Our History Protecting the Vote
Democracy is the most powerful enemy of extremism. Right-wing strategist Paul Weyrich told a gathering of 15,000 conservative preachers in 1979: “I don’t want everybody to vote…our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” PFAWF came into being in 1981 to combat this dangerous and cynical insight, and a commitment to government by the people has propelled our work ever since.
In the 1990s, PFAWF pioneered First Vote and Arrive with Five (a GOTV program in Florida’s African American communities) to expand voter registration and civic engagement among young people and minorities. PFAW Foundation's African American Ministers Leadership Council (AAMLC), formed in 1997, and our Young People For, Democracia USA, and Young Elected Officials programs, launched in 2004-2006, strengthen our democracy by engaging diverse communities and building activism and leadership infrastructure for progressive change across the nation.
In 2000, when four million Americans’ votes went uncounted, PFAWF dramatically increased its focus on voter registration and participation. PFAWF and AAMLC trained more than 1000 African American ministers and distributed our nonpartisan training manual in 20 cities across 10 states. Our highest priority was Florida, the fourth most populous state for African Americans. Ironically, our toll-free number for polling place information and transportation assistance soon became a primary vehicle for documenting massive problems voters experienced at the polls. PFAWF and coalition partners filed a class action lawsuit challenging election practices and policies that disenfranchised thousands of Floridians and disproportionately impacted African Americans and Haitian Americans. In June 2001, we took the program to a special congressional election in Virginia, to ensure voters’ rights were protected, particularly in precincts with large minority populations.
Over the past six years we have witnessed a pattern of disenfranchisement fueled, in part, by a concerted effort on the part of the right wing to minimize the electorate, particularly in minority communities. A number of ultraconservative Secretaries of State, most notably Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio, and other elections officials have been more concerned with creating administrative and legislative hurdles to registration and voting, rather than paving the way for greater participation. Their actions, combined with widespread problems with electronic voting machines, have created a virtual obstacle course to democracy, undermining our most fundamental right, to vote and have that vote counted.
PFAWF has been there fighting every step of the way. With scores of allies and coalition partners, including the NAACP and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCRUL), we developed Election Protection, a comprehensive year-round program designed to shield voters’ rights.
Our EP365 partnership put 25,000 volunteers (including 8,000 attorneys and law students) on the ground in 3500 precincts in 2004; we mobilized and protected voters in 16 key states in 2006. During both the 2004 and 2006 elections, the toll-free EP Voters’ Hotline, manned by trained legal volunteers, assisted voters and compiled statistics and analyses to support our Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS).
PFAWF believes a robust and fair electoral system to be the highest priority for progressives as we approach the 2008 national elections and we have made it our highest institutional priority in 2007-2008. PFAWF is playing a prominent leadership role and allocating staff and resources from every department, from our national staff and organizers in key states, to this effort.
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