Welcome to Electionland, a coalition of journalists monitoring access to the vote
There are few democratic acts as important as voting, but too often minority voters face barriers to exercise this right -- whether problems ing, intimidation at the polls or long lines.
During the 2012 presidential election, an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 people couldn’t vote due to long lines. This year, more than a dozen states implemented new voting restrictions, which largely affect Latino and black voters. And on the campaign trail, Donald Trump has rallied his ers to act as "poll watchers" who could potentially try to intimidate voters.
Enter Electionland.
ProPublica, a nonprofit journalism organization, organized a coalition to monitor the vote, made up of media outlets, technology companies, journalism schools and voter protection groups. Univision is one of seven partners on the project and some 400 local journalists have signed up to participate and help and report on voting problems.
"This is an immigrant story," said Scott Klein, deputy managing editor at ProPublica. "The burden of the problems usually found on Election Day is disproportionately felt by immigrant communities."
This isn't a new problem, he pointed out, happening long before Donald Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric. "If you look at long lines in Florida, Hispanic people wait longer than anyone else," he added.
What we're doing
We're already monitoring problems during early voting in real time, which you can follow on ProPublica's Electionland blog. We'll also be translating select posts into Spanish for Univision's election blog.
On Election Day we'll assemble more than 100 journalists, students, technologists and election experts at the CUNY Graduate of School of Journalism to create a pop-up Electionland newsroom. We'll monitor and problems at the polls, report on what we find and reach out to local journalists to help us report these stories.
How you can help
If you’re a voter interested in the project, you can sign up to help report voting problems in your area by:
- texting ELECTIONLAND to 69866
- messaging us on Whatsapp at 917-331-4989
- tagging us on Twitter @Electionland