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Stop Voter Intimidation and Deception

Intimidating voters takes many forms, from videotaping or asking inappropriate questions of voters in a polling place, to placing heavily armed police outside poll sites and distributing threatening flyers announcing the penalties for voting fraud. The intention is to make voting actually or apparently risky in order to keep people away from the polls. Voter intimidation is illegal under federal law, and many state laws as well. However, most laws are not clear on what constitutes intimidation and there is a need for clearly articulated standards at the state level to make sure that these laws cover all of the techniques used to threaten voters.

During the 2008 presidential primary in Georgia, voters reported a roadblock on the way to one poll site, and an armed election inspector from the Secretary of State's Office was posted at another poll location.
In a 2003 Philadelphia mayoral race, hundreds of men with cars and clipboards that bore official-looking insignias were dispatched to polling places in predominantly African American neighborhoods. In a poll conducted after the election, 7% of African American voters said they had encountered these men.
In 2004, the Election Protection Hotline received over a thousand complaints of voter intimidation or suppression. The hotline reports that police outside a Cook County, Illinois, polling place were requesting photo ID and telling voters that if they had been convicted of a felony they could not vote.

People for the American Way — The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America Today
Project Vote — Caging Democracy: A 50-Year History of Partisan Challenges to Minority Voters
Advancement Project — Report to State and Local Election Officials on the Urgent Need for Instructions for Partisan Poll Watchers
Center for Policy Alternatives — Voter Protection Act
National Network on State Election Reform — Deceptive Practices and Intimidation Factsheet

Resource Organizations

From the Dispatch

Arizona and the Nation: A Failing State Versus Positive Approaches to Immigrant Integration

May 03, 2010

As we highlighted two weeks ago, the Arizona legislature and Governor's decisions to pass a punitive, anti-immigrant bill - SB1070 - have unleashed a torrent of condemnations inside and outside of Arizona. Voices speaking up against the bill have come not only from civil rights organizations, but have also included public safety officials, constitutional legal scholars, and, significantly, Republican leaders and candidates from other states with significant immigrant populations.
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How our Election Systems Held up Under a High Turnout Election

Nov 14, 2008

This year election administrators, many of whom were fielding new voting equipment for the first time, faced record turnout. After the pervasive problems with the previous two presidential elections and the fears of more election problems, both real and imagined, voters across the political spectrum faced the election with deep skepticism about its fairness and integrity. Today we give a brief overview of whether the expectations for the election were born out, and what election day tells us about where to focus reforms.
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Voting Rights 2008: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Oct 17, 2008

Fallout from Montana Voter Challenge Plan Continues: Last week we highlighted the tremendous job that Forward Montana and other local advocates did in bringing a massive attempt to challenge voters in Montana to a stop. In just a few days the plan was abandoned amid serious public backlash. This week there has been additional fallout as the executive director of the state GOP has stepped down. Clearly trying to keep people like deployed soldiers from voting wasn't a popular activity in the big sky state.
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Vote Suppression Watch

Sep 28, 2008

Now that the party nominating conventions have passed and the presidential race has reached its final leg, voter suppression efforts are shifting into high gear around the country. As each campaign assembles an army of lawyers to protect their interests leading to and on election day, state and local partisans are engaging in a wide variety of tactics to prevent their opponents' supporters from casting a ballot. Once again these underhanded tactics, which we've highlighted before, are predominantly coming from right wing operatives, and the targets are overwhelmingly groups that tend to vote for progressive candidates. Since the beginning of this month the following voters suppression campaigns have been reported:
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