On Thursday Jack and Jill Politics announced the launch of the Voter Suppression Wiki, complete with an intro video from Baratunde Thurston (who used to co-host Drinking Liberally with me):
The goal of the wiki is simple: to document and expose reported cases of voter suppression, whether they be targeted at veterans, students, folks on foreclosure lists, or otherwise. The wiki also includes an action center to help activists get involved in preventing voter suppression. Anyone can register and contribute to the wiki - in fact, I did just that Friday morning, adding a link to Pollworkers for Democracy to the action center page.
As a brief aside - I think Pollworkers for Democracy is an extraordinary idea. But I wonder if there are other, similar activities which could supplement poll-working, would be less demanding than an all-day job, and still be useful in preventing voter abuse. To take a simple example, what if every precinct had someone whose job it was to get in line exactly when the polls closed, and could somehow prove it? In a precinct with long lines, that person could help ensure that everyone in front of him or her would get to vote - or testify in front of a judge, if it came to that. This kind of job could even be done by a campaign's GOTV volunteers, since GOTV usually is over about 30 minutes or so before the polls close.
In any case, kudos to Jack and Jill, as well as others involved in helping set up the wiki, including Jon Pincus. This is a great resource for pulling together all of the sundry voter suppression efforts going on across the country, and for helping activists fight back.
|
|
|
Permalink :: 5 Comments :: Post a Comment
|
In order to post a comment, you must be logged in. If you have a member account, please log in to comment.
If not, you can make an account right here. It's quick and free.