NYT: Party Lawyers Ready to Keep an Eye on the Polls
By LESLIE WAYNE
Published: October 27, 2008
With heavy voter turnout expected on Election Day, both parties are amassing thousands and thousands of lawyers to keep an eye on the polls. Senator Barack Obama’s campaign is expected to send at least 5,000 lawyers to Florida alone. The first recruitment e-mail message the campaign sent out nationally received 6,000 responses from lawyers willing to volunteer. Meanwhile, Senator John McCain’s campaign has lined up “Lawyers for McCain” to spread out at polling places in closely contested states as advocates for the ticket.
Both campaigns plan to use the lawyers to protect their supporters at the polls, help untangle ballot problems and run to court should litigation be necessary....
For the Obama campaign, the recruitment of lawyers began the moment it set up field offices and is part of its long-term strategy to make voting easier. Already, lawyers for Mr. Obama have been talking to county election officials and boards of election to increase the number of early voting sites, to encourage early voting and to make sure that there will be sufficient number of voting machines. “We have a selective, but ferocious legal strategy,” said Jenny Backus, a spokeswoman for the Obama campaign’s legal program. “Rather than waiting for Election Day, we’ve had lawyers working from the beginning. We’ve used them for a massive voter education program, so that people know their rights and what to do on Election Day.”
This comes on top of an effort the Democratic National Committee began after the 2000 election. The committee set up a National Lawyers Council to work on ballot issues, established a voter protection hot line and surveyed 1,300 state and local election officials to flag potential Election Day problems in advance. So far, over 10,000 lawyers have signed up over the committee’s Web site. “We want to assist voters in real time to make sure they will be able to vote,” said Joe Sandler, general counsel for the committee, “and to advocate for them with local election officials.”...
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“Our lawyers are willing to go mano-a-mano if necessary,” said Orlan Johnson, a partner at Saul Ewing and a member of the Obama national finance committee. All volunteers must undergo a training session either in person or online with the Obama campaign....
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Democrats say their lawyers have already had an impact. In Montana, a federal judge upheld a Democratic challenge to a Republican attempt to purge 6,000 voters from the rolls. And in Detroit, a court settlement was reached over allegations that Republicans were going to use home foreclosure lists to challenge voters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/us/politics/28lawyers.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin
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