voter protection

Here's a statement from Forward Montana CEO Matt Singer on today's voter protection win over the state GOP:

"Obviously, it is good news that Mr. Eaton is now moving to withdraw the 6,000 challenges he filed on behalf of the Montana Republican Party. This action is a vindication of the concerns raised by Forward Montana and other voting rights groups in Montana since day one: that these challenges impacted large numbers of properly and legally registered Montana voters and created unnecessary mass confusion.

"Moving forward, we are currently investigating the legal basis for withdrawing a sworn, signed, and notarized affidavit. We will also continue to monitor activity by the Montana Republican Party and other political organizations and campaigns from all sides of the political spectrum to ensure that no activities are being undertaken that threaten the voting rights of Montanans.

"We now have an obligation to ensure that this situation never repeats itself. We have initiated conversations with lawmakers, policy experts, and constituency groups to craft a legislative agenda to prevent spurious challenges in the future. We are optimistic that a well-crafted legislative package will receive bipartisan support in the 2009 Montana Legislature."

I feel like it's so rare to hear about progressives winning battles on election protection. This was some badass work by Forward Montana to protect the vote in their state.

I normally don't like to do two quick hits posts so close together, but three items came to my attention today that you should know about.

• First, Matt Singer of Forward Montana wrote to me last night saying that the GOP in Montana is withdrawing their challenges to voters in the state. Meanwhile, ABC News reports that more dirty tricks to keep students from the polls are ramping up - this time at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• Zack Exley has a must-read piece in the Huffington Post outlining the scope and methods of the Obama field program. Here's a taste:
  

  The Ohio campaign is attempting to build teams in 1,231 campaign-defined "neighborhoods," each covering eight to ten precincts. They are targeting virtually every inhabited square mile of the state. The campaign claimed to have teams in 65% of neighborhoods when I visited in early September. That's risen to 85% coverage at press time—and they are shooting for 100%. In contrast, the Kerry campaign effectively wrote off rural counties, and completely abandoned them in the final few weeks of the campaign in a last minute all-in shift to the cities.

  It was a huge risk for the national field program to have paid staff take the time to methodically build volunteer teams instead of rushing directly to spend all their time running voter contact activities themselves. From the point of view of the conventional wisdom of much of the pre-Obama field organizing world, the campaign is actually taking two big risks: first they are risking everything on the effectiveness of masses of volunteers, then they are risking everything again by relying on volunteer teams to lead those masses. What if teams was just a bunch of hippy nonsense? What if it turned out there just weren't that many unpaid activists capable of running high-quality canvasses?

• And one more item from the Obama campaign. Yesterday Sarah blogged about a video where kids talk to their parents about supporting Sen. Obama. Today, the campaign launched an entire micro-site backing up that video, The Talk. The site has tips on how to broach the subject, talking points on various issues, and good ideas on how to keep the conversation going and "win the news cycle" in your parents house, including emailing blog posts and news articles to fight any misinformation the 'rents are getting in their inbox or on Fox News.

This is a pretty substance-heavy Quick Hits. Any one of the items here should merit a full blog post. There's just not enough time, damn it! Not enough time . . .

• CNN Money has an almost great segment on how the economic downturn may be driving young voters to the polls. My only quibble - in the final line the reporter claims that in the past "young people were eager to register, but not to vote." That's just not true. 80% of registered young voters actually cast a ballot on election day. Registration is the problem, not turnout. Or, as I've been saying - higher youth turnout is not about curing apathy but increasing access. (h/t Chris Kennedy of Rock the Vote)

• In the wake of GOP voter suppression efforts that have ensnared young people and veterans in Montana, Forward Montana has launched Montana Voter Suppression (.org), a website to track, report, and prevent voter suppression efforts in the state. Earlier today, the group also held a protest in front of the office of MT Rep Dennis Rehberg's office. Rehberg's chief of staff, Erik Iverson, is the Chair of Montana GOP, the group behind the voter challenges.
• Speaking of voter suppression, Nancy Scola and Allison Fine have a spectacular post over at Tech President detailing how Twitter could be used as an election protection tool.
• GQRR has a new poll out, this time of women. The results show that unmarried women, including many young women, are the key to Obama's success among that demographic. Unmarried women are supporting Obama 62 - 33%. So much for the "Palin Effect."

• In Kansas, Jim Slattery is embarking on a campus tour to drum up youth support for his Senate campaign. All down-ballot candidates should consider this if they want to ride the youth wave to its fullest. As much as we'd like to think they do, Obama's coattail don't necessarily extend all the way down the ballot.
• Veterans group IAVA issued it's congressional score card today, and John McCain earned a big fat D. The Disabled Veterans of American didn't score him much better, giving the Senator a 20% rating. So much for supporting the troops.

I agree with Kevin that Chris Bowers' latest post outlining how he's running his own online advertising campaign using Google Adwords is awesome, and you should all go read it.

I also want to add that it's a super-cheap strategy. Bowers is spending essentially $10 a day for thousands of impressions arguing against McCain/Palin. With only 50 odd days left before the election, that's peanuts for an organization, and at that price point it's even feasible for college students to run ads for a few days or a week.

I think Bower's claims are a little over-blown about this being the equivalent of a decentralized, grassroots 527 (but hey, maybe I'm wrong). TV and Web Video are probably way more effective than Google Adwords, so I don't think this can have nearly the impact of a Swift Boat or Vote Vets ad campaign, no matter how many people participate. But I think this is still significant and incredibly doable.

If you are volunteering as much as you can but want to do more, or if you are frustrated by the Obama media strategy, as Bowers is, this isn't a bad alternative for doing something useful.