Should the United States begin an immediate withdrawal of military personnel from Iraq, starting with the National Guard and Reserves?

This is the question a local group is asking on its quest to add this referendum to the November election ballot all over the country by grass roots peace coalitions.

The Peace Coalition of Southern Illinois for Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Shawnee Greens are spearheading the effort in Jackson County.

Lori Senteney, a director at the Peace Coalition of Southern Illinois, said the referendum is designed to send a message about how the peace groups feel about the occupation of Iraq.

She said the response has been good so far and it seems like people want the referendum on the ballot, but the drive still needs more support. In order to get the referendum on the ballot, the group needs signatures from eight percent of the people that voted during the last election in the county. She said they have about half of the 1,287 signatures they need.

Senteney said the deadline for the petition to be turned into the county is Aug. 21, but the group is trying to get enough signatures by Aug. 11.

"A victory for us is to get it on the ballot," Senteney said.

She said the idea of putting a referendum on the ballot was hatched at a Peace and Justice Conference in Champaign on April 1. She said various groups brought proposals and they voted to start a referendum campaign. Most of the groups that attended were Chicago-based, and some groups got the referendum on their township ballots in April, she said.

Siobhan Kolar, the outreach coordinator at the Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice in Kane County, said her group attended the same conference and they are also doing the referendum campaign. She said they need about 12,000 signatures in Kane County, but did not know how many they currently had.

Kolar said the largest push was at the Kane County Fair in June where her group rented a booth. She said they have also had success at churches and farmer's markets. She said she is not marking success by whether or not the referendum makes the ballot, but by keeping the topic in the public consciousness.

"We are counting success as just continuing the conversation about the war," Kolar said.

Local events and businesses have been the main campaigning ground for Senteney and her group.

She said she has been attending sunset concerts with petitions and has them at local business such as Sound Core Music, Long Branch Coffee House, Hairbrains Salon and the Rosetta Stone Book Store.

In addition to Illinois, Senteney said similar referendum campaigns are going on in Vermont, Minnesota, New York, Wisconsin and California.