ELECTION PROTECTION

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PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY FOUNDATION March 25, 2005
	We need to raise at least $50,000 in the next two weeks in order to meet our responsibilities within the coalition. You can help us reach this goal by making a secure, tax-deductible, credit card contribution today. Hurricane Katrina forced New Orleanians to flee Louisiana. The nation's failed response to Katrina has pushed New Orleans democracy out of the state as well. Thanks to a virtual information blackout on the unbelievable hurdles that displaced voters from the Crescent City face in order to participate in their April 22 municipal elections, you are among the few Americans aware that there is even a problem. Indeed, many thousands of you have already jumped in to help, signing onto PFAW's statement urging Louisiana officials to postpone the April 22 municipal elections until the state sets up satellite voting centers in the cities outside of Louisiana where many evacuees now reside. If this effort does not succeed - and we cannot assume that it will - then we must be prepared to play the hand we are dealt. I won't mislead you; if municipal elections go ahead on April 22, countless dislocated New Orleans voters will not get to vote on the future of their devastated city -- period. Nonetheless, those of us in a position to help must roll up our sleeves and do our best for the greatest possible number of evacuee voters. www.PFAW.org/go/SupportNewOrleans With your support, People For the American Way Foundation will work with its Election Protection partners - the NAACP and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law - to provide services to tens of thousands of New Orleans voters around the nation. PFAW Foundation will help provide volunteers and voter support at 15 NAACP Voter Assistance Centers in cities with large numbers of evacuee voters. The numbers of New Orleans voters residing in some of these cities are breathtaking: San Antonio has, at minimum, 6,216 evacuee voters Dallas has a minimum of 10,220 evacuee voters Baton Rouge has a minimum of 31,268 evacuee voters And Houston has well over 45,000 evacuee voters! PFAW Foundation and its partners are planning our contingencies should the election take place as scheduled, without Louisiana-run satellite voting centers in other states. Our plan includes a massive campaign to get absentee ballots into the hands of voters and then get those ballots successfully returned and counted. It also includes a publicity campaign in the cities with large populations of New Orleans voters, alerting them to the help that is available and of their right to participate in the future of a city they call home. But we need your help - now - to help get these Voter Assistance Centers up and fully staffed with trained volunteers and professionals. While citizens from the Gulf should not have to depend on organizations like PFAW Foundation in order to cast their vote, the Election Protection program might just be the 'support of last resort' for many New Orleanians across the nation. We need to raise at least $50,000 in the next two weeks, at a minimum, to meet our responsibilities within the coalition. You can help us reach this goal by making a secure, tax-deductible, credit card contribution today. www.PFAW.org/go/SupportNewOrleans We have very little time to triage New Orleans democracy, and your donations can't arrive too soon. Together in the struggle, Sharon J. Lettman Director, Election Protection Campaign People For the American Way Foundation Click here to donate: www.PFAW.org/go/SupportNewOrleans