Common Cause partnering with Danny Glover to protect the vote

Common Cause is partnering with actor Danny Glover to make recorded phone calls to voters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the Virginia cities of Hampton Roads, Newport News, and Norfolk. This project is part of the Common Cause “Protect the Vote” campaign, which focuses on protecting voter rights and addressing systemic problems within the electoral process.

The goal of the calls is to alert voters to potential deceptive information they may be receiving and to encourage voters to call the 1-866-OUR-VOTE Election Protection hotline if they have questions or experience any voting problems.

“We have already seen several examples of deceptive practices in 2008,” said Common Cause President Bob Edgar. “False information about student voting rights, flyers that allege that if you have outstanding parking tickets or traffic offenses you will be arrested at the polls, flyers that say because of the huge expected turnout Republicans vote on Tuesday and Democrats vote on Wednesday. This is what we are trying to combat.”

There is no federal law that addresses the intentional distribution of false information about the voting process – who can vote, when to vote, where to vote and how to vote – in an effort to suppress the vote. Virginia is one of only a handful of states that has enacted deceptive practices laws at the state level, even though they have occurred in many states around the country.

A recording of the call is available on the Common Cause website, www.commoncause.org.