Poll monitors mobilize for Election Day
Volunteers want to make sure no eligible voter is wrongly denied a chance to vote.

By ANNA VARELA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/25/04

 

Members of Georgia's legal community are organizing efforts to monitor the polls on Election Day.

About 110 people — most of them lawyers, paralegals and law students — took part in a training session this week at the King and Spalding law firm's downtown offices.
Cindy Spindler, an Atlanta attorney and co-chairwoman of the Georgia Election Protection Committee, said the group hopes to sign up as many as 250 people to volunteer at polling places in Fulton and DeKalb counties. Some legal groups in the Athens area and Cobb County are also organizing.

The poll monitors, most of them law students, will be in phone contact with lawyers prepared to help voters with problems at the polls. The group will have a toll-free number (1-866-OUR-VOTE, or 1-866-687-8683) for anyone who wants to report irregularities Nov. 2.

The effort comes in reaction to the 2000 presidential election, which sparked complaints and lawsuits by people who felt they were wrongly denied the right to vote. Though Florida's problems got the most attention, civil rights groups said black voters were disenfranchised in several states. Some fear that with large numbers of people being added to the voter rolls, many could find their registration status unfairly challenged when they go to vote.

The Georgia effort is coordinated with a national group, the Election Protection Program.

The nonpartisan organization is a partnership that includes the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the People for the American Way Foundation and other groups. Georgia is one of 17 states targeted by the program.

Elliot Mincberg, legal director of People for the American Way, said Georgia is among states where minority voters need "special levels of protection" due to a history of problems.

For example, misinformed poll workers may tell people that they aren't registered if their name isn't on the list at their polling place, Mincberg said. In those cases, poll workers are supposed to let people cast a provisional ballot and then sort out the person's registration status.

Susan Keith, a medical technician at Emory University Hospital, plans to be a poll monitor.

Keith said one of her friends was denied the opportunity to vote in the July primary because poll workers shut down a polling place 10 minutes early.

During a training session in Florida last summer, Keith said she asked if more volunteers were needed there.

"They said, 'No, if you live in Georgia, stay there. You have problems there too.' "