Hundreds of attorneys, field monitors and other volunteers in St. Louis and across Missouri will be at the ready on Election Day to ensure that voters are able to cast their ballots confidently and safely.
“Our greatest challenge is insuring that voters have the information and the tools they need to have confidence that they can cast a ballot and have it count,” said civil rights attorney Denise Lieberman, director and general counsel of the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition (MOVPC).
In her role with MOVPC, Lieberman, a nationally recognized voting rights expert, coordinates the nonpartisan Election Protection efforts across Missouri, which include lawyers and field monitors assisting voters on and before Election Day.
“Our goal is to have a thousand volunteers throughout the state, monitoring and documenting conditions at the polls,” she said, noting that instead of a physical command center, there will be a Zoom room that will be in operation for at least 13 hours when the polls are open. “There will be a virtual command center of attorneys, we’ll be talking in real time with call center captains and taking calls from poll monitors…”
Lieberman says the team will have protocols in place should issues arise.
“As issues escalate—say, there’s a report of intimidation—we’ll be talking through them, see if the same issue is happening elsewhere, discuss and asses what the proper response is, and direct roving monitors to that location.”
Tuesday could present unique scenarios at the polls, as so many of the challenges for voters this year are cumulative, according to Lieberman.
“What you’re seeing across the country, across Missouri, there are lots of closures of polling places, or they’re moving places to big arenas—any time you disrupt a voter’s pattern, it creates a lot of anxiety. The heightened political tension is also leading people to a place of anxiety, which could deter turnout,” she said. “Confusion is one of the leading vote suppressors. You add confusion during a presidential election amid a global pandemic, with safety concerns because of the pandemic, fear of who’s going to be at the polling places, fears about mail delays and a series of new complicated rules—it’s the cumulative effect of all those concerns that end up, in some cases, causing people to throw up their hands and stay home.”
But Lieberman says voting is a moral imperative that Americans should not take for granted.
“At the very basic level, the right to vote is our voice, it’s how we speak in society, but it’s about more than that: It’s also about our ability to exercise self-determination over our own lives that extends beyond politics. It’s really about freedom and basic human dignity,” she said. “The right to vote is the structural mechanism that literally says you count. Where the right to vote is denied, what does that say? A free democracy depends on the ability of all people have a say in their future and their own destiny.”
If you have any questions on or before Election Day, or encounter any problems while voting, call or text 1-866-OUR-VOTE, or visit 866ourvote.org.
