|
Advocacy Blog
Thursday, August 07, 2008
NAACP Legal Defense Fund Unveils New Program to Protect Voter Rights
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) issued a press release today unveiling a new program called "Prepared to Vote," which is designed to protect voter rights.
"Prepared to Vote is a program designed to raise every voter's awareness of the many obstacles in the electoral process that could affect their right to vote in the 2008 election. Through Prepared to Vote we hope to ensure that every eligible voter casts a vote that counts," said John Payton, LDF President and Director-Counsel.
According to the LDF press release, the Prepared to Vote program was "[i]nspired by the Freedom School Model from the Civil Rights Movement … [and] seeks to empower communities of color by providing essential information prior to Election Day. Program components include community-based workshops, the dissemination of user-friendly materials, meetings with election officials, and a dynamic educational website preparedtovote.org."
The Prepared to Vote program is designed to address issues that have served as barriers to voting in past elections. Some of the issues that the program will address are "voter ID requirements, voter purges, faulty voter rolls, poorly trained elections officials, and felon disfranchisement statutes," among other issues.
The program seeks to ensure that voters are not disenfranchised in the upcoming Presidential Election and that "America's democratic processes are administered uniformly and fairly in communities of color." To that end, LDF will deploy field attorneys to 10 states to prevent voter disfranchisement.
Posted by Lateefah Williams
|