VOTER PROTECTION VICTORIES
Settlement Resolves Matching Issues in MD Prior to Election Day; Advancement Project Co-Founds New MD Election Reform Coalition
Advancement Project and Project Vote reached a settlement agreement with the Maryland State Board of Elections to protect the voting rights of individuals classified as “pending” because their personal information did not produce an exact match against the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration or Social Security Administration database. Click here to read the press release. Nationwide statistics establish that attempts at such “matching” results in a high percentage of legitimate applications being denied through no fault of the applicants. A week before the election, in exchange for Advancement Project and Project Vote’s commitment not to bring litigation over this issue prior to November 7, Maryland state election officials agreed to:
- Mail revised notices to unmatched applicants that advise them of their right to vote by provisional ballot on Election Day upon presentation of their identification to an election judge at the polls;
- Amend the Maryland State Board of Elections’ website to notify unmatched applicants of their right to vote by provisional ballot on Election Day upon presentation of their identification to an election judge at the polls;
- Establish a protocol for manually reviewing unsuccessful matches to determine whether a clerical, typographical or other administrative error is the source of the non-match;
- Remind election judges of the instructions, including but not limited to last minute instructions, as to the treatment of unmatched applicants on Election Day;
- Determine the distribution of pending applicants by precinct, and where pending applicants are concentrated, ensure an adequate supply of provisional ballots and supplemental instructions and training to poll workers and election judges concerning the treatment of unmatched applicants; and
- Issue public service announcements to unmatched applicants that they should bring a copy of their identification with them to the polls on Election Day.
Advancement Project’s post-election activities will include further investigation of the impact of this policy on voters and a negotiation with the board of elections for long term reform of this policy.
The newly-formed Maryland Election Reform Coalition met in Baltimore on Tuesday, Nov 14, 2006, at the office of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland. This meeting is the continuation of voter protection work by civil rights, voting rights, and disability advocacy organizations in response to problems experienced in Maryland during the September primary election. The groups have agreed upon joint strategies and approaches to address these and other voting issues in Maryland. Advancement Project is a charter member of this coalition and will continue its work with state and local election boards to improve voter registration, poll worker training and other election administration practices.
Not On Our Watch! Anti-Immigrant Sentiment Will Not Disenfranchise Latino Voters
In late October 2006, Advancement Project learned the voter registration applications of several Hazleton, Pa., registrants were not processed because the Luzerne County Election Board was unable to match the personal information of the applicants against information from the Social Security Administration database. On October 24, 2006, Advancement Project contacted the director of elections, informing him of a recent ruling by the Pennsylvania Department of State that this action was illegal.
In his initial response, the director of elections indicated that he had a “suspicion” the applicants were ineligible to vote, not only because of the failure to match the social security number, but also because the registrants were from Hazleton. He noted that Hazelton was an area experiencing “problems with illegal aliens”—a reference to the harsh, anti-immigrant ordinance passed by the city of Hazleton over the summer. In a lengthy telephone conversation Advancement Project’s staff attorney, Aurora Vasquez, explained the illegality of disenfranchising Latino voters based on “suspicion” and stereotypes about “illegal aliens,” as well as the problems with relying on a potentially flawed Social Security Administration database. The next day the director of elections reversed his position and declared his decision to process the voter registration applications in question.
Michigan Voters Protected from Unlawful Identification Requirements in 2006; Others Marked for Deletion from Rolls in 2008
In the final days leading up to Election Day 2006, Advancement Project discovered that some voters were flagged in the Michigan Qualified Voter File—Michigan’s statewide electronic voter database—because their voter identification card was returned as undeliverable. Our conversations with local election officials revealed that several believed that these voters should be asked to show identification at the polls. To counter this misinformation, Advancement Project worked with a coalition of Michigan voter protection advocates to send a letter to Secretary Land. The letter explains that this identification requirement could potentially violate both state and federal law.
Shortly after she received our correspondence, Secretary Land distributed a bulletin reminding election administrators that there are only two situations where voters are required to display identification and/or residency verification documents in the polls: (1) when a voter whose name does not appear on the rolls wishes to cast a provisional ballot, (2) and when a voter who registers by mail appears to vote for the first time.
Advancement Project also discovered that thousands of voters were marked for "cancellation countdown" in the Michigan Qualified Voter File for failing to respond to voter participation mailings sent by the Secretary of State’s office. Voters thus designated will be removed from the voting rolls after the November election in 2008, unless they update their information at the clerk’s office or appear to vote. As discussed in the letter, the voter participation mailing was a systematic program to remove voters from the voter registration rolls that appears to violate the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA); Advancement Project is developing a course of action to remedy this violation of federal law.
Advancement Project Links with Clergy to Boost Gulf Coast Participation in Nov 7 Election
To encourage Katrina survivors from Louisiana to participate in the November 7 elections, Advancement Project partnered with clergy to implement the Voter Revival Program. The program engaged faith leaders and churches in five target cities—Atlanta, Ga., Baton Rouge, La., Dallas and Houston, Texas, and Jackson, Miss.—in a campaign to inform displaced voters and offer resources to facilitate participation by absentee ballot in the mid-term elections. Tools provided to voters included: an informational flier; displaced voter affidavit forms; a sample ad to be inserted in church bulletins to solicit support from the congregation; absentee ballot request forms; and absentee ballot tracking forms.
Due to the generosity, support, commitment, and leadership of more than 60 faith leaders and local advocates, displaced Katrina Survivors from New Orleans were emboldened to have a voice in the political process. Katrina survivor, civil rights activist, and Advancement Project Clergy Advocate, Joseph Givens, shares his reflections on the achievements and future of the Voter Revival Program.
Together, faith leaders and Advancement Project not only helped to reinforce the power of the people of New Orleans, but also created a special synergy among Black faith leaders who are addressing social justice needs through their ministries. The Voter Revival program will continue well beyond November 7, with the first goal to assist displaced New Orleans voters in their efforts to participate in the run-off for the 2nd Congressional District on December 9.
ON THE GROUND
Voter Protection Roundup:
Memorable Election Day Moments from Our On-the-Ground Team
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
I truly believe that my presence during the counting of early vote and absentee ballots led to a direct increase in the number of ballots that were allowed and not disqualified for non-material problems with the forms submitted. The city had new administrators in charge for this election. As a result of a failure of the state's computer system, and perhaps combined with some inexperience, the process took much longer than usual. I'm not sure if everyone would have stayed if they didn't believe I was there until the end.
--Vicky Beasley, Associate, Patton Boggs, LLP (Ms. Beasley served as Advancement Project’s pro bono voter protection advocate on Election Day.)
COLUMBUS, OHIO
On the eve of Election Day 2006, members of the Ohio Voter Protection Coalition were contacted regarding a list of 500 persons whose absentee ballots were mailed on the Friday and Saturday before Tuesday’s election. The coalition received the list of names at 7:00 p.m. Thankfully, in most instances, the list also included the voters’ telephone numbers. Ohio law does not permit calls from advocates, solicitors, or candidates after 9:00 p.m.; hence, our window of time was closing.
Advancement Project’s Ohio team recruited five other coalition members and divided the list among the volunteers. We informed the voters we contacted that if they had received their absentee ballot within the last 24 hours, they should not mail it. Rather, they should return the absentee ballot, in person, by 7:30 p.m. tomorrow, Election Day. Since we recognized this might be a hardship for some of the voters, this was the one instance when we actually promoted using provisional ballots. Ohio law permits voters who request an absentee ballot to vote a provisional ballot if they have not returned their absentee ballot or expect that their absentee ballot will not be received in time to be counted on Election Day.
The voters ranged from parents of college students to disabled voters. I especially remember one voter I spoke with who indicated she was disabled and thought she would not be able to vote now that her absentee ballot was received so late. It would have been a great hardship for her to take her absentee ballot to the Board of Elections but she could get to her precinct to vote on Election Day. She was especially grateful for the call and the information.
With team effort and a commitment to voter protection, we made contact or at least attempted to make contact with every voter on the list. In jubilation, we concluded our calls at 8:55 p.m. This teamwork was a forerunner of our voter protection efforts the following day.
--Donita Judge, Staff Attorney, Advancement Project
KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
Early in the day, many polling places ran out of the short, stubby, No.2 pencils that are needed to mark ballots used on an optical scan machine. Voters either inadvertently walked off with those pencils or they were worn down to a point they could no longer be used. Poll workers did not have additional supplies of pencils or pencil sharpeners on hand. Further, poll workers apparently received no training on whether other instruments could be used to mark the ballots, even though we later learned that black or blue-felt tipped pens could be used. In the wake of a high voter turnout, pencil shortage frustrated voters and poll workers, created longer lines, and exposed the lack of planning by election officials. But, to fill the gap, the community came to the rescue. We did not wait for election officials to respond to the emergency. Poll monitors and ACORN workers purchased and delivered pencils to polling places that needed them.
--Eddie Hailes, Senior Staff Attorney, Advancement Project
DETROIT, MICHIGAN
An estimated 20 voters at the Dexter Street Baptist Church polling place found on Election Day that their names were not on the voter registration list. Many of the voters had voter registration cards and were allowed to vote regular ballots. At 6:10 p.m., the Hickman family arrived at the polling place. Eva Lee Hickman and her son, Dennis Hickman, Jr., did not appear on the precinct roster. Mrs. Hickman regularly voted at this precinct. But because they were not on the precinct roster and did not have their voter registration cards, she and her son were left with the choice of casting a provisional “envelope” ballot that probably would not count. Dennis decided to vote provisionally. After waiting nearly an hour, Mrs. Hickman left without casting a ballot at all.
At Harding School, a voting machine stopped working early in the morning after recording only 14 votes. All other voters were asked to place their ballots in an auxiliary bin under the machine. When Mrs. Dorothy Scott, a petite, 74-year-old, African-American woman, arrived in the afternoon to vote, the machine was still not working. Mrs. Scott refused to leave her ballot in the bin. She warned other voters behind her in line to wait for technicians to repair the voting machines. “I was trying to wake us up!” she said. “We’ve been waiting for this day for so long, to be able to vote.” When Advancement Project monitors arrived at 4:00 p.m., they found a machine that was functioning again, and a visibly upset Mrs. Scott sitting in a corner of the precinct. She explained that the precinct inspectors wanted her to drop her ballot in the bin and leave but, “I wasn’t sticking m[y ballot] in there. Not in that hole.” After the polls closed, the ballots of hundreds of voters who arrived at the polling place between 7:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. while the voting machine was down, had to be fed into the machine by hand.
--Alaina Beverly, Staff Attorney, Advancement Project
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
In Maryland, the election process went far better than it did during the primary, but there were still serious problems. Two volunteer lawyers and I intervened at the Brentwood Apartments poll site which had not opened on time because neither the Republican nor the Democratic chief judge had arrived. With the police officer who delivered the materials, the technician and the other judges, we were able to negotiate to get the polls open by 7:35 a.m. The solution was to deputize an election judge as a chief judge.
The Coleman Elementary School precinct seemed to have a lot of voters who needed wheelchair access. The front entrance was cleared for drop off and pick up of voters but the machine configuration inside did not accommodate those voters. After consulting with disability activists, we advised the chief judge to accommodate wheelchair voters by lowering the leg stands on the voting machine.
– Andy Rivera, Senior Staff Attorney, Advancement Project
DUVAL COUNTY, FLORIDA
Shortly before the polls were closing, two other attorneys and I went to a precinct where a machine had malfunctioned. At the polling place, the doors were already locked and the clerk would not let us inside. Two voters waiting outside had both been inside before the polling place closed but had not voted. One of the voters was with his wife; they both lived at the same address and had identification listing the same address. His wife voted a regular ballot but the poll workers told him that he was at the wrong precinct. The clerk told him that he could cast a provisional ballot but that it would likely not be counted because he was not in the correct precinct. He pointed out to the clerk that his wife, who lives at the same address as him, had voted a regular ballot. The second voter had moved since she registered. She had been directed to several difference precincts and was unsure where she was supposed to vote. The clerk had also told her that she could vote a provisional ballot but it would likely not be counted.
We realized that both of these voters were likely at the correct precinct and should have been able to vote by a regular ballot. Florida law requires voters who have moved to vote in their new precinct, i.e., the precinct for their current address. We knocked on the door but the clerk would still not let us inside. We were forced to talk to her through the door. We explained that these voters were in the correct precinct and therefore should be allowed to fill out an affidavit or voter registration application and vote a regular ballot. Further, we requested that these voters be allowed to vote since they had been inside before the polls closed and were given incorrect information. At this point, she walked away. We called the Supervisor of Elections, who agreed that since the polls were now closed, these voters should be given provisional ballots that would, indeed, count. We knocked on the door again and told the clerk, through the door, that we had the Supervisor on the phone. She finally opened the door, let the voters inside, and gave them provisional ballots. When the voters came outside, we talked to them about their right to present written evidence to ensure that their ballots were counted. Their earlier frustration seemed to have morphed into an interest in the system, how it worked, and how to ensure their ballots would be counted.
– Jennifer Maranzano, Staff Attorney, Advancement Project
Advancement Project Takes Voter Empowerment Message to the Airwaves
In the week before the election, Advancement Project Senior Attorney Eddie Hailes let millions of television viewers know what to do if confronted with problems on Election Day. Hailes used a TV and radio satellite tour to deliver this message of empowerment, providing advice for voters faced with broken or confusing voting technologies, aggressive challengers or other common obstacles to the ballot box. Hailes' bottom line message —it’s important to know your voting rights and not leave the polling place without having cast a ballot. Advancement Project’s voter empowerment message aired 41 times, on 33 stations, in 31 markets, reaching 1,413,868 viewers. Contact us to view video highlights from the tour.
In Pennsylvania, Advancement Project and Ex-Offenders for Community Empowerment disseminated a statewide radio public service announcement to help dispel the myth that people who have served time for a felony can no longer vote or that they must wait five years after release from prison or jail before they can vote. As of the year 2000, an individual is entitled to vote once released, even if he or she is serving probation or parole. Click here to listen to the PSA.
2006 Voter Protection Efforts Garner Nationwide Media Attention
Advancement Project’s Communications Department worked overtime this election cycle to turn a spotlight on voting problems and increase pressure for solutions. For example, Advancement Project launched an advocacy and communications campaign in Florida when our registration verification program exposed that many new registrants were not being added to the voter rolls. The personal information these voters listed on their voter registration application—name, birth date, social security number, driver’s license number, or Florida identification card number—did not exactly match (including every character) information about the voter in the corresponding database. While contending that this database matching requirement violates federal law, Advancement Project, along with a broad-based coalition of groups, wrote a letter to Florida Secretary of State Sue M. Cobb asking her to take several steps that were within her discretion, even given the rigid Florida statute. Florida media quickly grasped the significance of this issue and wrote favorable stories that appeared in major newspapers such as The Tampa Tribune and the Orlando Sentinel, as well as placed editorials from coalition members, including the League of Women Voters. Other examples of media coverage we facilitated include:
Election Day:
Advancement Project’s local advocate, Rosa Goldberg, authored an Election Day op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer on the need for more poll worker training and recruitment, citing her own experiences as a poll monitor in Philadelphia.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/15946293.htm
Advancement Project alerted the Michigan media that the phone lines to the Detroit Bureau of Elections were jammed, causing poll workers calling to obtain urgent information received busy signals or answering machines. Our advocacy helped persuade the Bureau to add 50 phone lines by early afternoon.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/
20061107/NEWS99/61107018
Advancement Project also commented on identification problems and clogged phone lines in Missouri, in an Associated Press story on Election Day problems that was picked up by more than 20 news outlets, both national and international.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/
mercurynews/news/politics/15948542.htm
Advancement Project informed Georgia media about malfunctioning voting machines and voters being asked to show identification unnecessarily.
http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/index.php?
s=&url_channel_id=1&
url_article_id=21303&url_subchannel_id=&change_well_id=2
Pre-Election:
A week before Election Day, Advancement Project appeared on CNN to talk about the importance of poll-worker training and recruitment.
The month before Election Day, Advancement Project successfully persuaded the Orlando Sentinel to editorialize against Florida’s law that requires all new voter registration information match a separate statewide database.
Palm Cards Equip Poll Workers with Solutions to Common Voting Problems
Working with states, cities, and counties that have historically encountered poll worker issues, Advancement Project developed palm-sized reference cards for poll workers in Florida, Baltimore, Detroit, Ohio, and Philadelphia, listing “10 Things Every Poll Worker Should Know.” We mailed a palm card to each chief election judge in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, while our local advocates and allies distributed thousands more of these cards in Franklin, Dayton, and other Ohio counties. The NAACP and other allies in Detroit distributed these cards to poll workers and nonpartisan election monitors. We sent more than 700 cards to election judges in Philadelphia. In Florida, several hundred cards were distributed in Miami, Broward and Palm Beach counties by our local advocate, Alvaro Fernandez, and the League of Women Voters. Approximately 2,800 palm cards were given to the Duval County Supervisor of Election in Duval County, Fla., who recognized the urgent need for the palm cards and agreed to distribute the cards to poll workers countywide in to ensure an atmosphere at the polls on Election Day that was conducive to a fair election process, one in which poll workers were armed with accurate voting rights information.
Prior to the Nov. 7 election, Advancement Project notified several states of the potential for massive disruptions on Election Day due to inadequately trained, poorly prepared poll workers. We strongly encouraged state boards of elections to take immediate measures to make sure that the election operated fairly and efficiently for all voters and set forth recommended measures that states could implement quickly and easily. The poll worker crisis is particularly detrimental for people of color, who are at greatest risk of being disenfranchised by election errors and improperly enforced voting laws.
Advancement Project Demands Action in Missouri to Address Voter Intimidation and Other Systemic Problems
Advancement Project’s Missouri Voter Protection Program, coordinated by St. Louis attorney Denise Lieberman, aggressively addressed very serious voting barriers in the last days of the election.
On October 24, the St. Louis City Board of Election Commissioners sent an intimidating and misleading letter to 5,000 new voter registration applicants. This last-minute notice advised applicants that they were not registered to vote and suggested that the Board may be investigating the application for wrongdoing. Advancement Project and Project Vote sent a strongly worded letter setting out a detailed legal analysis and demanding that the Board disavow this notice and immediately send a second letter letting each of these applicants know that they could vote on Election Day and assuring them that they were not under any investigation. After a frenzy of media coverage, the Board agreed to send the second letter we requested, which was mailed on Nov. 2.
On Election Day, Advancement Project led the Missouri hotline and poll monitoring program, which had poll monitors in St. Louis City, St. Louis County, and Kansas City. Several serious problems arose in St. Louis County, including a large number of reports that poll workers were improperly asking voters to provide photo identification; that a centralized polling place had not been made available to voters who had moved, as required by law; and that non-provisional paper ballots (used when machines were broken) were stacked in insecure piles. Advancement Project, along with the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition, quickly sent off an Election Day demand letter seeking immediate solutions. Several of these issues have been addressed and Advancement Project has a meeting scheduled with St. Louis County in December to continue to press for additional reforms.
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY
Supreme Court Ruling in Arizona Proof of Citizenship Case May Impact Future Voter Protection Claims
On October 20, with only 17 days remaining before the election, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order permitting the State of Arizona to enforce its new law requiring voters to produce documentary proof of citizenship at the polls. The ruling, entered on an emergency basis without full briefing and argument, is a setback for public interest groups that had won a preliminary injunction in the court of appeals against this onerous voting barrier. These groups challenged the requirement that voters produce extra proof of citizenship as unfair because of the potential to disenfranchise minority groups, whose members are less likely to have such documentation.
Scholars and activists have struggled since October 20 to parse the meaning of the Supreme Court’s short, unsigned (“per curiam”) order. The order indicates that the injunction was overturned because the court of appeals did not give deference to the findings of the district court which had rejected the request to block the new requirement. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the district court had not entered any findings of fact at the time that the court of appeals ruled. Therefore, the court of appeals was technically required to defer to findings that did not then exist.
More broadly, the decision included non-binding commentary on several important voting rights issues. This commentary suggests that the Arizona law may well be invalidated after more extensive legal proceedings. The court wrote, "The possibility that qualified voters might be turned away from the polls would caution any district judge to give careful consideration to the plaintiffs' challenges." In a concurring opinion, Justice Stevens stressed "the importance of the constitutional issues," noting the significance of allowing the election to proceed so that the statute could be judged in the context of a fully developed factual record.
The opinion also emphasized the limited amount of time left before the elections, stating: "[G]iven the imminence of the election and the inadequate time to resolve the factual disputes, our action today shall of necessity allow the election to proceed without an injunction suspending the voter identification laws." Scholars have seized on this aspect of the Supreme Court’s ruling to debate whether courts are likely to grant relief to voters who seek an injunction close to election date. Given that many voting obstacles cannot be discovered until the election preparations are well underway, a notion that election eve injunctions are disfavored could be disastrous for voters.
Scholars have thus attempted to differentiate between “good” and “bad” pre-election litigation. In a recent article by Steven Huefner, Associate Professor at Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University, “good” and “bad” pre-election litigation has been analogized to “good” and “bad” cholesterol, which is in turn analogized to “settled” and “unsettled” law. In this instance, the debate appears to imply that pre-litigation to decide “settled” law is seen as disruptive to an imminent election and thus, not such a good thing. On the other hand, pre-election litigation that is filed to clarify “unsettled law” may be considered worthwhile despite its potentially disruptive effect.
Fortunately, the courts have not interpreted the Supreme Court’s order as a signal to back away from remedying urgent election problems on an emergency basis. In a recent lawsuit in Ohio, the federal court issued a temporary restraining order on October 26 barring use of restrictive identification rules for absentee ballots. Therefore, it remains possible to obtain relief from unfair or illegal election laws even shortly before an election.
MATERIALS YOU CAN USE
Myth or Fact—The 411 On Claims of Voting Fraud
Supporters of these new barriers to the ballot box claim that their motive is to prevent voting fraud. Yet, multiple studies and reports have found that voting fraud of the type that these new restrictions would address is virtually non-existent. The truth is that claims of voting fraud have been vastly and misleadingly exaggerated by those who support measures that will make it more difficult for people of color and lower income Americans to vote. Read more on the myths and the truth about exaggerated claims of voting fraud.
Prepare Yourself Pennsylvania!
This comprehensive community voter protection guide answers key questions relevant to Philadelphia voters. The guide included questions that should be addressed before leaving home, such as what you should take with you to the polling place and what is an acceptable form of identification. It also provides tips for how to handle situations that may arise inside the polling place, such as what to do if you are told your name is not in the poll book and what to do if you someone challenges your right to vote. Click here to read the Pennsylvania community voter protection guide.
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