Looking to June

State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas, who founded the African American Voter Registration, Education and Participation (AAVREP) project, claimed to have registered 100,,000 new voters for today's election.

“We registered more than 25,000 voters in the past four months," Ridley-Thomas said. "Many of those voters will cast ballots for the very first time today. We played a substantial role in increasing the overall number of new voters in L.A. County during this election and future elections,” Mr. Ridley-Thomas said.

From August 2007 to January 22, 2008, AAVREP voter registration team members registered 17,000 new Democrats, 1,500 new Republicans and 6,500 new Decline To State votersm he said.

And, for Ridley-Thomas, it is more important to get those voters to the polls in June, when he is running against Councilman Bernard Parks for the Board of Supervisors.