CALIFORNIA: Story of a Polling Station Inspector

Our colleague, Mari Lopez from the California Partnership sent another profile of a leader who is volunteering at the polls to help her neighbors vote.

Los Angeles, California

Yolanda James is working the polls today as an polling station inspector. She is on the other side of the table from where she has been during the time leading up to the elections. After working the streets to tell people about the election, the propositions, and their rights at the polling booth, she is now working at a Los Angeles polling precinct. Yolanda has also personally registered 450 people to vote.

“It’s important for me to do this because this election is so important and so historic,” according to Yolanda. “I’ve spent months making sure people who can vote are registered, understand the propositions on the ballot – and there are a lot – where their precinct is, and are going out to vote. Now, by working the polls as a worker for the county, I can make sure anyone who wants to vote are able to vote without any problems.” Yolanda, who volunteers for Coalition Los Angeles an organization that works on behalf of low-income communities, is a veteran of L.A. politics. She has registered new voters, walked precincts, phone-banked, attended rallies and anything else that helps bring people out to vote. “This particular election is special. These two tickets are making history” said Yolanda.

Yolanda has worked non-stop since August and won’t stop until 10 p.m. west coast time. The polls close at 8 p.m. but as an inspector she will be responsible for delivering votes cast at her polling precinct. “I’ll be here until every last voter in line at by 8 p.m. gets to vote!”

NEVADA: Things are Going Smoothly Thanks to Great Phone Bank Volunteers!

The Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada reports that things are going pretty smoothly. There have been a few cases where ex-felons who thought they were registered were purged from the voting rolls, but that's still legal, unfortunately. PLAN's staff and leaders are working with people who were purged on an individual basis to make sure they get re-registered with the correct procedures.

Here's another great update from our partner in Nevada!


Staffers and volunteers with various groups started the day in Nevada with a 6:30 a.m. literature drop focusing on communities of color. They followed up with media requests, providing rides to the polls and a phone bank that will keep going until the polls close at 7 p.m.

The phone bank is at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and the room is swamped with volunteers from various organizations.

Teresa Felix-Chavez, 48, is working with PLAN to get out the vote. She’s not just doing it for herself. She’s doing it for her 13 brothers and sisters.

Her sisters work in Las Vegas’ casinos, her brothers in construction. “Everybody is working,” she notes, a not-uncommon scenario for many families in Southern Nevada. Felix-Chavez became politically active during the 2004 elections, but she thinks this election is the Big Leagues.

“There is a big, big difference,” says Felix-Chavez, who spent Election Day working with PLAN and Center for Community Change staffers in a phone bank, along with about two dozen other people, many of them volunteers, working to get out the vote. “The difference is, there are many Hispanic people voting now. I think we’ve learned how important the vote is. For everybody, not just Hispanics.”

Felix-Chavez says people in this year’s election are focused on education, the economy and health care. The last issue is especially important to her because several years ago, she was involved in a car accident that crushed five vertebrae in her back. Felix-Chavez does not have health insurance, and like everyone in that situation, she struggles to find and pay for health care.

“We need universal health care,” she says.

Felix-Chavez joins Maria Sandoval Flores, 20, a College of Southern Nevada student, on the phone bank.

“This election is big, it’s huge,” says Sandoval Flores. “Any election is, but this election – we have a woman, we have an African American. I think we need people who don’t usually vote to get out and be heard, and that’s what PLAN is doing. We’re getting people that other people don’t care about.”

Sandoval Flores’ mother is a single mother of five. One brother, who has no health insurance, is dealing with kidney failure and has thousands of dollars in medical bills. So for her, the struggle for meaningful reforms to the health care system is personal.

So for the last several weeks, Sandoval Flores has been talking to about three-dozen people a night, working to get out the vote, one vote at a time.

CALIFORNIA VOTER TURNOUT: Lines of Voters in L.A.

Here's a short update from our colleague Mari Lopez, who works at the California Partnership, which is a statewide coalition fighting poverty in California.

Today in Los Angeles, there are lines of voters across the county. First time voters, long-time voters and everyone in between are excited this Tuesday to cast a vote for the next president, to defeat or support an initiative, and to be part of this historic event!

Lines began as early as 6 a.m. in many polling locations, as people anticipated long wait times.

First time voter, Miriam Mesa was excited to cast her first vote in a U.S. election. "I am truly excited to have been able to participate in this election. I was nervous, but it was great because there were a lot of people in line already when I got there at 8 a.m. and I was happy to be there with them!" Ms. Mesa is a Cuban-American who naturalized in August 2008.

NEVADA: Progressive Leadership Alliance Invests in Young Volunteers

Even though Nevada has been considered a bastion of voter and civic apathy, the Progressive Leadership Alliance is getting historically underrepresented communities invested in the promise of social, economic and political change.

“The results have been dramatic,” said Beverly Rodriguez, a PLAN organizer. “We focused on the communities of new citizens, particularly Hispanics, and we’ve turned out thousands of new voters.”

In Las Vegas, PLAN reached more than 3,100 people directly through a door-to-door canvass over the last two weeks. The canvass worked from a universe of more than 5,600 first-time voters, including more than 2,300 new citizens whom PLAN volunteers and staff registered following citizenship ceremonies in Las Vegas.

PLAN’s Meredith McGhan also helped build the high-value universe of new voters by registering hundreds of former felons, overcoming bureaucratic difficulties and contradictory state laws. “Without PLAN, these men and women may never have restored their right to vote,” McGhan said.

In Reno, the Silver State’s other urban center, PLAN worked throughout the year to register minorities, and staged a dramatic march to the polls through the city’s downtown on October 18th, the first day of early voting.

PLAN was just one of many nonprofit groups doing outreach to various communities in Nevada, but PLAN’s effort was built around a core of young activists, especially young women and men of color.

Victor Rascon, 18, is one of the many volunteers who has injected so much energy into PLAN's voter work. Victor is an Army ROTC student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and he has volunteered at events sponsored by PLAN, the Sierra Club, SkyOne and other progressive organizations in Southern Nevada. Victor also joined the ranks of PLAN canvassers working to ensure that communities of color, economically disenfranchised people and other historically underrepresented voting groups get to the polls and vote.

Victor is a talented freehand artist who comes in early to the PLAN office and strums his guitar while waiting to hit the doors or the phones. Victor's family is originally from Chihuaha, Mexico, but they immigrated to the U.S. in search of a better life. But since the economic downturn, his mother has joined the ranks of thousands of people in Las Vegas struggling to find work as the region's unemployment rate approaches 8 percent.

“I’m worried about Mom. I’m sometimes really concerned that she might not have money for rent,” Victor said. Without steady work, the family has had to move a lot, and that means his younger sister, a high school student, doesn’t have a stable school situation – “So that sucks,” Victor says.

But Victor believes in the power of community and people to make a difference. “There are opportunities to make changes. As a community it’s important to get involved, especially the Latino community. If they get out to vote, there will be a change.”