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Army of Lawyers to Rock the Vote on Election Day
The American Lawyer
October 21, 2008
Image: Getty Images
When this year's presidential balloting gets underway on Nov. 3 and 4, thousands of lawyers around the country will set aside the billables and devote their time instead to fielding frustrated voters' calls at a national voter-protection hotline.
At 25 call centers set up across the country -- most of them overseen by law firms -- volunteers expect to answer, on average, up to 10,000 calls during the two-day period, says Eric Marshall, campaign manager for the National Campaign for Fair Elections in the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law's Voting Rights Project, which is administering the hotline (1-866-OUR-VOTE).
A similar effort four years ago was a big success, but the 2008 version is more robust. "The big difference this year," Marshall says, "is how much earlier we've organized and the increased sophistication of our program." The 2004 hotline was activated just weeks before Election Day; this year's -- which is already getting 1,000 calls per day -- has been up and running for months.
With the election likely to be close and allegations of voter fraud and suppression flying, the Lawyers' Committee is still seeking volunteers and will be training them throughout the month. So far, 10,000 legal volunteers have signed on.
"There's a lot of broad-based enthusiasm for this effort," says Victoria Bjorklund, a partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, who is heading up a phone bank at Simpson. "It's an exciting way for lawyers to get involved in the election process."
Each of the 25 centers is responsible for a certain state or area and has captains that also participated in a two-day leadership training at Arnold & Porter. Election law experts are also on hand to assist in any particularly tricky voter matters.
Many calls that come in involve mundane questions such as where polling places are or routine reports about malfunctioning voting machines, says Dan Kolb, a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell and a former Lawyers' Committee co-chair.
But some issues -- complaints of electioneering near polling places, accusations of voter intimidation via the spreading of false information -- are more complicated. And because each state has its own election laws, volunteers must be careful about the answers they give.
"One of the things I was never aware of was the disparity of voting practices and rules among states," says Bjorklund. (Simpson's call center is responsible for Michigan and New Jersey voters.)
In New York City alone, six Am Law 100 firms will open their doors to legal volunteers (lawyers, paralegals, and law school students) from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Nov. 3 and from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Election Day. The firms -- Kirkland & Ellis, Davis Polk, Simpson Thacher, Proskauer Rose, White & Case, and Sullivan & Cromwell -- will each have between 40 and 60 phone lines set up and will rotate volunteers in four-hour shifts.
Marjorie Lindblom, a Kirkland partner and former Lawyers' Committee co-chair, helped run the first hotline in 2004 in her firm's New York office.
"People really get caught up in it," says Lindblom, adding that past participants have been inspired to get the ball rolling at their own firms. That includes Simpson's Bjorklund, who manned phones at Kirkland in 2004 and enjoyed the experience so much she convinced her firm to get involved in 2006.
Davis Polk also got a push from Lindblom, who encouraged the firm to set up a phone bank. This year the firm will donate an entire floor in its Lexington Avenue headquarters to the effort. (Davis Polk also ran the New York call center during this year's primary.)
Organizers hope that in addition to addressing urgent issues this year, the hotline will address recurring problems. After the votes are tallied, information will be gathered from the hotline in an effort to identify patterns. Each caller's question will also be added to a database so that future volunteers have access to accurate information about the kinds of problems that voters encounter.
Says Ross Galin, a Davis Polk associate: "We went back after the February primary, did a lot of research and figured out what the problems were and certain issues we hadn't anticipated."
For those involved, the hotline work comes at a price: For example, Lindblom, a busy commercial litigator, says she will spend over 100 hours this year on hotline-related issues.
This article first appeared on The Am Law Daily blog on AmericanLawyer.com.
