavaScript-bloated page of the national organization.

More importantly:  NYRA North Dakota filed all the paperwork for incorporation of the 24th of July (having filled it out the previous night) and we are expecting a response from the Secretary of State very soon.
We are also having our first meeting, here are the details:

Be There!