The Campaign Legal Center launched the Voters' Rights Protection Project today, ramping up its effort to avoid voting problems as November's general election approaches.
The project will provide dozens of generic drafts of potential court filings to individuals, organizations, and political parties who work to protect voting rights. The generic documents can be reworked to fit a variety of issues at both the state and federal levels.
“You name it, and we’re going to have the legal papers for it,” says Gerald Hebert, executive director and director of litigation for the Campaign Legal Center.
In 2004, voting-machine shortages hit many of the nation’s voting jurisdictions, Hebert says, and the long lines that some voters had to stand in could have been avoided through better planning before election day. Hebert says the legal templates are designed to allow voters or groups to go into court and seek appropriate relief, such as the provision of an adequate amount of paper ballots at the polls.
The organization has sent information about the project to both major political parties and to the campaigns for both Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama.
“It’s a very tedious process to go through all the types of legal issues that may arise and draft the paperwork,” Hebert says. “This is really an effort to have a Plan B to address any problems that may arise.”
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