[Guest post by Faye Anderson of the Yo! Philly Votes team]
I am a voting rights activist who has monitored elections in Ethiopia and Angola, and led democracy workshops in Kazakhstan. Since 2006, I have live-blogged from Election Day command centers organized by the Election Protection Coalition and the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.
I’m now spearheading Yo! Philly Votes, a citizen-led initiative that will crowdsource election protection in Philadelphia, the birthplace of the American democracy.
Some background: In 2008, the record turnout of young and minority voters propelled Barack Obama to victory. Since that historic election, there has been a wave of voting changes that make it harder for millions of eligible Americans to vote. Politicians are manipulating election laws for their own advantage.
The most burdensome change requires voters to show an acceptable form of photo ID in order to vote. Studies show restrictive photo ID requirements have a disproportionate impact on young and minority voters.
During the 2008 election cycle, Our Vote Live, the nation’s largest database of real-time incident reports, logged more than 86,000 of the 200,000 calls made to 1-866-OUR-VOTE. Pennsylvania had the fifth highest total number of calls to the Election Protection Hotline. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh reported the greatest number of problems.
With the flattening of newsrooms, there are fewer watchdogs to report on what’s happening at the polls. At the same time, there are new sources of real-time Election Day incident reports. Yo! Philly Votes will empower voting rights activists and ordinary citizens to monitor multiple sources of incident reports to ensure that problems are corrected before the polls close.
I am a voting rights activist who has monitored elections in Ethiopia and Angola, and led democracy workshops in Kazakhstan. Since 2006, I have live-blogged from Election Day command centers organized by the Election Protection Coalition and the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.
I’m now spearheading Yo! Philly Votes, a citizen-led initiative that will crowdsource election protection in Philadelphia, the birthplace of the American democracy.
Some background: In 2008, the record turnout of young and minority voters propelled Barack Obama to victory. Since that historic election, there has been a wave of voting changes that make it harder for millions of eligible Americans to vote. Politicians are manipulating election laws for their own advantage.
The most burdensome change requires voters to show an acceptable form of photo ID in order to vote. Studies show restrictive photo ID requirements have a disproportionate impact on young and minority voters.
During the 2008 election cycle, Our Vote Live, the nation’s largest database of real-time incident reports, logged more than 86,000 of the 200,000 calls made to 1-866-OUR-VOTE. Pennsylvania had the fifth highest total number of calls to the Election Protection Hotline. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh reported the greatest number of problems.
With the flattening of newsrooms, there are fewer watchdogs to report on what’s happening at the polls. At the same time, there are new sources of real-time Election Day incident reports. Yo! Philly Votes will empower voting rights activists and ordinary citizens to monitor multiple sources of incident reports to ensure that problems are corrected before the polls close.