In the News
Quick Links:
- Maverick Media: Election 2004: Democracy in Lockdown (June 24, 2008)
- Santa Rosa's Press Gazette: An Assault on Voting Rights (June 17, 2008)
- Kathryn Kolbert for Crooks & Liars: 97-Year-Old Woman Disenfranchised by Voter ID Law (June 11, 2008)
- NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund: Legal Defense Fund Recognizes Important Civil Rights Victory in Texas Voting Rights Case (May 30, 2008)
- The Capital Times: Sensenbrenner's Real Wrong to Attach Huebsch on Real ID (May 19, 2008)
- Pittsburgh Courier: City's Black Wards Vote Big in Primary (May 8, 2008)
- Huffington Post: Nuns, Students Blocked From Voting in Indiana. Where's Congress? (May 6, 2008)
- Alternet: Democratic Congress to Voters: What Election Problems? (May 5, 2008)
- Progressive Democrats of America: Listen to Tim Carpenter Interview on Blog Talk Radio (May 1, 2008)
- NewsBlaze: Election Protection in Full Swing in Pennsylvania (April 22, 2008)
- Congressional Quarterly: Obama Sponsorship Might Doom Campaign Bill (April 6, 2008)
- OpEd News: Voter Registration Discrepancies May Result in Voter Suppression (March 22, 2008)
- American Observer: Nation of Immigrants Shapes 2008 Election (March 19, 2008)
- BlackAmericaWeb.com: In Ohio and Texas, Voters Endure Long Lines, Missing Names — and a Chaotic ‘Two-Step’ (March 5, 2008)
- Columbus Free Press: Ohio Primary Voting Off to Slow Start (March 4, 2008)
- Tallahassee Democrat: Advocates Call for Civil Rights for Florida Ex-Felons (Feb. 29, 2008)
- Alternet: Super Tuesday’s Voting Glitches (Feb. 6, 2008)
- Wired: Registration Problems Mar Super Tuesday in Some Places (Feb. 5, 2008)
- Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Ruling Ejects Public from Tally of Votes (Feb. 2, 2008)
- Associated Press: Biggest-ever primary day poses hurdles (Jan. 31, 2008)
- Associated Press: Ritter, lawmakers want paper election in 2008 (Jan. 24, 2008)
- Click here for press hits from 2007
An Assault on Voting Rights
Santa Rosa's Press Gazette
June 17, 2008
On the heels of the Supreme Court's recent decision upholding Indiana's restrictive voter ID law, lawmakers in three states — Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma — have wisely rejected similar voter ID legislation. But don't think this is the last word.
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Tanya Clay House is director of Public Policy, People For the American Way. People For the American Way was established to meet the challenges of discord and fragmentation with an affirmation of "the American Way." By this, we mean pluralism; individuality; freedom of thought, expression and religion; a sense of community; and tolerance and compassion for others.
97-Year-Old Woman Disenfranchised by Voter ID Law
by Kathryn Kolbert, President of People For the American Way
Crooks & Liars
June 11, 2008
Shirley Preiss was born in Kentucky in 1910 - a full 10 years before American women gained the right to vote. She first voted in a presidential election in 1932, for FDR. She’s voted in every presidential election since, but that’s all about to change due to Arizona’s draconian voter ID law.
Election 2004: Democracy in Lockdown
Maverick Media
June 4, 2008
On November 18, the League of Women Voters called for an investigation. Common Cause meanwhile teamed up with the National Voting Rights Institute, Demos, People for the American Way Foundation, and the Fannie Lou Hamer Project to support an Ohio recount request by the Green and Libertarian presidential candidates.
Legal Defense Fund Recognizes Important Civil Rights Victory in Texas Voting Rights Case
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
May 30, 2008
Defendant Intervenors represented by the nation's leading voting rights advocates including MALDEF, ACLU, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, PFAW, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, and the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale & Dorr.
Sensenbrenner's Real Wrong to Attach Huebsch on Real ID
The Capital Times
May 19, 2008
U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner is furious with a fellow Republican, Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, for supporting a provision in the budget repair bill that stripped away state funding for the implementation of the federal Real ID program.
Opposition to Real ID crosses the political spectrum. The American Civil Liberties Union is against it. So too is the libertarian Cato Institute. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is against it. So too is Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. And former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee referred to it as "a huge mistake." The liberal People for the American Way organization opposes it. So too does the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page.
City's Black wards vote big in primary
Pittsburgh Courier
May 8, 2008
Celeste Taylor of People for the American Way, who was monitoring several polls in the 13th and 14th Wards for voter problems, said the increased turnout she saw resulted from a combination of factors.
Nuns, Students Blocked From Voting in Indiana. Where's Congress?
Huffington Post
May 6, 2008
The Election Protection Coalition has some short-term reform suggestions, but they're just not likely to happen unless the rest of the progressive community organizes to make these issues a priority before November's vote:
As Robert Fitrakis, an Ohio voting rights attorney and editor of the Free Press alternative paper, told me for the Altnernet article, "The system is still broken and instead of voting being a universally guaranteed federal right, it lingers under the shadow of Jim Crow and states' rights."
Democratic Congress to Voters: What Election Problems?
Alternet
May 5, 2008
Appearances, unfortunately, can be deceiving. Despite a series of House and Senate hearings probing voter restrictions based on the myth of voter fraud and mostly GOP dirty tricks, it now seems virtually certain that not a single piece of major election reform legislation will pass Congress in time for the November, 2008 elections. "The outlook is somewhat bleak," concedes Tanya Clay House, the public policy director of People for The American Way (PFAW).
Just don't expect any help from the federal government to solve such problems. Few election reform advocates on Capitol Hill or in national advocacy groups openly admit that their legislative reform agenda is dead for this year. But some reformers in such key battleground states as Pennsylvania and Ohio are "preparing for the worst," as Pennsylvania PFAW coordinator Celeste Taylor puts it. For Pennsylvania voters, some will likely face being purged from rolls because of database errors while most will be voting on paperless electronic machines that don't allow for reliable recounts.
Listen to Tim Carpenter Interview on BlogTalk Radio
Progressive Democrats of America
May 1, 2008
The show D'Antoni & Levine launched last Thursday, April 24. Guests John Bonifaz, Legal Director of Voter Action and PDA Advisory Board member; Jonah Goldman, National Campaign for Fair Elections; and Celeste Taylor, head of Pennsylvania's People for the American Way discussed election integrity, voter suppression, and included a post mortem of the recent Pennsylvania election.
Election Protection in Full Swing in Pennsylvania
NewsBlaze
April 22, 2008
The Election Protection coalition is the nation's largest nonpartisan voter protection.Pennsylvania partners include The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; the Committee of Seventy; Common Cause; People for the American Way Foundation; Avencia; Congresso de Latino Unidos; Dechert LLP; DLA Piper; Drexel University; Greater Philadelphia Cares; KPMG International; League of Women Voters ofPhiladelphia;Morgan, Lewis & Bocklus; Philadelphia AFL-CIO; Special People in N.E.; Temple University; University of Pennsylvania Law School; and The Daily News and White & Williams LLP.
Obama Sponsorship Might Doom Campaign Bill
Congressional Quarterly
April 6, 2008
The issue of deceptive election tactics “is very significant because it’s a loophole, and it’s just not something that has been dealt with,” said Tanya Clay House, director of public policy for People for the American Way, a liberal group active in voting rights issues.
OpEd News: Voter Registration Discrepancies May Result in Voter Suppression
OpEd News
March 22, 2008
Voter deception and intimidation tactics have long been used to suppress voters, particularly those from marginalized communities, according to a report by People for the American Way. According to the report, "[i]n recent years, many minority communities have tended to align with the Democratic Party. Over the past two decades, the Republican Party has launched a series of 'ballot security' and 'voter integrity' initiatives which have targeted minority communities."
Nation of Immigrants Shapes 2008 Election
American Observer
March 19, 2008
For Michele Lawrence Jawando, policy counsel for People for the American Way, provisional ballots represent the potential for all that can go wrong for foreign-born voters on election day.
“One of our concerns is that if you are a language minority and you are walking into a polling place, maybe your English isn’t as good as you might think and you’re having problems communicating with that poll worker, that poll worker’s first thought may be ‘I don’t really know if this person is a citizen or not,’” said Jawando.
“Instead of checking through the books and making sure that they’re not on the voter lists, the default may be ‘OK, you can’t vote or you have to vote provisionally’,” Jawando continued.
Provisional ballots have a larger margin of error as they need to be cross-referenced with voters lists and are often not included in the final vote counts until days or even a week later. The average age of poll workers in the United States is 73. Jawando says that her organization and many others work to recruit younger poll workers and to increase poll worker training so that these problems do not reoccur.
“It’s a matter of education, it’s a matter of poll worker training and voter education, making sure that voters know what their rights are going into the polls, knowing that they can ask for help from one of the poll workers if they are having a problem,” said Jawando.
In Ohio and Texas, Voters Endure Long Lines, Missing Names — and a Chaotic ‘Two-Step’
BlackAmericaWeb.com
March 5, 2008
Volunteers from People for the American Way (PFAW) – Election Protection set up an office in the basement of Antioch Baptist Church, a prominent progressive church on Cleveland’s east side. Lawyers, state coordinators and volunteers from Washington D.C., Ohio and Pennsylvania, monitored the voting process.
By 10:30 a.m. the voter turnout in Cuyahoga County was 11.11 percent and below 20 percent statewide. “That’s cause for concern,” said Shaun Tucker, the Ohio State Coordinator for PFAW. “The hours between 6:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. are generally our peak times.”
“We’ve had isolated incidents, around the city” of Cleveland, said Michele Jawando, legislative counsel for PFAW. “There were certain tabs that belong on the ballots and voters were erroneously told to take them off. Poll worker training is badly needed.
Pastor Tony Minor of Community of Faith Assembly said his organization, United Pastors in Mission, in partnership with PFAW, gave over 40 people rides to the polls, servicing over 40 different locations.
Ohio Primary Voting Off to Slow Start
Columbus Free Press
March 4, 2008
The apparently slow start of inner-city voting also was reported in Cleveland, where election protection staffers for People for the American Way reported a similar early turnout. The weather was rough across Ohio, with sleet in the morning in the north and rain elsewhere.
Advocates Call for Civil Rights for Florida Ex-Felons
Tallahassee Democrat
Feb. 29, 2008
Lewis and Reggie Mitchell, an attorney for People for the American Way, renewed their call for doing away with the restoration process entirely by getting rid of a Civil War-era constitutional amendment that requires it.
"Florida is part of the axis of delay," Mitchell said.
Super Tuesday’s Voting Glitches
Alternet
Feb. 6, 2008
"I think this is the most significant election administration story of the day," said David Becker, director of People for the American Way's Democracy campaign, which runs a nationwide voter hotline on election days. "We knew this would happen with voter ID. There were long lines, bottlenecks at the check-in table, voting machines not in use."
Registration Problems Mar Super Tuesday in Some Places
Wired
Feb. 5, 2008
The Election Protection program, a consortium of voter integrity groups that includes People for the American Way, Verified Voting and the Electronic Frontier Foundation has reported receiving about 1,700 calls to its voter hotline (1-866-OUR-VOTE) as of 5pm EST. Most of them have come from California, Georgia and New York.
Ruling Ejects Public from Tally of Votes
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Feb. 2, 2008
"Why would you do something to hurt voter confidence now?" asked Reggie Mitchell, the Florida lawyer for People for the American Way, a national public advocacy organization heavily involved in election monitoring.
Biggest-ever primary day poses hurdles
Associated Press
January 31, 2008
A coalition of citizens' groups including the League of Women Voters of Arizona, the League of United Latin American Citizens and People For the American Way Foundation, filed suit against the law, saying it deprived residents of their right to vote.
Ritter, lawmakers want paper election in 2008
Associated Press
January 24, 2008
Gov. Bill Ritter and state legislative leaders from both parties want voters to be able to cast paper ballots in person in this year's elections now that most of the state's electronic voting equipment has been decertified.
In a letter sent to lawmakers Wednesday, groups including Colorado Common Cause, the Latina Initiative and People for the American Way urged lawmakers to allow voters to vote in person if they want to, arguing that mail ballots could hurt those who move frequently or haven't voted by mail before. They said that would mostly hurt minority, low-income and young voters.
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