Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

Monday marked the last day to register to vote before November's presidential election in many states and the conclusion to one of the nation's largest nonpartisan voter registration drives in history. Helping more than 1.3 million of the America's underrepresented young, low-income and minority citizens register to vote, Project Vote and its voter registration drive partner, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), have played a leading role this election cycle in changing the face of the electorate to represent all Americans.

In 2006, according to Project Vote study, "Representational Bias in the 2006 Electorate," the proportion of the U.S. population that was registered to vote was biased toward Whites and older, affluent and educated voters. Latino and Black citizens were less likely to be on the voting rolls, registering 17 and 10 percentage points, respectively, behind Whites. Lower income citizens, or those earning less than $25K per year, registered 21 percentage points (60%) behind  those earning $100K per year or more (81%). And in keeping with their long history of lagging voter registration and participation rates, voters under the age of 30 registered to vote at a fraction (51%) of the rate of those ages 30-64 (70%). The most stunning findings in the report were that if eligible minorities actually voted at the same rates as Whites, an extra 7.5 million votes would have been cast in 2006.

News articles from every corner of the country are reporting increased registration rates, pointing to a potentially "game-changing" reshaping of the electorate with voters feeling newly empowered to demand that elected officials address their issues. Election officials are predicting "it's going to be a tsunami of voters" on Election Day.

"In the past year, the rolls have expanded by about 4 million voters in a dozen key states," according to the Washington Post Monday. More than half of the 1.3 million that Project Vote helped register were in key states Ohio, Michigan, Florida and Pennsylvania, according to Richard Wolf of USA Today, 60 percent of which "are under 30 and about two-thirds are minorities." A driving motivation behind this rise in registrations, according to ACORN board member Carmen Arias, is the "faltering economy."

"In 2004, we were met with apathy," Arias said in a press briefing Tuesday. "We had to convince people to register to vote. This year, we were met with excitement: people are excited to have an opportunity to have a say in solving the foreclosure crisis, and the health care crisis. They're eager to have politicians listen to them."

Elected officials listen to those who vote, and America's imbalanced electorate has effectively silenced millions of low-income citizens.

"We think it's important that the voices in our community get heard," said interim chief organizer of ACORN, Bertha Lewis. "This isn't just about going into the voting booth, but it's actually about strengthening democracy and instilling an ongoing commitment to effect real change."

Reports from Colorado, Michigan, and Florida all note increased registration rates and spikes in last minute registrations. On Monday, a Denver elections office took 100 people per hour who poured in to register or apply for mail ballots before the deadline, according to Myuang Oak Kim of the Rocky Mountain News. Project Vote and ACORN's voter registration effort helped more than 70,000 Colorado voters get on the rolls.

In Michigan, 95 percent of eligible voters are registered, according to the Associated Press. Local clerks, who processed 217,000 applications from Project Vote, "are gearing up for what's expected to be a heavy turnout on Election Day," which may exceed the 68 percent that turned out in 2004. To accommodate the influx, secretary of state spokeswoman Kelly Chesney said her office has recommended increasing the number of voting stations to avoid long lines as well as develop separate lines for those who "are having issues with the state's relatively new voter ID requirements."

In Florida, 430,000 "younger, more ethnically diverse and more Democratic" voters joined the voter rolls since January, according to Michael Bender of the Palm Beach Post Saturday.  Project Vote and ACORN's efforts helped register152,000 of these voters.

"Everyone wants to be involved this year; they want to be a part of history," says Verna Hunter, a retired Fort Pierce, Fla. woman and long time local voter registration drive volunteer. "It's just a really inspirational time."

"Our belief, fundamentally, is that by expanding the electorate, by changing its profile, we will get candidates who will start to appeal to those new voters," said Project Vote Executive Director Michael Slater in Tuesday's press briefing. "The idea isn't to assist, whether overtly or covertly, the election of any single candidate, but to force candidates to take into account the interests of Americans who have not historically participated in as high rates as others and to start pursuing policies and programs that are more responsive to their needs."

The idea of new voters demanding different policies and programs is threatening to some entrenched powers, and many partisan attacks on voter participation programs and disinformation campaigns have already been launched with just less than four weeks to go until Election Day.

Project Vote will be running a voter education and mobilization canvass in the run-up to Election Day to ensure that all of our registrants go out to the polls. In addition we are running an aggressive Election Administration program to fight partisan attempts to suppress the vote, and ensure that all eligible voters can cast a ballot and that those ballots will be counted. Please follow this link so that you can help support Project Vote's Get Out The Vote and Election Administration Program.

Quick Links:

Hess, Douglass R. "Representational Bias in the 2006 Electorate." Project Vote. Sept. 2007.

In Other News:

States' Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal- New York Times
Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times.

Disabled vet says Tucson officials kept him from voting - Associated Press
A disabled veteran says the city of Tucson prevented him from exercising his right to vote last year.

20 percent of Ohio's provisional ballots rejected - Associated Press
CLEVELAND -- Roughly 20 percent of provisional ballots cast in the March primary election in Ohio were rejected by election officials, a newspaper review found.

Idaho voter registration for students questioned - Associated Press
BOISE, Idaho -- Idaho college students face some of the toughest restrictions in the nation when trying to register to vote at their college addresses, according to a national study.

Erin Ferns is a Research and Policy Analyst with Project Vote's Strategic Writing and Research Department (SWORD).

Yesterday the Republican Party of Montana announced that it was abandoning its plans to challenge the voting eligibility of at least 6,000 residents of that state-mostly in democratic strongholds-who had filed change-of-address cards with the U.S. Postal Service. In a letter sent to election officials in seven counties, state GOP executive director Jacob Eaton withdrew the party's challenges and said they would be issuing no more. Several hundred letters requesting that individuals confirm their correct addresses had already gone out from overworked election offices before the GOP withdrew its challenge.

Voting rights groups, including Project Vote, had previously condemned the plan to challenge the voters as an illegal voter caging operation intended to intimidate and suppress thousands of eligible Montana voters. In a statement released October 3, Project Vote attorney Teresa James, author of the 2007 report Caging Democracy: A 50-Year History of Partisan Challenges to Minority Voters, pointed out that Montana law and the National Voter Registration Act allowed voters who had moved to cast their ballots in their old precincts and change their address at the polls. "In light of these state and federal protections," James said, "challenging voters who have filed a change of address with the U.S. Post Office would serve no purpose other than to interfere with the orderly conduct of the election and intimidate voters. Democracy works best when all eligible citizens participate in the process."

"My intent was to ensure that voters are properly registered and that Montanans would have the utmost faith in the integrity of our elections process," Eaton wrote in the letter to election officials. "Nevertheless, because of the unintended consequences that have been reported, I will not file any other elector challenges."

Following a story about the challenges that appeared in The Missoulian on October 2, the "unintended consequences" of the GOP challenge included chaos at election boards, condemnation from voting rights groups, protests within Montana, and a lawsuit filed by the Montana Democratic Party on behalf of two challenged voters. In the Montana Standard, Lieutenant Governor John Bohlinger, a Republican, called the challenge "an utter disgrace," and said he was "appalled by the leadership of [his] political party."

The developments in Montana came just a few weeks after reports of the Michigan GOP's plans to challenge the eligibility of voters whose names appeared on foreclosure lists. Met with similar public outrage and accusations of voter caging, the Michigan GOP recanted those plans as well, according to the Michigan Messenger.  

"We are pleased to hear that the Montana GOP has decided to withdraw the challenges," James said today. "And we are encouraged that these kinds of partisan caging operations-which have been used in previous years to disenfranchise thousands of eligible voters-are being met this election cycle with the media scrutiny and public outrage they deserve."

"The plans to challenge thousands of eligible Montana voters were made, like most such suppression efforts, under the guise of protecting against a mythical threat of 'voter fraud,'" James continued. "But their quick withdrawal in the face of public scrutiny supports our position that partisan challenges are not motivated by genuine concern over alleged 'voter fraud', but by a cynical desire to keep some people from voting at all."

Over 1.3 million new low-income, minority, and young Americans registered nationwide!

Yesterday, as voter registration deadlines passed in most states, Project Vote, the nation’s leading nonpartisan voter participation organization, and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the country’s largest community organization, held a news conference to announce the completion of a joint nonpartisan voter registration drive, which has succeeded in helping over 1.3 million Americans register to vote. To listen to the conference in its entirety, please click here.

The joint effort –which Project Vote Executive Director Michael Slater described as "the largest and most comprehensive drive in the history of our two organizations"—was conducted in a total of 21 states, with the largest efforts focusing on 16 states, including AZ, CA, CO, CT, Fl, KY, LA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NM, OH, PA, TX, and WI. While final numbers were still being tallied, Slater said that the largest state-by state successes included:

--over 148,000 in Pennsylvania,
--152,000 registrations in Florida,
--over 217,000 in Michigan, and
--over 238,000 in Ohio.

The goal of the nonpartisan voter registration drive—estimated to cost $18 million—was to help close the existing gaps in the American electorate, particularly among low-income Americans, minorities, and youth, all of whom have historically been underrepresented at the polls.

According to Bertha Lewis, Interim Chief Organizer of ACORN, the majority of the 1.3 million registrants are low- to-moderate income people, 60-70 percent are African American or Latino, and over half are under the age of 30. Lewis said the ultimate goal was to change the face of the electorate and permanently empower the Americans who are most affected by policy decisions.

"We think it is important that the voices in our community get heard," said Lewis. "This isn’t just about going into the voting booth, but it’s actually about strengthening democracy and instilling an ongoing commitment to effect real change."

This Election Day is expected to see record turnout at the polls, and ACORN board member Carmen Arias, a longtime voting rights advocate, confirmed that the energy and enthusiasm this year is at an all-time high.

"In 2004 we were met with apathy," Arias said. "We had to convince people to register to vote. This year we were met with excitement: people are excited to have an opportunity to have a say in solving the foreclosure crisis, and the healthcare crisis. They’re eager to have politicians listen to them."

Slater and Lewis both agreed that empowering voters to have their voices heard by their political leaders is what it’s all about. "Our belief, fundamentally, is that by expanding the electorate, by changing its profile, we will get candidates who will start to appeal to those new voters," said Slater. "The idea isn’t to assist, whether overtly or covertly, the election of any single candidate, but to force candidates to take into account the interests of Americans who have not historically participated in as high rates as others and to start pursuing policies and programs that are more responsive to their needs."

Responding to questions, Lewis rejected the suggestion that the nonpartisan voter registration drive had a hidden partisan agenda, and emphasized the importance of empowering low-income communities and working families that have too long been ignored or taken for granted by both political parties.

"All of these politicians, I don’t care who they are—republicans, democrats, all of them—they need to compete for our vote and they need to be accountable," Lewis said. "Because after the election, whoever gets in there has to deal with us."

Project Vote also announced that they are conducting efforts to make sure that everyone who attempted to register actually gets on the rolls. Project Vote lead counsel Brian Mellor explained that the organization took a random sampling of ACORN registrations in nine states, covering 14 counties, and checked to make sure the applicants had in fact been added to the voter lists.

"We were happy to find that it appears that most applicants that ACORN submitted and verified appeared to be getting on the rolls," said Mellor. "However, we do still see systematic problems," particularly with state database matching requirements. "There is lots of evidence out there that database matching produces a lot of false negatives, with people who are legitimate voters not getting matched."

"There are still thousands of Americans who believe they have completed a voter registration application and are registered to vote, but in fact are not," said Mellor, who explained that many registrations are rejected due to incomplete information, confusing application forms, or address problems. Many would-be voters, in fact, may not discover they have been rejected until they arrive at the voting booth.

To give applicants an opportunity to repair their registrations in time to cast a ballot on November 4, Project Vote is conducting a program to acquire lists of rejected applications from boards of election and then to contact the voters by mail or by phone to inform them of their need to re-register.

To assist in this effort, Project Vote has launched a website, www.projectvote2008.org, which provides lists of voters in several states for people to check and see if they or their friends and neighbors have been left off the voter rolls due to common registration problems.

In his opening remarks Slater pointed out that the American system of voter registration—with few federal standards, and in which the burden of registration is placed on individuals—has often been used to disenfranchise voters.

"It wasn’t until the civil rights era that restrictive voter registration laws, challenged by protestors risking physical violence and even death, began to fall," said Slater. "Today, the attacks on voter registration drives are more rhetorical than physical, but the point of contention is the same: the ability of Americans of color to cast a ballot.

"The work of Project Vote and ACORN continues a tradition of ensuring that all Americans can vote," Slater said.

For more information on this and on the various Election Protection and voting rights work going on in the run-up to the election please contact:

Lacy MacAuley, lacy@massey-media.com, for Project Vote
Charles Jackson, communications@acorn.org, for ACORN