By Lookout Staff

September 22, 2014 -- The Chamber of Commerce launched a campaign to register and turn out new voters and employees of Santa Monica’s burgeoning tech industry for the November 4 election.

The drive kicked off this month with voter registration tables at the Chamber’s 19th annual New Heroes Celebration and at Cross Campus, the co-working office space that houses a number of start-up companies and entrepreneurs.

“We want to ensure that all Santa Monicans have an opportunity to make their voices heard in the upcoming election,” said Chamber President Laurel Rosen.

“Especially important are young voters in the tech community, whose participation is critical to our city’s future,” Rosen said. “We want to remind them that just like the Internet, democracy never shuts down.”

The Chamber will sign up new voters through the October 20 registration deadline, and a number of events are planned to “educate and engage residents on the top issues at stake in the election and introduce them to the candidates,” chamber officials said.

The events include a candidates mixer on October 15 and a candidates forum on October 21. The chamber also is offering members free admission to Social Media Week Los Angeles’s four-day conference in Santa Monica this week.

“As the for the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, I’m working to encourage our younger residents, who in the past haven’t been very involved with local politics, to become informed and to vote,” said Carl Hansen, the chamber’s director of Government Affairs.

“It is essential that they understand the important issues our community is debating now and how that impacts them – particularly the future availability of housing and alternative transportation.”

The chamber has been a key player in Santa Monica elections, and its endorsement is viewed as one of the most important in the city, along with those of the public Safety Unions and Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights.

"Providing businesses and residents with an avenue for civic engagement has always been at the heart of the Chamber’s mission," Rosen said.