Village aiming for full turnout

''It's so frustrating to hear about voter apathy in America, when people in other countries have died for the right to vote," said Bredenberg, a 54-year-old strategic planning coordinator who moved to this Franklin County community nine years ago. ''I wanted to think of a way to get people to the polls and see what we could do in little Montague Center to make a statement."

What started as an idea grew into a movement when Bredenberg ran into Kathy Peura at Old Home Days, the village's annual end-of-summer fair.

''She was talking about how nice it would be to have some kind of campaign to get more people to vote," said Peura, a 60-year-old farmer, church secretary, and treasurer of Montague Center's lighting district who has lived in the village for 37 years. ''I thought, even if it doesn't happen, why shouldn't we try?"

Their message began to spread among neighbors through word of mouth, still the most effective mode of communication in close-knit communities like this one.

Then phone calls were being made, along with offers to drive anyone to the polls if they needed a ride. People started talking about the campaign at the Montague Bookmill and Lady Killigrew Cafe, two businesses that share space in a renovated 162-year-old grist mill.

Fliers went up around the village, at the Post Office and the public library, where voters run their ballots through a hand-cranked box. When the bell on top of the wooden box rings and you see the number counter roll, you know your vote was counted.

In a community where half the voters aren't affiliated with a political party, the get-out-the-vote campaign has been decidedly nonpartisan.

Suzanne Stenson O'Brien, the spokeswoman for National Voice, a coalition of community groups pushing to get more people to vote across the country, said the goal set in Montague Center is a rare one.

She knew of only one other community -- the West Side neighborhood of St. Paul, Minn. -- that has organized a 100 percent voter turnout campaign.