Many of us have received the e-mail from the Obama campaign soliciting volunteers for election protection on Election Day. Many of us have offered to help. Some have submitted applications more than once.
I spoke with someone tonight about why we haven't heard back from the campaign. I was told that there may have been a glitch in processing applications. And as we know, the Obama campaign is a little busy these days. But as the election approaches, we have to be prepared. So maybe we should start preparing ourselves, and be ready for when the Obama campaign comes calling. Here are my thoughts for how we might be able to do that:
- Create and maintain lists (maybe here) of kossacks and others who are willing to travel to swing states to volunteer on Election Day and the days before (training for Election Day).
- Create lists of attorneys, law students and other volunteers in the swing states who will be volunteering, and begin linking those in-state volunteers with volunteers from out of state. That way, on Election Day, as volunteers are summoned to problem precincts, they will be with someone from the area who can drive quickly to the location.
- Find election experts in the swing states willing to volunteer their time to train the volunteers, and others willing to prepare training materials.
- Find attorneys willing to go to court on Election Day.
- Figure out which judges will be sitting on Election Day who will be hearing actions related to voting, which hours they will be sitting, and where they will be sitting.
- Have pleadings prepared (a list of volunteers for this?) with anticipated problems. Depending on the state's laws, determine whether the action must be brought by order to show cause or in some other way, and who must be noticed. Which means we have to know who from the state will be available to receive service and respond in court that day. With phone numbers that work and ways of reaching them.
- Make lists of problems we anticipate and have pleadings ready which will address those problems. A few off the top of my head: broken machines preventing people from voting in a timely manner (seeking a replacement machine or additional machines in the precinct, or if possible, the opportunity for voters to vote in another location), delays preventing people from getting to the machine before the polls close (and pleadings seeking an extension of the hours), pleadings demanding that voters be allowed to vote on machines if they've been erroneously knocked off the rolls (as provisional ballots are less likely to be counted) and more. Pleadings seeking an order that poll workers who are demanding improper ID cease. Pleadings seeking an order that Republicans harassing voters cease. Maybe you all can generate the list - I'm not an election law expert.
(My son just pointed to the screen and said "You wrote all that? No one's going to read all that, you know that, don't you?)
Maybe we can use this thread, or a series of threads, to begin compiling ideas on pleadings and how to organize. So when we get the e-mail or phone call, we're fired up and ready to go.