Act on your legal rights as voters with the Voting Rights Enforcement Project

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From: Campaign Legal Center

Voting Rights Enforcement Project Goes Live

Oct 9, 2008

With new reports of vote suppression efforts springing up almost daily, the Campaign Legal Center launched the Voting Rights Enforcement Project (VREP). Generic drafts of potential court filings for individuals, organizations and political parties who must resort to the courts to protect the fundamental rights of citizens to vote are now available . Various voting rights organizations, including the American Bar Association, DEMOS, the Election Protection coalition, and The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law are publicizing and linking to the VREP site and so that the filings can be utilized on Election Day and in the month preceding.

"A troubling pattern of vote suppression efforts has already emerged nationwide, particularly in battleground states and the election itself has the potential to become a train wreck as far as voters and democracy are concerned," said Campaign Legal Center Executive Director J. Gerald Hebert. "Even without efforts to suppress the vote, just the volume of new voter turnout may overwhelm the system and require court filings to protect voters."

The filings include those to extend polling hours when necessary, prevent voter intimidation efforts, violations of the Voting Rights Act, failures to provide bilingual voting materials or assistance and to address non- or late delivery of absentee ballots to qualified voters.

"Voters across the country are likely to face ballot shortages, faulty equipment, voter disqualification schemes, and other obstacles which may violate federal and state election laws," said Hebert. "The legal documents provided by the Voting Rights Enforcement Project will facilitate and expedite the process of securing court orders against those state or local election officials or others who take actions harmful to the electorate, be they deliberate or accidental."

Massive failures have been documented in recent elections and continued through this year's primaries. Thousands of Americans were disenfranchised as a result. The legal templates are designed to alleviate these problems by allowing voters or groups to go to court seeking an order to compel the extension of polling hours, reallocation of voting machines or the provision of adequate paper ballots at the polls.

Previously, information on the project was provided to national, state, and local party committees, as well as third party organizations and numerous community and grassroots organizations from coast to coast.

The Voting Rights Enforcement Project legal template documents are accessible on the Campaign Legal Center's website (www.campaignlegalcenter.org) and continue to be distributed via email to persons and groups across the country upon request. Additional generic legal documents will be added to the site between now and Election Day. The Legal Center's work on this project is a direct result of the generous financial assistance from the JEHT Foundation.

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