Election Protection

[Smartypants]

I wanted you all to know about ElectionProtection.org, and the work it's doing to help assure that everyone who has the right to vote in November gets to exercise that right.

If anyone's interested and has the time (and travel money, if appicable), this is a great organization.

They're looking for volunteers (especially lawyers and Spanish speakers) to go to states that have demonstrated problems by negating the votes or otherwise disenfranchising many minority, poor, and elderly voters during past elections.

Volunteers will be trained prior to November and again upon arrival in the places they're sent, to canvass neighborhoods to educate people about their right to have their votes counted, and to monitor the conduct and integrity of the polling places and help ensure that no eligible voter is turned away or discouraged from voting on November 2.

Vounteers are needed all over (AZ, NM, MO, OH, WI, FL...) I'm going to Ft Lauderdale. Obviously Florida is an especially problematic state. The punch ballots that were part of the great 2000 election controversy there have been replaced for 2004, in some places with touch-screen machines that offer no paper trail to allow recounts in the case of dispute..

Many election officials in the state of Florida have been working to thin the voter rolls by dropping legitimately registered citizens who happen to have the same birthdates or names as others -- not just in Florida, but in other states as well--who have been convicted of felonies.

For those that think that each vote isn't of vital importance and that this is an inconsequential problem, remember that the last election was decided by a margin of less that 600 votes in the state of Florida, and the outcome of the presidential race might have been quite different if all who had wanted to vote, and had the right to, had been allowed and had had their vote properly counted.

Every vote DOES count.

(BTW electionprotection.org is a nonpartisan organization. It was not created to support any candidate or political ideology -- only to assure that every legal vote is counted.)

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And don't forget to cast your OWN vote on Nov. 2! Are YOU registered?