WASHINGTON: Helping A New Voter Get To The Polls

Here's another inspiring story about the important work that volunteers are doing to help their neighbors participate in this election. This story from Washington CAN! is an example of many other stories around the country.

A major focus of Washington CAN!'s get-out-the-vote work this year has been new voters from immigrant communities. This year, Washington's many immigrant communities are turning out in unprecedented numbers, in districts across the state where they've been traditionally underrepresented.

Tonight, a volunteer doing GOTV phone-banking spoke with Maryan, originally from Somalia, now living in south Seattle. Maryan has been a citizen for four years, and registered for the first time this year. A mother of three, she felt that she needed to make sure that candidates that shared her values got into office. She was very excited to vote, but hadn't received the absentee ballot she'd requested. She knew she would have to go to her polling place, but she didn't know where it was and she worried about not knowing what to do if and when she got there.

Our volunteer put her in touch with Washington CAN staff who not only helped her locate her polling place, but drove her and her kids there and helped them navigate this important new experience.

Maryan is proud that she was able to do her part tonight by voting. Her children are proud, too.

And those of us lucky enough to be doing this work today, wherever we are, can be proud that our efforts helped one more of America's newest voters cast the first ballot of her life.

NEW MEXICO: Organizer Helps First-Time Voter To The Polls!

Somos un Pueblo's volunteers drove miles to meet with first-time voters who had doubts about the electoral process and/or paper ballot. Flores has a pending judicial case, therefore, he can't vote. His situation motivated him to volunteer in Somos un Pueblo Unido and help those who could vote, but didn't know how or didn't have a ride.



And here Flores is helping out this first-time voter (in Spanish):

FLORIDA VOTER STORY: Direct Action Gets The Vote

Joseph Phelan with the Miami Workers Center shares his experience as a community vote defender:

A man with sun browned skin and rough hands walks out of the the polling place at de Hostos Community Center in Wynwood, smiling and a gathered crowd erupts into cheers. He had just voted, with a little help from community vote defenders.

(l-r) Ramos, Lassalle, Davalia, happy after a successfully protecting the vote

Just minutes earlier he had been locked out of the electoral process.

"We said 'hi' as he walked into the poll," explained Osvaldo Ramos, a Take Back the Vote canvasser. "Then a little while later he came back out."

"They wouldn't let him vote," chimed in Amelia Davilia, another TBV canvasser.

The man, Emilio Lassalle Jr., didn't have ID.

"I didn't know I needed ID. I'm Puerto Rican. I am my ID," Lassalle said later.

"We talked to him about his rights and told him he was entitled to cast a provisional ballot. So he went back in," said Ramos.

"This time when he came out he had tears on his cheeks. He was so frustrated and humiliated," added Davilia.

The canvassers jumped into action and called the TBV headquarters to report the problem. A team of thirty voter defenders piled into the "Party Truck," an old bread truck plastered with banners, pumping out funk and hip hop on a generator powered sound system.



"When we got here we parked the truck blasted the music, got out the bull horns and started chanting," said Tony Romano, organizing director with the Miami Workers Center. "it got the poll workers attention. They told us 'No ID, no vote.' But we know that is illegal so we kept on pushing, kept on drawing attention to the situation."

Eventually, Lassalle, escorted by a TBV vote defender, was allowed back into the poll to cast his provisional ballot.

"I lost my wallet. What was I supposed to do?" Lassalle asks nobody, and everybody. "If they didn't let me vote I would never have voted again. I was fed up with it."

After posing for a few pictures with the smiling Lassalle, the vote defenders piled into the "Party Truck", cranked up some James Brown, and rolled into the darkening night, ready to defend the right to vote.

Oh and check out this video featuring Darville Williams, an intern at the Miami Workers Center on how more work needs to be done after the elections:

MAINE VOTER STORY: Organizing Makes Voting Possible

We were all really moved by this story from Amy Halsted with Maine People's Alliance, the statewide grassroots organization in Maine. It's the story of a woman who would not have voted without the intervention of a community organizer. And don't think for a second this is the exception to the rule. We already heard Evelyn's story in Washington State, too. Just a few of the examples of how neighbor-to-neighbor voter organizing makes an immediate and lasting difference.

This is a photo of a woman who I brought to vote today. Her story is a great example of how important our all our hard work this summer and fall has been!

She called the MPA office when she got home this afternoon and saw she missed a call from a number she didn’t recognize (she was someone we registered this summer). I answered her call and explained that we were just calling folks to remind them how important it is to vote today and to offer rides to the polls. I asked her if she had voted yet.

She told me she had tried to vote at the local school where the rest of her family votes, but they turned her away saying she had to go down to city hall since she no longer lives in the same house with her extended family. She was worried about finding a parking space near City Hall—she told me last time she tried to park in that area of the city she got a $100 ticket that took her forever to pay off.

She had decided, before we spoke, not to vote.

I told her I could bring her to City Hall and wait outside in my car while she voted and then take her back home, and she agreed. In the car, I learned that she was born in Africa, has lived in America for 12 years, and is one semester away from getting her degree in social work from University of Southern Maine. She’s a single mom of a four-year-old boy and has another baby due in March. She lives in a housing development in Portland and told me how hard it has been to make it through school with a young child and how much she wants a president that will fight for people like her who are working hard and just trying to make a better life for their families.

Since she has moved three times this year and didn’t have proof of her current address, it took her 40 minutes to fill out the paperwork, register and vote (and there wasn’t even a line!). When I dropped her off at home afterwards, she thanked me profusely and said how good she felt that she had taken the time to do it!

WASHINGTON VOTER STORY: Evelyn's Story (She's 94 Years Old!)

When Washington CAN! called Evelyn Slater in our campaign to get out the vote, Evelyn said she wasn't sure whether she would vote this year. She wanted to vote, and had received her ballot in the mail. But, at 94 years old, Evelyn is losing her eyesight and couldn't read her ballot and voters pamphlet.

Evelyn had become a member of Washington CAN! in July of 2005 when we were campaigning to protect and strengthen Social Security. She's remained active in fights to make quality health care affordable for everyone. We weren't going to let failing eyesight stop her from voting.

Washington CAN! phone bank staffer, Terry Baker and Executive Director, Will Pittz, made a trip to Evelyn's home in north Seattle. They spent an hour reading out loud the voter pamphlet, while Evelyn chose what and who she would vote for. On October 21st, Evelyn voted up and down her ballot -- every race, every initiative, every ballot measure.

That's what community values is all about - making sure everyone has a voice in our democracy.