AFL-CIO Voter Protection Program: You Can Get Involved ANYONE can volunte.

http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/10/18/afl-cio-voter-protection-program-you-can-get-involved/

AFL-CIO Voter Protection Program: You Can Get Involved

by James Parks, Oct 18, 2006

Voting rights violations—intentional and accidental—around the country in 2000 and 2004 stole the votes from thousands of working families, people of color, retirees, persons with disabilities, new citizen voters and low-income residents.

Stolen votes don’t always happen at the polling place. In recent elections, many voters were disenfranchised because they received bad information on where to vote or were deliberately intimidated from voting.

Just yesterday, the Los Angeles Times reported that the state attorney general is investigating a Spanish-language letter warning some Orange County Latinos in California that they could be jailed or deported if they vote in the November election.

Or consider a new report showing many of the problems that plagued the voting booths in 2004 have gotten worse.

That’s why, in addition to waging a massive get-out-the-vote effort this midterm election, working families are taking steps to ensure their votes will count. The AFL-CIO union movement is working with its allies in 23 communities in six states—Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington—to educate citizens about their voting rights and to help prevent voting violations.

The AFL-CIO Voter Protection Program also is urging voters to take advantage of new protections under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) passed by Congress in 2002. For instance, if voters do not appear on the registration rolls, HAVA guarantees they must be provided with a provisional ballot, so they can vote and the validity of their registration can be checked later.

Says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney:

With so much at stake this November we’re determined to make sure that every eligible voter who goes to the polls has an opportunity to cast his or her ballot and be heard. Our votes this year will be critical in determining the direction of our country and whether working families have good jobs, affordable healthcare, workplace rights and more.

As part of the AFL-CIO Voter Protection Program, the federation will train union and voting rights activists on their states’ election laws so they can serve as poll monitors on Election Day. Poll monitors will be available to answer voters’ questions about their rights and through rapid action networks, help resolve any issues voters may encounter.

In addition, AFL-CIO poll monitors will have access to a network of lawyers available to handle problems that require legal action. Union activists also are distributing fliers at worksites across the country to help workers make sure they are able to cast their ballots and have their votes counted.

The Voter Protection Program needs volunteer poll monitors. To learn more about training and how you can help make sure every vote is counted, call the AFL-CIO Civil, Human & Women’s Rights Department at 202-637-5274.

Download fliers to find out how you can take action now to protect your vote in English, Spanish or Haitian Creole, as well as six simple steps to protect your vote in English, Spanish, Haitian Creole and what to do if you see voting violations on Election Day also available in English, Spanish and Haitian Creole.

The need for voter protection is shown clearly in a new report released last week by the Century Foundation, Common Cause and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund. Voting in 2006: Have We Solved the Problems of 2004? shows that most problems exposed in the 2004 election remain unresolved and some have been exacerbated and threaten to mar the midterm elections in just three weeks.

The report looks at 10 states—Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin—and assesses what each has done since 2004 to address key issues, such as poll worker training, maintaining registration databases, voting machine distribution and provisional ballot distribution.

Tova Wang, the report’s main author, says, “while some states have made progress in certain areas, most states have a long way to go in order to make sure their elections will be fair and accurate.” In fact, says Wang:

Some states have even taken steps to make the process more difficult and more likely to disenfranchise eligible voters than before, a totally unacceptable development.

Among the report’s findings:

* Some states have made it more, not less, difficult to register to vote.
* New voter identification laws in half the states studied present major new barriers to voting.
* Although phony fliers and other scam contact proliferated in many states in the weeks before the 2004 election, only Missouri has taken aggressive steps toward halting these practices. Bills are pending in three other states.
* Despite the widespread problems with long lines and insufficient and inequitably distributed voting machines in 2004, most states continue to have extremely vague and decentralized standards for voting machine distribution. Long lines threaten to be a problem again.



This portion of this website is paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, 815 16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006, with voluntary contributions from union members and their families, and is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.