VOTER PROTECTION VICTORIES
Democracy Movement Up and Running in Michigan
by Alaina Beverly
Each month, representatives of organizations from across the state who believe in a more inclusive Michigan, gather together for a monthly Michigan Voice meeting. Michigan Voice is a state-based coalition of progressive and racially diverse organizations, which fosters collaboration and communication among nonprofit, social justice, and progressive-minded institutions.
Recently, Michigan Voice member organizations agreed to weave Advancement Project’s voter registration and verification practices into their voter registration routines to ensure that every voter they register will make it onto the voting rolls in 2007 and 2008.
“In 2006, 34 organizations worked together as part of the Michigan Voice collaborative to conduct voter engagement work from a centralized voter file, but without a centralized verification system. That is why Michigan Voice is excited to collaborate with Advancement Project to test a pilot voter registration verification program,” explained Ryan Friedrichs, Michigan coordinator for the Center for Civic Participation and Michigan Voice convener. “We plan to start in Detroit and Lansing in 2007 and early ‘08 with the aim of going to scale with a larger program for the ‘08 elections.”
Michigan Voice will, in part, use voter verification—a method of analyzing the effectiveness of voter registration processes—to identify patterns of disenfranchisement and obstacles to voter registration. According to Lisa Wozniak, executive director of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, “Voter verification is a critical addition to the collective Michigan Voice 2007-08 plan to ensure outreach to and engagement of underrepresented communities. As an organization that focuses specifically on voter education and getting out the vote, we are thrilled to have partners like Advancement Project who complement our work. The work of this great new "whole" will undoubtedly make a huge difference in engaging citizens throughout Michigan.”
Incorporating voter protection practices into its activities is just one step in the community empowerment work of Michigan Voice members. “Voter verification is one element of Advancement Project’s partnership with Michigan Voice. The table is a committed group of advocates from all over the state,” explained Advancement Project Local Voter Protection Advocate Brian White, “who are working together to bring about a better Michigan—one where legislators are responsive to community needs, election officials value voters, and voters have a strong voice in determining the state’s future.” Be on the lookout for issue-based initiatives and voter mobilization. In Michigan, the democracy movement is on its way.
ON THE GROUND
Gearing Up for 2008:
Ohio’s Local Voter Protection Advocate Enlists Community Groups as Voter Protection Partners
by Donita Judge
Ohio’s Local Voter Protection Advocate, Deborah Barksdale, is making sure that community groups are aware of Advancement Project’s Voter Protection Program. Barksdale spoke recently at a public policy meeting facilitated by local coalition partner, Dayton Parity. She provided information to community groups on voter protection and coalition/partnership building in preparation for the upcoming 2008 elections and beyond.
During her presentation, Barksdale shared with community groups that Advancement Project has been involved in coalitions and partnerships that are successful because the participation and support comes from local community groups. Advancement Project’s coalition partners and allies are often called upon to:
- Develop local voter protection goals and strategies to prevent voter disenfranchisement.
- Attend meetings with local election officials to determine county election procedures.
- Attend press conferences on issues of local importance.
- Sign on to letters to election and/or elected officials.
Barksdale’s coalition building activities do not stop here. Currently, she is contacting prospective partners throughout Ohio to determine which groups will be conducting voter registration for the 2008 elections. Her goal is to meet with community groups and introduce these groups to voter registration verification practices that will guarantee their voter registration activities will result in voters who ultimately end up on the state’s voter rolls.
Barksdale is a council member of the Ohio secretary of state’s Voting Rights Institute and is actively engaged in developing practices to enhance voting rights for Ohio voters. She is also in contact with the Ohio secretary of state’s office to identify upcoming voter registration events and partnership opportunities in an effort to introduce Advancement Project’s Voter Protection Program and voter registration verification practices to a wider range of local community groups.
Finally, Advancement Project’s Voter Protection Program is strengthened through the work of our partners and the various areas of our partners’ expertise. Just recently, Ellis Jacobs, an attorney with Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, Inc. (ABLE), wrote a report for The Montgomery County Voter Protection Coalition (“the Coalition”), which includes ABLE, Advancement Project, Edgemont Neighborhood Coalition, Parity, Inc., and The League of Women Voters. The report, “Voting Machines Malfunction in Ohio, November 2006,” provides details of an investigation that was conducted by the Montgomery County Election Board in response to the Coalition’s demand for a rigorous examination of an alarming problem with voting machines that resulted in “vote flipping” during the November 2006 election. Coalition partners received numerous complaints about this problem and urged the Board to perform a data-driven, solution-oriented investigation.
Removing the Scarlet Letter:
Maryland’s New Legislation Extends Rights to Formerly Incarcerated Persons
by Kimberly Haven
July 1, 2007: I will cease to live my life as a bystander. One of the last vestiges of the collateral consequences of my incarceration has been removed. And on this date, the scarlet “F” that I must wear as a former felon will be somewhat muted. This has not been an easy road for me, and it has not been an easy road for my 52,000 brothers and sisters in Maryland who will also cease to be voiceless and powerless bystanders in our democratic society. On July 1, 2007, we will be eligible to register to vote.
With the passage of Maryland’s “Voter Registration Protection Act,” the political landscape in Maryland changed significantly. A new constituency has been born—a constituency that before was relegated to the role of bystander in their own lives—ghosts, if you will. The most basic tenet of democracy afforded to us as citizens of this country continued to elude us as we rebuilt our lives, shaped and contributed to our communities. We were seen but not heard—voiceless, powerless, and overlooked.
But on July 1, we will no longer be ghosts or bystanders. We will move to become registered voters. We will become civically engaged and we will begin to flex our political muscles. We will create new dialogues in our communities that will resonate in our local and state elections and that will become part of the upcoming presidential election. We have something to say and now we can say it.
What began as selfish act on my part when I came home from prison took on a life of its own when I recognized the unfairness of disenfranchising citizens after we have completed our sentence and returned to the community. I created a campaign that asked very simply: “Maryland, Got Democracy?” I knew that until we changed the law in our state, the answer was no. I have fought this fight for the past six years and backed with the support, passion, and vision of an incredible coalition, the Maryland Senate and House approved this historic legislation (SB-488) and Governor Martin O'Malley signed it into law on April 24, 2007.
But still I have yet to celebrate this accomplishment. As I drove crying to Annapolis on the day of the bill signing ceremony, the significance of the day was not lost on me. I knew that when I stood there, I represented my coalition, my brothers and sisters who would benefit from our work, the incredible men and women who fought the fight before me. The fight was for those who were no longer with us but who had been as passionate about the cause as me. It had been my honor and privilege to “carry the ball into the end zone” and the weight of that knowledge was immeasurable.
On April 24, I stood behind Governor O’Malley as he signed the bill. He turned back and handed me the pen and I knew that we had charted a new course for our state, and the impact of this legislation is significant. But I cannot celebrate yet…
While I know that we did something incredible in Maryland, the victory for me personally will come on Monday, July 2, when I will go with my brothers and sisters of this new constituency down to the local board of elections and turn in our voter registration applications. This will be a hard day for me and, most likely, I will cry again. But this time my tears will come at the fulfillment of a personal victory.
Kimberly Haven is the executive director of Justice Maryland, which is Maryland’s leading statewide criminal justice advocacy organization. Justice Maryland is a non-profit organization that seeks to coordinate its efforts into a centralized and powerful grassroots voice that advocates for a fair and equitable system of law along the full continuum from arrest to release.
Thirty-three Down, 1,648 to Go:
Alleviating Pennsylvania’s Voting Problems in One Polling Place at a Time
by M. Aurora Vásquez
She stands at the large glass doors waving her arms at what appears to be a motion sensor above her head. She shifts her weight to her right hip and then her left. Nothing. She stomps her feet slightly. Nada. Peering through the doors into the room with the voting machines, she waves her hands at the poll workers. “I want to vote,” she says. Still nothing. Just then, an elderly lady with a key walks over to the silver box on the wall, and the doors slide open effortlessly; it seems the automatic sliding doors aren’t so “automatic” after all.
The scenario described above is only one of many Election Day faux pas I witnessed during visits to polling sites in Pennsylvania on May 15, 2007. As a voter protection advocate, I know that Pennsylvania poll watchers are partisan by definition and the watchers stand firm by this rule. They are also banned from positioning themselves in front of, next to, or behind the voting machines. But judging from what I saw, some watchers don’t so much care to follow this particular rule. Additionally, while they are not supposed to interfere with the voting process, at least one watcher ignored the rule, forcing the judge of elections to call the cops on him—twice.
“If you don’t have photo ID, you have to vote by provisional ballot,” declared the judge of elections. Two problems: Pennsylvania does not limit voters to a photo ID and, even if the judge had been right, there was no space set up to cast the ballot privately. The latter problem was not surprising; I saw it in nearly every division I visited. But apparently if you can’t convince the voters they have to show photo ID before voting, you can always—as this judge did—fall back on the premise that people with felony convictions cannot vote at all. Wrong again.
The voter approached the table. “Can I see your ID?” asked the judge of elections. The question sounds harmless, unless you know that Pennsylvania only requires first-time voters in the division to show ID. Clearly, without opening up the poll book, this judge knew something about this voter that the rest of us didn’t, or maybe this judge was asking every voter to show ID. It wouldn’t be the first time a judge made that mistake.
Every voting division in Philadelphia has its own judge of elections. There are 1,681 judges; I visited 33. As lead poll workers, the judges are a critical cog in the machine. On May 15, 2007, I spent 13 hours on the streets of Philadelphia. I visited 19 polling places, housing 33 divisions. While no single polling place was plagued with problems that would make your jaw drop, there was something amiss at virtually every stop I made. Yet, there are those who say that the little problems don’t matter much. I know better.
I know that when I happen upon a judge just as s/he is turning away a long-time voter for failure to show ID, many others are about to be—or already have been—erroneously turned away. I know that when a judge is inclined to inform certain voters that people with felony convictions cannot vote, that many potential voters are at risk of not participating due to inaccurate information. I know that a polling place with all its coming and goings, which does not provide private space for provisional ballot voters, violates an important fundamental premise underlying our democracy. Call me crazy, but I think the “small” problems are easily resolved through better poll worker training, more frequent training, more creative training, better preparation, or perhaps a combination of all four.
But it wasn’t all bad news. Last November, I encountered a judge who turned away a long-time voter because he did not have ID. To ensure the voter was allowed to vote that evening, I directed the judge to the ID information in his poll worker training guide and talked with him about the importance of not being overly broad in demanding ID. I also expressed my concern with the lack of accommodations for provisional ballot voters. On May 15, I visited this site again and was pleasantly surprised to find that every division in this polling place had a separate table set up to accommodate provisional ballot voters (now, if we could just get some desk top privacy screens).
And what happened to that judge from last November? Well, as though it were second nature, he relayed the proper ID procedure when I asked how things were progressing. By this fall, I intend to stop by these 19 polling places again to see if the judges remember what we talked about in May. If so, I’ll breathe a sigh of relief knowing I’ve got 33 divisions down and only 1,648 to go.
To learn more about what you can do to help protect Pennsylvania voters, access our voter protection resources at: www.advancementproject.org.
M. Aurora Vásquez is a staff attorney with Advancement Project who coordinates with a Pennsylvania-based local voter protection advocate on year-round activities to protect voters and to ensure fair elections.
VOTING VIEWPOINTS
A French Lesson: What We Can Learn from France’s Progressive Stance on Immigrant Voting
by M. Aurora Vásquez and Crystal N. Hill
In early May, the citizens of France embraced new leadership as the former Interior Minister of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, edged out the former Vice-Minister for Family, Childhood, and Handicapped Persons, Ségolène Royal in the run for presidency. Sarkozy’s election marks a milestone for the French presidency in several ways: He is the first president of France born after World War II and the first not to have been in politics under Charles de Gaulle, a French military leader and statesman. But, aside from these generational firsts, it is Sarkozy’s visionary stance on the immigrants’ voting rights that strikes a chord with us.
Contrary to many members of his own party—the Union for a Popular Movement—Sarkozy favors allowing legal immigrants, who have resided in France for at least ten years, the right to vote in French municipal elections. Even though the United States is heralded as an international leader, wielding the ability to influence events and project power on a worldwide scale, we are lagging behind in the growing movement to extend the right to vote to noncitizens.
Historically, the United States was not opposed to extending the right to vote to noncitizens. In fact, from a historical perspective, the country’s current stance barring noncitizens from voting represents a new trend which only began in 1926. In the 150 years prior to the 1926 shift, noncitizens were allowed to vote in the vast majority of U.S. states. This should not be surprising because while the U.S. Constitution specifically cites citizenship in several places (in reference to the qualifications for holding office), it does not reference it as a prerequisite to voting—hence, the country once opted to deny the vote to two important groups of U.S. citizens: African Americans and women.
Today, with the fervor of the immigration debate thick in the air, immigrants—including the documented—have collectively become the hallmarks of anti-Americanism, accused of creating divides between themselves and “real” Americans by maintaining their native language and culture and otherwise allegedly refusing to fully assimilate into “the American way of life.” Under this narrow and distorted view, barring them from the ballot box is justifiable since the vote is the cornerstone of the America we so fervently seek to protect.
Conveniently though, this observation fails to consider that noncitizens contribute to the “American way of life” because they too make and spend money in our communities, they also buy homes, start businesses, and pay taxes accordingly, because they too must follow our norms and rules—and so must stop at a red light just like the rest of us and pay for their bread and milk just like you and I,—and of course, because this is their home, they too have a vested interest in the overall stability of the country’s social and economic development. And a legal immigrant who is not a citizen not only pays taxes but can fight for this country in the military. Every day, noncitizens are fighting on the front lines in defense of American freedoms. As of December 2004, 43 percent of foreign-born service members in the U.S. military were not naturalized citizens, and we rely heavily on the contributions of these individuals, without whom we would not be able to fulfill the need for foreign-language translation, interpreters, and cultural experts.
And yet, while we demand that new immigrants respect our social norms and laws and that they respect this country by contributing to her overall well being in addition to making positive social and economic contributions to the health of their respective communities, we deny them access to the one tool that we, as a country, uphold as the hallmark of everything we are: the opportunity to vote.
Thus at its core, the issue is not one of citizens versus noncitizens, but rather one of the power-holders versus the disempowered. Marian Wright Edelman captured it best when she said: “People who don't vote have no line of credit with people who are elected and thus pose no threat to those who act against our interests.” And that’s precisely what some people want: no threat. No threat from the nearly 25 million noncitizens who are an inextricable part of who we are as a nation and would likely have a great deal to say—through their vote—about how we’ve been treating them.
It is time that we take a lesson from France. The new president’s stand on immigrant voting will give more attention—and deservedly so—to better engaging immigrants and ethnic minorities in governance activities and other participatory processes. Ron Hayduk, a renowned expert on immigrant voting rights, argues that allowing immigrants access to the ballot is more in line with the democratic ideals upon which America was founded. Now more than ever in the United States, it is imperative that our stance with regard to immigrant voting reflects the desire of the American public to be more inclusive with regard to voting rights. In so doing, we will remove barriers to noncitizen and greatly expand political participation for all people.
This opinion piece is from the Advancement Project’s Just Democracy Blog, which is designed to give progressive voices an up-to-the-moment way to share news, exchange views about voting rights, educational opportunity, urban peace, immigrants’ rights, and other issues to advance the national dialogue on racial justice. We invite you to visit the Just Democracy Blog website to join the dialogue and fuel the conversation about racial justice in America.
Maybe Louisiana Citizens Should Have Evacuated to Argentina
Bill Would Give Displaced Louisiana Residents an Equal Voice in Government
by Alaina Beverly
Argentina has an election scheduled this fall and, you guessed it, Argentineans living in the United States will be able to vote in the election. Citizens of Argentina temporarily living in the United States will be able to register online in June. It is impressive what a modern democracy can and will do to prioritize the right to vote and ensure that every citizen has a voice in their representative government.
If Argentina can do it, then what is Louisiana’s excuse? Roughly one million southern Louisiana citizens were forcibly evacuated from their homes as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. While thousands are working to return home, political bureaucracy is crippling the recovery process, and the road home has been longer than anyone could have anticipated. It is in this context that displaced voters are required to navigate a complex absentee voting process, one that requires voters to apply in writing, receive the ballot, return the ballot signed and witnessed or notarized, or drive for hours from every election to have a voice in the political process.
Not surprisingly, Louisiana’s voter participation has declined dramatically since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, particularly in communities of color that were hardest hit by the hurricanes. Louisiana reported the lowest voter turnout of any state in the country for last fall’s midterm elections. Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne admitted before the Committee on House and Governmental Affairs that the voter turnout has been “trending in the wrong direction.”
You would expect that Louisiana’s elected representatives would do everything in their power to reach out to displaced voters, encourage displaced voter participation, and reinforce the symbolic connection to home that voting offers for the thousands of Louisiana citizens who are languishing in the Diaspora. You might think that the secretary of state and the Louisiana legislators would support measures like House Bill 619 (H.B. 619)and Senate Bill 320 (S.B. 320), but they don’t.
Introduced by Rep. Jalila Jefferson-Bullock (D-New Orleans), H.B. 619 extends the absentee deadlines to displaced voters that are currently offered to our overseas military and protects displaced voters from being erroneously removed from the statewide voter registration list. The bill establishes in-state satellite polling places during the early voting period for displaced voters based upon a model that has been used before and approved by the Department of Justice.
Sen. Charles Jones (D-Baton Rouge) recently sponsored a companion bill, S.B. 320, which would provide the same in-state satellite voting measures and extended absentee provisions for displaced voters. S.B. 320, however, would establish a timetable for theses measures, allowing the early voting at satellite sites through July 13, 2008, and allowing a displaced voter’s application to vote absentee to be valid through June 15, 2008. Both H.B. 619 and S.B. 320 offer displaced voters a meaningful opportunity to participate in the political process, which will be essential if displaced persons are to have a say in the upcoming gubernatorial race this fall.
Surprisingly, Secretary of State Dardenne opposes these measures, claiming that in-state satellite sites are an unworkable option. He argues that election officials throughout the state do not have the finances to conduct satellite sites for statewide elections (even though Louisiana is in the middle of a fiscal surplus). According to Dardenne, satellite sites would be a drain on the election process and would cause “chaos.”
It seems unlikely that all out chaos would ensue if voters who are temporarily living in northern Louisiana parishes, for example, were allowed to go to the local Registrar of Voters office on one of the ten days that make up the early voting period and cast a ballot that is recorded electronically by one Louisiana’s newfangled voting machines. More importantly, it seems logical that it would be the responsibility of the secretary of state and Louisiana’s elected officers to figure out a way to make it work. Democracy demands that they try. For more information, visit http://www.katrinaaction.org
This opinion piece is from the Advancement Project’s Just Democracy Blog, which is designed to give progressive voices an up-to-the-moment way to share news, exchange views about voting rights, educational opportunity, urban peace, immigrants’ rights, and other issues to advance the national dialogue on racial justice. We invite you to visit the Just Democracy Blog website to join the dialogue and fuel the conversation about racial justice in America.
MATERIALS YOU CAN USE
Advancement Project Survey Shows Need to Hold Election Officials Accountable
A new Advancement Project survey finds that state and local election officials are often paid annual salaries in excess of $100,000 for the critical work of ensuring fair and open elections, but election officials often fail to perform adequately. To assist communities in holding election officials accountable, Advancement Project’s recent survey provides the names, terms of office, and salaries of election officials in certain counties of Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Advancement Project encourages voters and their advocates to demand answers from their election officials because, just as voting is fundamental as an exercise of political power to improve neighborhoods, the quality of election officials is fundamental to the right to vote.
AALDEF Report on Asian American Voting Patterns and Elections Priorities
The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) recently released findings from its exit poll of more than 4,700 Asian-American voters across nine states and 23 cities during the 2006 midterm elections. Issues covered include voting patterns, priorities for 2008, the Senate vote in battleground states, and voters' need for expanded language access. You can read more about the report at http://www.aaldef.org or download the entire report at http://www.aaldef.org/docs/
AALDEF2006ExitPollReportMay2007.pdf.
A Profile of the Latino Vote and Latino Voting Behavior in Past Elections
While the Latino vote has generated much attention and debate in recent election cycles, there is still substantial confusion about the Hispanic electorate, including current size and future potential, its partisan affiliations (or lack thereof), and strategies that candidates, political parties, and nonpartisan advocates could employ to increase this population’s participation in the electoral process. “The Latino Electorate: Profiles and Trends,” the first in a series of statistical briefs, provides a profile of the Latino vote, an examination of Latino voting behavior in past presidential elections and the 2006 midterm election, and recommendations for stakeholders to increase Hispanic participation in the electoral process.
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