Give A Day

Our Time is Now -- Help on the Last 4 Days

Supporters like you can make a huge difference by taking a short trip to a key battleground state or making phone calls to undecided voters.

Will you commit right now to volunteer on one or more of the four crucial days leading up to Election Day?

Watch David Plouffe's strategy update below, then sign up by filling out this form.

Bilingual attorneys and law students needed for voter protection NATIONWIDE

I can't tell whether I'm more a) inspired by the breadth and depth of voter protection efforts nationwide, or b) completely depressed that voting rights are under siege enough to require endless numbers of efforts like this one below, this one, and this one.

Please share this information with any bilingual lawyers and law students in your networks.

From Lizz in NYC:

Bilingual Attorneys: Help Protect the Vote on Election Day!

Voting process can be an intimidating experience for Americans with limited English proficiency (LEP), who may face discrimination and disenfranchisement. LEP voters may be offered a provisional ballot when they are eligible to cast a regular ballot; may be asked to show photo identification that is not required; or may be denied their right to bring a friend into the polling booth to help them translate.

Help Monitor Polls on Election Day

Join the team of bilingual attorneys who will monitor the polls in battleground states. We are recruiting volunteers for target states in critical polling sites with substantial Asian, Latino or other populations with limited English proficiency: CO, FL, MI, MN, NM, NV, OH, OR, PA, VA, and WA.

To sign up to protect votes, please visit: www.barackobama.com/counselforchange, indicate which of these battleground states you want to work in, and your language skills. In the "NOTES" section, please include "AAPI Task Force" or "LTF" to identify that you are part of the Asian American Pacific Islander or Latino Task Forces' voter protection efforts.

Help us recruit!

Forward this email to your friends and colleagues who may be interested. Talk to all the lawyers and law students you know about getting involved! We need all attorneys to get involved, particularly bilingual attorneys.

To get more involved in a particular state or if you have any questions, please contact Sam Jammal at sjammal@gmail.com for the Latino Task Force, and Gloria Chan at gloria@democraticlawyers.org for the Asian American Pacific Islander Task Force.

Phone Banking for Shy People

In the 5 days since I sent the email, several people have responded with some version of the following:

"I want to help with phone calling, but I'm really shy. I don't feel like I know the issues well enough. I think I'm not good at convincing people to support Obama."

Now, that's debatable in many of these cases, but there's no reason to give yourself an anxiety attack when there are so many ways to support the campaign.

There is a HUGE need to mobilize New Yorkers to go to Pennsylvania and other swing states - which means there is a similarly huge need for volunteers to do phone outreach to people who have signed up to do weekend trips and attend Camp Obama/Field Organizer trainings. Yes, I (and the campaign) know many of you did this weeks ago and still haven't heard anything. This is an ideal and critically important opportunity for anyone who feels shy, or uncertain about his/her ability to sway undecided voters. I just spent the evening phone interviewing Camp Obama applicants and connecting people to opportunities to go to PA - it's both totally inspirational and as easy as inviting people to the best party in town.

I talked with a few dozen people who were either willing to put their lives, jobs and families on hold for 5 weeks to volunteer in a swing state, or wanted to dedicate multiple weekends to go to Pennsylvania between now and the election. One woman whose husband lost his Wall Street job last week told me she was willing to quit hers to become a Field Organizer "because the most important thing I can do for my family is to make sure Obama gets elected." I almost wept in the middle of the phone bank.

"Get people to Pennsylvania" phone banks are taking place every weeknight between 5 and 9 at the Teamsters Union office on W. 14th Street in Manhattan. I am getting more information about the formal sign up process (I was subbing for a "community organizer" friend who had an unexpected meeting), and will post it as soon as I have it. Or email me, and I'll give you a backdoor email address to sign up.

Everyone should do try to do this at least once.

Wanted: techies to work for voting machine companies

We have been warned.

"The maker [Premier, formerly Diebold, Election Systems] of touch-screen voting machines used in half of Ohio's counties has admitted that its own programming error is to blame for votes being dropped in some counties.

The problem can't be fixed before the Nov. 4 election, so Premier Election Solutions and Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner are issuing guidelines to counties for how to avoid the problem."

-Columbus Dispatch, "Ohio's voting machine glitch exposed: Touch-screens can't be fixed before election, Brunner says," Thursday, August 21, 2008

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As part of a post on the Obama campaign lawsuit to fight voter suppression in Michigan, Mudflats, my favorite Alaskan poltical blog, shares 1) the following sobering reminder that as things stand, ultimately our votes only count if the corporations operating our voting machines say they do and 2) a call to action from Black Box Voting for techies to apply for jobs with these companies leading up to the election, and for the rest of us to be watchdogs.

From Mudflats:

Many of the same suspect voting machines that were in play in the last two elections still exist. There has been no significant vote reform and there’s nothing we can do about that at this point. What we can do is be the eyes and ears at the polling places.

The election watchdog group Black Box Voting, has sent out the following request. If you are not familiar with this group, you should be. The website is extensive, and there’s also a great documentary Hacking Democracy (available on Netflix) which tells the story of this organization and the amazing woman who started it all. This is possibly the single most important issue facing our country, because without preserving the integrity of the vote, we have nothing.

They also have a downloadable Tool Kit for the upcoming election on the website.

So do what you can. If you’re a blogger, post this. If you’re a tech, read below and get a job. Engaged citizen? Go to the website to learn more. Download a tool kit. Be prepared and know what to look for at your polling place.

It happens everywhere. In 2004 there were districts in Alaska that reported a voter turnout of more than 200%. I like to think we’re politically engaged, but not to the point that every registered voter makes it to the polls twice. These issues have still not been resolved. And who is heading up the division of Elections for the upcoming vote in 2008? Sarah Palin’s Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell.

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Widest possible distribution needed. Please do spread this in blogs, etc: http://www.votersunite.org/info/ReclaimElections.pdf

This post will no doubt produce howls of objection for the vendors that read it. Black Box Voting is encouraging all individuals with a technical background to search and apply for temporary tech ELECTION SUPPORT jobs for the November 2008 election.

Hiring is underway for temporary technicians to help with voting machines this fall. Vendor dependence is undermining the structure of US elections, as described here in the new report by VotersUnite.org:

We want to see You, the People, enter into the vendor mix directly.http://www.blackboxvoting.org/toolkit2008.pdf

HOW TO FIND TEMPORARY ELECTION TECH POSITIONS:

In a presidential election year, voting machine vendors will hire and train thousands of technicians staffed around the country. For example, anywhere that Election Systems & Software has a machine, they are under contract to provide an on-site support tech. Hart Intercivic, Premier (Diebold), and Sequoia also use Election Day support technicians.

Temporary election tech support jobs have been spotted on hotjobs.com, rollouts.com, and local tech temp firms like (in 2006) DecisionOne. The tech services firm may be a subcontractor for the big four voting machine companies. Sometimes you’ll find the positions advertised by your local county.

Sites like Rollouts.com have you register in their E-tech database. They search for techs based on skill set and area. There isn’t much in the way of a skill set needed for the election projects.

QUIETLY APPLY FOR THE JOBS

Anyone with tech skills interested in safeguarding the November election is encouraged to register at technical recruiting sites and apply for any election-related projects.

CONSIDER ASKING FOR TIME OFF ON YOUR FULL TIME JOB TO DO THIS. This November, there may be no better way to watch the behind-the-scenes process than to be a stagehand, so to speak.

It is not the vendor, and not the government, that has the right to elections information, it is the PUBLIC. Citizens have inalienable rights to sovereignty over the government they created and pay for. These rights cannot be honored without mechanisms to see all information related to elections, and ultimately, to have control processes that honor citizen sovereignty.

That said, it ain’t gonna happen this November. Therefore it is entirely appropriate, patriotic, and important, for citizens to apply for temporary positions as voting machine technicians to provide inside public oversight for the process.

There will be nondisclosure agreements, which are not appropriate at all for public elections, but it’s a reality now that vendors are trespassing on citizen right to know. There may be issues that arise which the public clearly has a right to know. When that happens, a decision must be made.

YOU WON’T BE THE FIRST

We have already been in communications with other patriotic volunteers who have successfully obtained these positions in the past, and are doing this for November.

THERE ARE ALWAYS WAYS TO DEAL WITH IMPORTANT ISSUES IF THEY ENDANGER THE PUBLIC GOOD. You, the People, are needed on the inside of the elections industry this November.

This is a public service bulletin from Black Box Voting.

Black Box Voting Tool Kit 2008 - free download here:

Empower more election watchdog actions:
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/donate.html
Black Box Voting
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Renton WA 98057