Election Protection: Our Mission

The nonpartisan Election Protection 365 program is committed to protecting the right to vote and ensuring fair elections. Focusing on historically disenfranchised communities, the Election Protection coalition, led by PFAW Foundation, the NAACP, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, draws on the expertise, experience, passion, and moral leadership of the civil rights community to make sure every eligible voter is able to cast a vote that will count.

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Our nation’s patchwork electoral system too often resembles an obstacle course. Whatever the cause — be it bad technology, negligence, insufficient resources, or cynical maneuvering by elections officials and partisans — these obstacles must be removed. That requires more than just a strong defense on Election Day. It means playing offense all year round, and that is the idea behind Election Protection 365.

Why Election Protection?

The 2000 elections were a wake-up call. In the aftermath of the election fiasco in Florida, it became clear that problems had not been limited to Florida. In fact, according to a 2001 Caltech-MIT study, more than four million Americans from all over the country were disenfranchised in 2000. People were denied the right to cast a vote — or to have their vote counted — by a range of problems, including faulty equipment, poorly designed ballots, and untrained poll workers, as well as voter intimidation and suppression efforts and other illegal actions by public officials.

Check out the stirring speech given by Julian Bond, Chairman of the National Association of Colored People. Bond's words at the group's annual convention preceeded the address President Bush gave after scheduling conflicts had prevented his attendance five years running.

Many of the people victimized in Florida were first-time voters who had responded to energetic registration programs designed to boost civic participation by minority voters who have traditionally been underrepresented at the polls. Election Protection was created to ensure that voters turned away from the ballot box in 2000 did not turn away from civic engagement, and to provide voters with better information about their rights as well as strong legal backup to help them protect those rights. In spite of the intensely divisive and damaging problems that influenced the outcome of the 2000 election, and in spite of federal and state legislation intended to address those problems, the nation’s electoral system remains a patchwork of registration and voting systems, with too few meaningful safeguards to protect voters’ rights. In addition, outright efforts to dissuade, discourage, and disenfranchise voters continue at a dismaying pace, as documented in The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America, published by People For the American Way Foundation and the NAACP. And the potential for systemic breakdowns is heightened by intensive voter registration efforts and the first-time use of new voting technologies in many areas.

Election Protection: The Program

Election Protection is the nation’s most far-reaching effort to protect voter rights. The historic nonpartisan program includes:

An election administration team that meets with election officials to gain detailed information about the jurisdiction’s election administration procedures and interpretation of laws and to eliminate any barriers to the ballot box.

A legal team that files lawsuits to challenge election laws and procedures that would lead to voter disenfranchisement.

Media and grassroots advocacy teams that work to put pressure on public officials to remove hurdles to voting.

Volunteers who monitor polls in predominantly African-American and Latino precincts with a history of disenfranchisement on Election Day in order to provide direct assistance to voters.

A nationwide toll-free Voters’ Hotline, 1-866-OUR-VOTE, staffed by volunteer attorneys who provide free, multi-lingual assistance to help voters with questions about registration and voting, and assist voters turned away at the polls.

Distribution of millions of Voters’ Bills of Rights with state-specific information that inform voters of their rights and empower them to protect their own rights.

Freedom Fall 2004

In the largest civil rights mobilization since Freedom Summer, in 2004 more than 25,000 Americans volunteered for nonpartisan Election Protection efforts across the country. Some 8,000 attorneys and law students volunteered their expertise to voters. More than 2,000 college and high school students boarded buses to provide voter assistance at the polls. Volunteers worked in more than 52 field offices and 38 legal command centers stationed around the country on Election Day. The Election Protection “Nerve Center” at People For the American Way Foundation’s Washington, D.C. headquarters, served as a voter assistance and coalition information-sharing clearinghouse, with 34 computers and 55 telephone lines. Forty staffers and hundreds of volunteers recruited through Election Protection partner organizations served in the Nerve Center seven days a week in the months leading up to the presidential election. On Election Day, information poured into the Nerve Center from the field offices and legal command centers around the country.

Election Protection: The Coalition

Election Protection draws its strength from a diverse coalition of national and local civil rights groups, led by People For the American Way Foundation, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the NAACP.