USA: Election boards swamped with new voter sign-ups

The broad-based coalition seeking to defeat George W. Bush has 
registered millions of new voters and the flood continues, 
swamping state election boards even as deadlines near for signing 
people up.

Just one of many groups, Rock the Vote, reports it has registered 
789,905 new voters. The League of Women Voters warned that the 
flood has created a backlog that, if not cleared, could mean the 
disenfranchisement of thousands of newly registered voters. 

"This may mark National Voter 'Rejection' Week", charged 
President Kay J Maxwell. "There is more work to be done after the 
citizen fills out the voter registration application. The 
application must be acted on by the appropriate government entity 
in a timely manner and in a way that enfranchises eligible 
voters." She called on election boards to hire more personnel to 
process the backlog. 

Florida heats up

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 
(NAACP), People for the American Way and other groups affiliated 
with the Election Protection Coalition (EPC) charged that in 
Duval County, Florida, election officials are threatening to 
terminate processing of voter registration forms the last week of 
September, even though Florida's deadline is October 4.

In the stolen 2000 election, 27,000 Duval County votes, mostly 
cast by African Americans, were thrown out.

Sabrina Williams, a spokesperson for the Advancement Project, one 
of the EPC groups, told the People's Weekly World (PWW), "We will 
file a complaint with Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood and 
then go into mediation with Duval County election officials to 
get this resolved. This problem is not limited to Duval County. 
There were complaints by voters in Miami-Dade and Broward 
counties that they were denied a chance to vote in Florida's 
August 31 primary because their registrations were not 
processed."

Vicky Beasley, a field officer for People for the American Way, 
told Reuters that the problem is particularly serious in the 
swing states: "There is a very widespread delay in the swing 
states because there have been massive registration drives among 
minorities and those applications are not being processed quickly 
enough."

Hundreds of thousands sign up

An estimated 250,000 Ohioans have registered over the past year. 
In Cuyahoga County alone, which encompasses Cleveland, the 
backlog of applications at one point reached 25,000. The labour 
movement and its allies demanded that the Board of Elections put 
on more personnel. They did and the backlog now is down to about 
6000.

The problem is that the 2004 election has energised millions who 
sat out elections in past years. Only 52 percent, or about 102 
million, of those eligible to vote cast ballots in the 2000 
election. America Votes, a coalition of 33 organisations with 
combined membership of 20 million, points out that 50 million 
eligible women did not vote in 2000. So on September 18, 
"Election Action Day", the coalition filled 50 buses with 
volunteers who fanned out in 17 battleground states to register 
thousands of women to vote.

"We're still compiling the numbers from the Saturday effort", 
said America Votes spokesperson Sarah Leonard. "We had hundreds 
of volunteers in Philadelphia and Manchester, New Hampshire, who 
registered thousands of new voters. Nationwide, we've registered 
hundreds of thousands of new voters."

Joelle Fishman, chair of the Political Action Commission of the 
Communist Party USA, said the Bush-Cheney campaign "wants 
everybody to believe the election is already over. Dirty tricks 
and voter suppression tactics are being used to discourage 
people. But that strategy is backfiring. Across the country, 
millions of people are determined to protect our democracy and 
expand it."

The movement, she said, must work vigilantly to protect the vote. 
"We demand that every voter registration application be processed 
before November 2, so that every vote can be cast and counted." 

Activating the youth

The Denver-based, non-partisan New Voter Project (NVP) has the 
goal of signing up 265,000 new voters between the ages of 18 and 
24. So far they have registered 242,697 new voters. 

The group's spokesman, Adam Alexander, told the (PPW), "There are 
500,000 people 18 to 24 years old in Wisconsin. To date, we have 
registered 120,000 new voters. It means we have signed up 20 
percent of the people in that age bracket. If you walk down a 
street in Wisconsin and see five young people standing together, 
we registered one of them to vote." 

NVP, he said, has hundreds of full time staff and thousands of 
interns working to increase the youth vote across the nation. 
Historically, low percentages of youth have voted since 1972, 
when the voting age was reduced to 18. "Young people have been a 
neglected part of the political landscape. But we think this year 
we will break out of that cycle. We believe we're going to see an 
unprecedented youth vote."

Jane Fleming, executive director of Young Democrats of America 
and spokesperson for the Young Voter Alliance (YVA), told the 
PWW, "The candidates must speak to the issues that concern youth. 
They are the largest group without health insurance, the hardest 
hit by unemployment. They are the ones fighting and dying in 
Iraq. Many young people see it as an unjust war."

The YVA, she said, is mounting a major get-out-the-vote drive in 
Florida, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

"It is not enough to register them to vote", she said. "We have 
to have a strong effort to get them to the polls on Election 
Day."

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People's Weekly Word, Paper of the Communist Party 
USA