Signing up to vote: "We have the numbers"

Susan Webb and other PWW staff reporters

"We have the numbers, we have the momentum", said New Mexico 
labour leader Danny Rivera. "It's going to be about performance" 
— about who gets the voters to the polls.

Reports from around the nation bear out Rivera's enthusiasm — 
massive new voter registrations, heavy early voting, and an 
unprecedented groundswell of volunteers. These new factors could 
put this election on the map as a milestone in the birth of a 
powerful national progressive movement.

In Michigan, labour is pouring in staff and volunteers "in the 
thousands", said Metro Detroit AFL-CIO President Donald Boggs.

Panicked by the surge of new voters, the Ohio Republican Party 
challenged the registrations of 35,000 state-wide, 17,000 in 
Cleveland alone, based solely on claims that postcards sent to 
them confirming their registration were returned as 
"undeliverable". However, a 1993 federal voting rights law 
stipulates that a person's right to vote cannot be denied because 
they moved to a new address.

The Republicans have recruited 3500 operatives, each paid $100, 
who will be assigned to Ohio's polling places November 2 in a 
drive to slow down, harass and intimidate voters.

"History tells us that, as we move closer to Election Day, the 
potential for more such dirty tricks and widespread voter 
intimidation and suppression will increase exponentially. The 
right of thousands of Ohio citizens to cast their ballots is at 
stake", said Jocelyn Travis, state director of the Ohio Election 
Protection Coalition

"After the fiasco in Florida in the 2000 elections, the eyes of 
the world are trained on the election process in the United 
States — [and] we want to make sure our state shows the world 
that Ohio is a place where voters can make their voices heard at 
the ballot box in free and fair elections."

In Columbus, Ohio, more than 1,000 union members marched on the 
offices of Ohio Secretary of State J Kenneth Blackwell on October 
25, to demand that he protect the rights of the 700,000 newly 
registered Ohio voters threatened by Republican vote suppression 
tactics in this crucial battleground state.

Georgia Congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis electrified 
a rally following the march. He recounted the story of "Bloody 
Sunday" when police brutally attacked voting rights marchers in 
Selma, Alabama.

"Thirty-nine years ago, during the Selma to Montgomery march for 
the right to vote as we crossed the Pettis Bridge, if someone had 
told me that I'd be here, in Columbus, Ohio, in 2004, on the same 
issue, I would have told them they're crazy!" Lewis thundered. 
"But all across America, the handwriting is on the wall — the 
people are coming on November 2 — and there's going to be a 
change!"

Ohio Rep Stephanie Tubbs Jones told a large rally: "Florida ain't 
happening in Ohio", and promised an all-out fight to protect the 
right to vote.

In West Virginia, 500 volunteers turned out to door-knock last 
weekend. Some 115,000 new voters signed up this year in the 
state, an 11 percent increase. State AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer 
Larry Matheney said labour was responsible for a "tremendous 
segment" of those new registrations. Now it is working to ensure 
that members and their families vote. Key issues in West 
Virginia, as elsewhere, are jobs, health care and trade that 
benefits working families, he said.

Matheney, was confident that his state would go for Kerry. 
"Following the John Kerry victory", he said, labour will build on 
its new grassroots strength, with its eye on electing a more 
worker-friendly state Legislature in 2006.

In Arkansas, where polls showed the presidential race tied, state 
AFL-CIO President Alan Hughes said unions are pulling out all 
stops to mobilise the vote. The mood is, "We can't afford four 
more years of Bush", and "the guy is incapable", he said. Most of 
all, "We want to know we got a job when we wake up the next 
morning".

Arkansas has 162,000 new voters registered this year, a 7.7 
percent increase over 2000. Over 29 percent of these are young 
voters ages 18 to 25, a group that is seen as favouring Kerry 
nationwide.

Nationally, the union movement will have 5000 paid staff working 
full-time by Election Day, more than triple its 2000 effort, 
along with over 200,000 Labour 2004 volunteers, the AFL-CIO says. 
They have worked 257 phone banks with 2,322 lines in 16 states, 
and passed out more than 32 million workplace leaflets.

This year's massive voter mobilisation drive included major 
efforts to register minority, youth and women voters.

American Indians

Native Vote 2004, sponsored by the National Congress of American 
Indians, and the Moving America Forward Foundation have 
registered thousands of new voters, ranging from 20,000 in 
Arizona and New Mexico to 450 new voters in the Confederated 
Tribes of Warm Springs, Oregon.

In hot-spot Wisconsin, state AFL-CIO Executive Vice-President 
Sara Rogers noted that people were waiting in long lines every 
day to vote early in Milwaukee and Madison. The state's same-day 
registration is expected to pull in many new voters whose impact 
is not reflected in the polls. Along with allied organisations, 
labour is waging "the largest, most massive ground effort I've 
ever seen", she said. Over a thousand union volunteers were set 
to work during the final campaign days.

Thousands more volunteers are working the battleground states, 
mobilised by America Coming Together, MoveOn, the League of 
Conservation Voters (LCV) and other issue-based progressive 
groups. Car and bus caravans have poured in from around the 
country. Last weekend alone, over 500 people from the Chicago 
area travelled to Wisconsin.

* * *

People's Weekly World (PWW)