National Voter Assistance Hotline: 1-866-OUR VOTE

[Jcrowley]

Here's the latest press release from  the nonpartisan Election Protection coalition, which is launching a national 1-866-OUR VOTE voter assistance hotline and poll location web site www.MyPollingPlace.com .

1-866-OUR-VOTE is the only national voter assistance hotline staffed by live call center operators trained to provide state specific assistance to all voters. Lawyers, poll monitors and additional volunteers will be mobilized in 16 key states across the nation to assist voters in the days leading up to the election and on Election Day.  Led by People For the American Way Foundation, the NAACP, and the Lawyers’ Committee For Civil Rights Under Law, Election Protection (EP) has operated in every election cycle since 2001, and is the nation’s most far-reaching nonpartisan effort to provide voter assistance and protect voter rights.  The services will include bilingual assistance for areas with a heavy concentration of Spanish-speaking voters.

Trained volunteers will staff the Hotline providing immediate, state specific, assistance to callers. Call center operators will inform voters and solve problems on issues such as voter identification requirements, voting machine malfunctions, problems at the polling place, and voter intimidation.  National call centers will be located in Washington, New York, Baltimore and San Francisco. Local call centers will be hosted in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Minnesota.  

While the toll-free hotline will be available to voters nationwide, EP’s ground operations will be concentrated in precincts most at risk for disenfranchisement, including low-income communities, African American and Latino communities, and areas with a history of voting irregularities. The coalition will operate in Arizona, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, Michigan, Massachusetts, South Carolina and Minnesota:
• Conducting GOTV, encouraging early voting and use of absentee ballots
• Organizing Local Legal Coordinating Committees to holistically address voters’ needs, coordinate comprehensive legal field programs, work with local election officials, and develop legal responses to problems on and before Election Day
• Systematically working with elections officials in targeted areas to clarify voter ID rules, increase poll worker training, and oppose onerous restrictions on voter registration procedures
• Publishing Voters’ Bills of Rights for all 50 states
• Producing and distributing educational materials for voters on new ID requirement
• Organizing volunteers to serve as Election Day poll monitors in targeted precincts
•  Providing live voter assistance via 1-866-OUR-VOTE (687-8683) and www.MyPollingPlace.com .

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/10/25/watching_the_vote.php

[texpatriot2004]

1. Kick it for concerned voters nm

[snot]

2. K & R'd, and sent to a few 100 friends, thanks -- nt