Bill Jones Shops for Voter Registrations

Secretary of State Bill Jones went to extremes Tuesday to get people to register to vote, taking his message first to a large supermarket and then to a tiny mom-and-pop store.

The secretary of state’s Grocers Day effort, along with that of a number of citizen groups, is part of Voter Registration Week, a statewide plan to draw attention to Monday’s deadline for eligibility to vote in California’s March primary.

Other events include Education Day today, Business/Technology Day on Thursday--in which 350,000 employees at technology firms will receive an e-mail reminding them to vote--and Sports Day on Saturday.

Jones held a news conference at a Pavilions store in Burbank and then visited Rancho Market, a Korean-owned grocery and liquor store, also in Burbank.

The effort is being organized jointly by his office and the California Grocers Assn., the Korean American Grocers Assn. of California and the California Package Store and Tavern Owners Assn., a trade group for African American grocery stores and taverns.

“ ‘Register while you shop’ is a good adage,” Jones said.

Ellis Cha, president of the Korean American organization, said, “Our kinds of stores have direct contact with the community. We’re going to use that contact to let people know they should register to vote.”

His organization will send out registration material to each of the 4,500 stores it represents, he said. That effort will be geared more toward registration for the November presidential elections.

Registration efforts should communicate in a personal way why every vote counts, Jones said, joking that he expects small store owners to put “peer pressure” on customers to register.

“I want them to ask customers on the checkout line, ‘Have you registered to vote’?” he said.

Rancho Market owner Max Oh said many of his immigrant customers came from countries where the political process did not lend itself to voter trust.

“Many Latinos and Koreans think politicians are all crooks, so why vote?” Oh said. “But in the United States, if you don’t vote for someone to represent you, there will be no reflection of your ideals in the political process.”