To: POLITICAL EDITORS

Contact: Ailis Aaron Wolf, +1-703-276-3265, aawolf@hastingsgroup.com, for Democrats for America's Future

Democrats Urged to Volunteer, Contribute to NoVoterLeftBehind.net to Fight Republican Attempt to Bar "Many Tens of Thousands" of Voters From Exercising Their Right to Vote.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The ongoing Republican attack on the lawful voter registration efforts of ACORN is a "desperate smokescreen maneuver" masking an extensive coast-to-coast GOP push to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters through a wide range of vote suppression tactics, according to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former lieutenant governor of the state of Maryland and a member of the board of advisors of NoVoterLeftBehind.net (http://www.NoVoterLeftBehind.net).

Urging concerned Americans to get involved through NoVoterLeftBehind.net, Kennedy Townsend said: "The attack on the voter registration efforts of ACORN may go down in the record books as the ultimate case of the 'dirty' pot calling the 'clean' kettle black. ACORN is being savaged for doing its duty to openly self-report all cases where there may be any kind of issue with specific voter registration forms. By contrast, the GOP is skulking around out of the public eye across the nation in a sub rosa attempt to use a host of outrageous and desperate vote suppression tactics to steal the election."

She added: "For every potentially problematic ACORN voter registration form that will never result in anyone casting an illegitimate vote, there are literally hundreds of voters who the GOP will go to any lengths to keep out of the voting booth. This attack on ACORN is a sad and deeply cynical tactic coming from a party that seems to have concluded that they can't win the election on their own, so they have to prevent the other side from voting."

Kennedy Townsend said that NoVoterLeftBehind.net is seeking to raise the necessary funds and volunteers (including legal experts) to fight the expected GOP challenges of the election outcome. NoVoterLeftBehind.net is monitoring voter registration and the actual vote leading up to and on Election Day in 2008. The campaign will shine a public spotlight on every last irregularity. The NoVoterLeftBehind.net Web site shows interested Democrats how to donate to support the effort, where to learn more about how Republicans steal elections and also ways to volunteer before and on Election Day 2008.

EXAMPLES OF GOP SUPPRESSION ABOUND

ACORN has come under attack in Nevada, Missouri, Ohio and elsewhere by Republicans attempting to block the many thousands of primarily low-income citizens that ACORN has registered. Under the law, ACORN must report irregular registrations that result from its process. The GOP is seizing on these entirely routine and voluntary reports as "fraudulent" filings, when in fact this is not the case at all. In nearly every state, ACORN is required to turn in all completed applications, even the ones we know to be problematic, and then to identify the ones involving possible concerns.

The ACORN situation pales in comparison the outright vote suppression efforts underway nationwide:

-- In Florida and other states, 'no match, no vote' law are being used by Republicans to strike as many voters as possible from the rolls -- based on the slightest inconsistency between voter registration information and driver's license data.

-- Misinforming college students in Colorado, Virginia and South Carolina about their right to vote. For example, the Republican clerk of El Paso County, Colo., informed local students: '. . . if your parents still claim you on their income tax returns, and they file that return in a state other than Colorado, you are not eligible to register to vote or vote in Colorado.' The same tactic is being used in other states in sometimes even starker ways to keep young people from voting.

-- The Philadelphia Daily News has reported that fliers showed up in African-American neighborhoods of Philadelphia recently showed up warning residents that undercover cops would be prowling the polling places, arresting would-be voters with so much as an unpaid traffic ticket on his or her record.

-- U.S. District Court Judge George C. Smith, a Reagan appointee, has approved a GOP lawsuit demanding that the state give county boards of elections great leeway in attacking new voter registration forms. The decision would allow Republican challengers access to data from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the Social Security agency to challenge new voters. Smith noted that Ohio law permits challenges to absentee ballots, thousands of which have been pouring in to elections boards. If allowed to stand, it could give the GOP the right to shred ballots already cast in the Buckeye State, with the precedent possibly being used to further enable a GOP nationwide disenfranchisement campaign.

-- The New York Times has reported that boards of elections in at least nine crucial states, including Ohio, have violated federal law in conducting purges and have been illegally using Social Security data bases as part of those purges. The Times quotes Colorado Secretary of StateMike Coffman as asking the Colorado Attorney-General to review how some 2,500 citizens were removed from the registration lists there. The Times has cited purges in Colorado, Louisiana and Michigan that have apparently been conducted within 90 days of the upcoming November 4 election, violating federal law that allows states to expunge only those who have been convicted of a felony, moved out of state or died. The Times has also reported that boards of elections in Nevada, North Carolina, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio have illegally used federal Social Security databases to flag and possibly eliminate voters whose registration applications were suspected of irregularities.

-- A CBS News report has revealed organized vote caging attempts by the GOP to eliminate registered voters from the rolls in 19 states.

(The preceding examples are based on or, in some cases, quote directly from articles appearing at http://www.sltrib.com/Opinion/ci_10707178 and http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2008/3229.)

On October 8, 2008, three leading former elected officials from Maryland, Illinois and Oregon called on every state attorney general and every state election head to come out publicly against any "lose your home, lose your vote" strategy that might be used to keep home foreclosure victims from exercising their right to vote. Organized by NoVoterLeftBehind.net (NVLB), the outreach effort was undertaken by: Kathleen Kennedy Townsend; Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, former U.S. Senator from the state of Illinois and a 2004 presidential candidate; and Barbara Roberts, former governor of Oregon and also a onetime Oregon Secretary of State. In a September 17, 2008 news release, NoVoterLeftBehind.net emphasized the four things every American going through home mortgage foreclosure needs to know about their vote in the face of an expected "lose your home, lose your vote" suppression campaign by the GOP.

ABOUT NOVOTERLEFTBEHIND.NET

Launched on August 29, 2008, NoVoterLeftBehind.net is a project of Democrats for America's Future (www.americasdemocrats.org). In his appeal to Democrats launching NoVoterLeftBehind.net, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. writes: "No more 2000s and 2004s! ...The Republican Party mounted a coordinated, criminal campaign to steal the 2004 Presidential election -- and it worked. Now, as another election approaches, you and I need to stand together to make absolutely certain it doesn't happen again... We need your support to raise the funds now to make sure that 'no voter is left behind' on Election Day!"

ABOUT DEMOCRATS FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE

Democrats for America's Future (http://www.americasdemocrats.org) is dedicated to getting everyday Democrats involved in returning the Democratic party to its roots -- and success at the ballot box. Democrats for America's Future makes a difference by: recruiting grassroots Democrats across the country and providing them with up-to-date information; urging Democratic leaders to stand up to President Bush and his right-wing allies; and educating the public about the Bush Administration's true record. Membership sign-ups and member donations are accepted through the Democrats for America's Future Web site at http://www.americasdemocrats.org.

The DAF board of advisors consists of: James Carville; former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich; Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, former U.S. Senator from the state of Illinois and a 2004 presidential candidate; Donald L. Fowler, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee; David Bonior, former Michigan member of Congress and majority whip of the U.S. House of Representatives; and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former lieutenant governor of the state of Maryland.

SOURCE Democrats for America's Future, Washington, D.C.

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