The Election Protection Program, a coalition of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, People for the American Way and the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, has organized thousands of lawyers across the country to volunteer at polling places and man regional phone banks.

The project grew out of the 2000 election, when the disenfranchisement of minority and low-income voters was reported at polling places across the country. The coalition has worked steadily for the last few years to create an organized system to educate voters on their voting rights, deal with individual concerns and fix problems at polling places before they get out of control. Although the coalition is non-partisan, it is no secret that their targeted population is potential Democratic voters.

At the phone bank sponsored by the large San Francisco firms Heller Ehrman and Morrison and Foerster, over 200 lawyers and law students in black shirts with the words “You Have the Right to Vote” volunteered on Election Day and the day before, answering calls at 50 stations from voters in Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon and Montana, who have encountered problems as they tried to vote and coordinating with lawyers out in the field.

Gail Jones, a lawyer from Healdsburg California, a small town 75 miles north of San Francisco, took a bus to San Francisco for the weekend to volunteer at the phone bank. “I’m totally dedicated to this. It helps me to not be anxious all day if I’m involved,” said Jones.

“What happened in Florida in 2000 gave me incentive to get out and volunteer,” said Morrison and Foerster lawyer Aileen Aponte. “I thought as a lawyer I could do something.”

Volunteers and coordinators were pleasantly surprised by the calm atmosphere of the office this morning. “Everyone thought it was going to be really chaotic and it turns out not to have been,” said Election Protection Commander Margorie Gelb, who had woken up at 4 a.m. to get to the office before the polls opened in other states.

The orderly office buzzed with the sounds of ringing phones and clicking computers. Volunteer lawyers and law students answered calls and then reported incidents into a website updated automatically to show events from throughout the country, sortable by location and issue so that trends could become apparent and addressed easily. “Commanders” roamed the large office space answering the tougher questions.

By mid-morning, no major incidents had surfaced, although problem areas had been identified in New Mexico and Colorado. In Denver, for example, a polling site was not handing out provisional ballots, which are mandated by federal law. Election Protection sent a lawyer to the county office and the problem was resolved.

Commander Esta Brand said that the phone bank had also fielded a number of calls from New Mexico, where people were being harassed inside the polling places by people calling themselves challengers. “Challenges are allowed, but they can be abused,” said Brand.

U.C. Berkeley law student Noah Zinner said he had fielded a number of calls from people who thought they were registered but were not on the voting rolls. “I tell people to vote provisionally, and I look up their polling center to make sure they’re in the right place,” said Zinner.

“I was just feeling like I wanted to contribute something to getting Bush out of office,” said Zinner.