Subject: West to East, we're fighting the Right - for our right to vote.
From: Aniello Alioto <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2012 10:22:28 -0500 (CDT)

::: ProgressNow - Building the online progressive movement state by state ::: 

Friends,

It's a busy time for all our affiliate organizations, but we want to
take a step back and let you know about just some of the great work we
are witnessing in our states. Since everyone has election fever these
days, this snapshot focuses on election protection, voter education
and our many efforts to fight voter suppression. In some states
we've mounted legal fights (Wisconsin & Virginia), in most of
our states we are creating and widely publishing Progressive Voter
Guides, in too many of our states we are having to counter the
ultra-Conservative "True the Vote" astroturfing, and in all our states
we are working closely with partners and striving to ensure that
elected officials uphold and enforce the law and the spirit of
election protection. 

Below is a snapshot, moving west to east, of the kind of work we are doing across all of our states. Please enjoy this update and please let me know how you think ProgressNow and ProgressNowEducation are doing and what we should be doing.

Forward - together!

Aniello Alioto 
National Political Director
ProgressNow
ProgressNow Education

New Mexico

ProgressNow New Mexico made national news when they
released undercover video of a Republican Party poll worker
(and leading Tea Party activist) training NM poll challengers
to blatantly violate election law. This video shows a GOP
party official instructed participants to illegally demand
identification, deny translation assistance and to force some legal
voters to use provisional ballots. The video went viral having
reached more than 49,300 views in six days.  The video was played
in the lead segment on the 10/4 edition of "Politics Nation
with Al Sharpton" on MSNBC, earned a front-page Op-Ed in
the HuffingtonPost from Ambassador Joe Wilson, front page stories
on Salon.com (here and here), ThinkProgress
(here and here) and The Nation where Congressman
Steve Pearce (R-NM) was quoted as saying he was aware of and
sanctioned the illegal tactics as the way Republicans would win back
the state. ProgressNowNM later returned to the training and found
the state True The Vote director teaching the Republican-party
training (a violation of IRS rules).  On day 5 of the story, New
Mexico's Attorney General announced an official
investigation into voter suppression, calling it a "concerted
effort to discourage some voters."  Though the story
continues to develop, to date more than 80 news stories about
ProgressNowNM's voter suppression expose have been
tracked.  Not bad for a new state, a determined team and a used
video camera. 

http://progressnow.pnstate.org/site/R?i=nv-nvPcit3A1R74sghtyWA
http://progressnow.pnstate.org/site/R?i=-5Y-QQeGBKop5BGtWL9muQ

http://progressnow.pnstate.org/site/R?i=nLu4bUO7j4saqoZ0ztAbzQ
http://progressnow.pnstate.org/site/R?i=_wstx7BUh6sW6i5gFD35cA

http://progressnow.pnstate.org/site/R?i=mnNi6Z2qQfITYaEvsIKoVA

http://progressnow.pnstate.org/site/R?i=75-HkdrC3hht5ZaeZW1QbQ

http://progressnow.pnstate.org/site/R?i=7WunOMQ-FtC0z4lTk6mDfw

http://progressnow.pnstate.org/site/R?i=gHBXF1tvUgWgtaZ7HtSz1A

http://progressnow.pnstate.org/site/R?i=8muEkeU4sGI91_vN-Q4ADA

Colorado 

Colorado's current Secretary of State (SOS), Scott Gessler, is the
most partisan person to hold that office. As an Elections Attorney who
built his career on helping conservative special interests get around
election law, we knew we had to take him seriously as soon as he took
office. ProgressNow Colorado, along with several partners, built
a long-term plan to brand Gessler and consistently hold him
accountable for his actions. This 18 month plan which includes legal,
earned and social media, public education, and surrogate development,
has held Gessler back from his weekly attempts to put unnecessary
obstacles in front of voters. This long-term plan has directly
resulted in consistent, negative, and truthful coverage of Gessler's
activities. 

As we approach the election, ProgressNow Colorado has plans to counter
Gessler's friends at True the Vote with   "voting heroes" who will
have the back of anyone whose ballot is challenged. ProgressNow
Colorado is also currently working with local and national press to
ensure they are aware of potential last-minute games that Gessler
could play between now and certification of the election. Our team
will be live-blogging any instances of voter intimidation to ensure
the issue brought into the public sphere. All of this will be done
with a keen eye toward empowering voters - not making them afraid of
turning out.

Michigan

Progress Michigan is working hand-in-hand with the Michigan
Election Coalition on a number of different voter protection angles.
They are aggressively pushing back on the Secretary of State's
citizenship checkbox, which requires every voter to affirm citizenship
before they are giving a ballot. The bill was vetoed by Gov. Snyder,
but the SOS is still putting the checkbox on ballots anyway (although
she won't deny ballots to people who refuse to sign). Progress
Michigan helped place op-eds, push out statements, etc. They are also
heavily promoting the 866-OUR-VOTE hotline with earned and paid media
and the recently past voter registration deadline with local
media events.

Ohio

ProgressOhio will utilize a multi-faceted strategy to engage,
educate and empower voters across Ohio to participate in the November
6th general election. ProgressOhio will employee every method and
tool at their disposal (numerous email reminders, aggressively
publishing the election protection Hotline number, a one-stop-shop
website resource development for partners, media training on
messaging and rapid response mechanisms to ensure maximum media
exposure, production and dissemination of a "How to Vote"
video,  Secretary of State outreach and
relationship maintenance (will also allow us to have direct
access to the Ohio Secretary of State office on Election Day should
problems arise in Ohio), Poll Monitor recruitment - heavily relying in
pastors and ministerial alliances, continuous and aggressive
outreach to traditional media and social media. 

Virginia

ProgressVA continues to staff the communications needs for
Virginia's election protection coalition. Over the past month,
ProgressVA has worked to increase coverage of grassroots voter
registration and education efforts, with a particular emphasis on
story placement in college campus media. Additionally, they've also
been reviewing public records requests seeking information on True the
Vote, and their Virginia affiliate, Virginia Voter's Alliance,
communications with the State Board of Elections and local registrars.
All this voter protection work has been done with an eye towards
January, when we expect to face several bills seeking to restrict
voter registration and participation. They're laying the groundwork
now to be able to point to valuable, legal, and effective grassroots
civic engagement work when the time comes to help combat the false
voter fraud narrative. Basically, they are winning the future -
now. 

New Hampshire

Over the past two years Granite State Progress & Granite
State Progress Education Fund has participated in
an Election Law Coalition convened by America Votes to help fight
voter suppression legislation in New Hampshire. This has included
public education, legislative testimony and hard-hitting media
communications. With the election just around the corner, Granite
State Progress have teamed up with America Votes and the New
Hampshire Citizens Alliance (NHCA) to create and publicize an election
protection and voter education website to empower citizens with
the ability to have their vote counted.

This year a new state law in New Hampshire requires voters to present
photo identification or sign an affidavit before casting a
ballot. The September 11th State Primary was supposed to be a test run
of the system, but it was a complete failure as voters were
turned away from the polls. This heightens concerns for the
November election. We are currently in the process of
adding materials so that the website can go live the week of
October 8.

The website will contain:

*  Information on how to contact a voter protection hotline
maintained by NHCA Voter education materials (recent court
decisions, handouts, fact sheets, posters, and brochures)
by the ACLU, LWV, NHCA and America Votes Information on
where to vote, voting absentee, and registering to vote PSA
videos covering different demographics in English and Spanish,
possibly French, produced by Granite State Progress &
Education Fund;
*  a media center where all clips regarding the election will be
made easily available for voters and journalists alike;
and,
*  a Twitter feed with hash tags of interest.

:::

Copyright 2012 ProgressNow

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