The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), a national civil rights organization based in New York, is one of those two organizations. AALDEF will be conducting Asian American exit poll and monitor poll sites in 14 states and Washington DC. The group is sending attorneys and volunteers to monitor polls by documenting voter problems and the availability of language assistance. They believe that recent Supreme Court decisions have made poll monitoring particularly important.
“AALDEF’s poll monitoring efforts have taken on heightened significance in light of the Supreme Court decision in Shelby v. Holder, which weakened the preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act,” AALDEF said in a press release. “AALDEF successfully used the preclearance process in the past to secure bilingual ballots for Chinese American voters and challenge voting barriers faced by Asian New Yorkers.”
Asian Americans Advancing Justice is also mobilizing hundreds of poll monitors to protect voters’ rights in California today. Advancing Justice – CA is a joint project between Advancing Justice – Los Angeles and Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco. The two organizations have been conducting poll monitoring for over two decades. According to a press release, Advancing Justice – CA will be sending more than 350 poll monitors to over 800 voting sites across 16 counties in California.
Their goal is to ensure that California voters who belong to “limited-English proficient communities” are able to exercise their right to vote. Poll monitors will work to ensure that voting sites comply with state and federal laws that require language assistance and to ensure access for voters with disabilities. Poll monitors will also protect against voter harassment or unlawful voter ID requirements.
“We are proud to help safeguard Californians’ right to vote,” Deanna Kitamura, Voting Rights Project Director at Advancing Justice – Los Angeles said in a press release. “Every voter deserves to participate in the democratic process, no matter their language proficiency.”
In addition to monitoring the polls for voting rights violations, AALDEF will also be conducting exit polls to document Asian American voter behavior. The polls will be conducted in the same 14 states and Washington DC, where the organization has currently said poll monitors. The non-partisan, multilingual exit poll will ask about Asian American candidate preferences, party enrollment, and significant issues.
AALDEF polled 13,846 Asian Americans during the 2016 presidential elections. They expect Asian American turnout to rise in today’s 2018 midterm elections. Preliminary results from their exit polls will be released Tuesday evening.
______________________________________________________________________________
No comments:
Post a Comment