Lawyers for Edwards: Protecting Every Vote
Tue Dec 18, 2007 at 05:56:45 AM PDT
Lawyers for Edwards is group of volunteer lawyers that formed in early 2007 to help protect the democratic process and ensure that every vote is counted. Our goal is to be able to stop efforts to suppress the vote in every swing state. Most of us were members of Lawyers for Kerry-Edwards or other lawyer groups that existed to counter voter suppression.
Our first organizational test will be this January. Lawyers for Edwards is sending lawyers to New Hampshire to protect the vote (note: we don't expect much voter suppression in a Democratic primary -- but it's a great dry run for the real thing). If you are interested in joining us please go to
our website and get involved.
Let's remember:
The right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government.
-Chief Justice Earl Warren (author of Brown v. Board of Education, and the quintissential "liberal activist Judge" that the Republican candidates despise)
In 2004, dems were much better prepared to counter voter suppression than we were in 2000. Believe it or not -- we did stop a lot of voter fraud. I still get goosebumps remembering my time in Ohio watching (mostly black) people stand in line in the rain to vote (there didn't seem to be as many lines in white neighborhoods) and going to help voters who were being harassed. We made a difference. Because of lawyers on the ground, a lot of folks were able to vote despite Republican voter suppression efforts.
But, let's face it, voter suppression played a huge role in the 2004 election, and we certainly need to do a much better job in 2008.
In 2008, we are organizing much earlier than we did in 2004. The Edwards camp plans to coordinate with the Democratic Lawyers Counsel and other partisan lawyer groups to make sure that every vote is counted this time.
As I said above, our first test is this January in New Hampshire (again, the New Hampshire primary is incredibly well run, so this will be mainly a test run for the general election). Please send me an email (jeremiah.freipearson@gmail.com) if you can make it to New Hampshire to help us protect the vote. Every volunteer who supports John Edwards and cares about voting rights is welcome (lawyers preferred -- especially those with experience in voting rights law)!
One final note: Lawyers for Edwards supports the Edwards campaign on a volunteer basis. If you are not an Edwards supporter and you still want to help protect the right to vote, I urge you to get involved with the Democratic Lawyers Counsel, the DNC's election protection project,, or with non-partisan groups like the Election Protection coalition (the Election Protection Coalition should begin publicly organizing in January). Regardless of which candidate you support, the right to vote is essential to democracy, and we must work to protect it.
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