Democrats announce unprecedented voter protection program

Contact:  Bill Luckett, Executive Director   307-473-1457 (office)   307-473-1459 (fax)  

From the Wyoming Democratic Party

For immediate release

Aug. 2, 2007

Contact: Bill Luckett

Communications director

307-631-7638

Democrats announce unprecedented voter protection program

CHEYENNE - Wyoming Democratic Party Chairman John Millin today announced that state Democrats would participate in an unprecedented 50-state election protection program to prepare for the 2008 election. Through the Democratic National Committee's 50 State Strategy, the DNC Voting Rights Institute and the National Lawyers Council, Democrats across America are conducting an in-depth nationwide survey to collect critical data on the often confusing and complex sets of administrative practices and decisions governing our nation's elections. With the help of DNC-funded staffers hired through the DNC's State Party Partnership program, Wyoming Democrats will work with election officials throughout the Equality State to help identify potential issues so they can be resolved well in advance of the 2008 election.

"As America prepares to mark the 42nd anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, I am honored to announce this unparalleled effort to bring the ideals of that landmark law closer to reality," said John Millin, chairman of the Wyoming Democratic Party. "When President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, he called right to vote the 'basic right without which all others are meaningless.' But 42 years after the signing of this legislation, the right to vote is still under assault. While Wyoming has fortunately avoided the massive problems like Florida saw in the 2000 election, the Democratic Party wants every Wyoming voter to be confident that their vote will be counted fairly and accurately."

While election laws are written on the federal and state level, they are administered and interpreted by local officials. This decentralized process can result in variations in how elections are administered supervised and how Americans register to vote, cast their ballots and have their votes counted. The fact that there will be at least 13,000 elections run by localities in 2008 leaves the potential for inconsistencies that could threaten voting rights. Wyoming Democrats will work with local election officials to answer very specific questions about voter registration, centralized voter databases, voting systems and absentee voting, provisional balloting, polling place procedures and Election Day preparation. Data collected from the survey will be analyzed to determine the needs of each election locality and next steps for strengthening the election process in that locality.

"Nothing like this has ever been done before, and could never have been possible without the DNC's 50 State Strategy," Millin said. "For the first time, we have staff on the ground who can work intensively with our local election officials to make sure our elections run as smoothly and fairly as possible and that every single resident of Wyoming who wants to can vote and have their vote counted."

Wyoming Democratic Party spokesman Bill Luckett said some parts of the country have seen restrictive voter ID laws, ethnically based voter purging, and voter intimidation tactics. There have been voting irregularities, voting machine breakdowns, and people forced to wait in line too long to vote. Democrats are committed to removing roadblocks that keep countless Americans from exercising their right to vote. This initiative is particularly important in the current political climate, considering recent revelations that the Bush Administration has manipulated the mission of the Department of Justice by firing U.S. Attorneys who were unwilling to pursue phony "voter fraud" cases and by politicizing the Civil Rights Division.

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