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Byline: Rob Barry
Oct. 29--A group of young women talked politics amid cigarette smoke and live music at Churchill's Pub on a recent Friday.
The left-leaning but ostensibly nonpartisan women, who call themselves the "Voting Vixens," were set up in the club's outdoor patio, where they sold pink "Voting Vixen" T-shirts, handed out copies of Voting Vixens magazine, touted their website (votingvixen.com), signed women up for a mailing list, and generally cajoled the other female pubgoers into political conversation.
Much later, they ringed the dance floor and partied at the Little Haiti bar.
The Vixens is a grass-roots project started by Women's Movement Now, the local chapter of Younger Women's Task Force.
Over music pumped by nearby DJ PG-13, Voting Vixen Mikele Aboitiz Earle explained the group's genesis: "There wasn't a space for younger women to connect ... We all felt there was something missing in Miami."
The project attempts to address the less-then-spectacular turnout among younger women in recent elections. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 45 percent of women aged 18-24 voted in 2004, much lower than the overall female average of 60 percent.