Coalition Election Year Achievements

by Norman Robbins

The Greater Cleveland Voter Coalition (GCVC) worked closely with the Cuyahoga County Board of Election (CCBOE) to improve the November 2006 elections. In combination and cooperation with staff of the CCBOE, GCVC members:

• helped devise a Decision Tree that was used by all poll workers for sorting through voter ID problems.
• helped design and edit public documents and advertisements used to provide voter education (perhaps most important, helped to correct some errors that might have gone out otherwise, and promoted the message that no registered voter should leave the polls without at least voting a provisional ballot).
• proposed methods for the BOE to use in searching the voter data base so that voters whose names and addresses had been incorrectly entered or inadvertently deleted from the registration lists would not be categorized at "not registered" when they cast provisional ballots. The BOE adopted a modified form of these proposed methods.
• provided the BOE with a list of the 200 polling places at most risk, based on a projection from the findings of the GCVC's Exit polls in the May. The BOE agreed to target these polling places with new well trained workers.