ARCHIVES OF LEAD STORIES
December 16, 2004
Grassroots cooperation key
to success for MassVote
Jeremy Schwab
On November 2, over 600 volunteers fanned out across
11 Massachusetts cities to monitor polling locations for signs
of improper procedures and to help citizens who might encounter
obstacles to voting.
The poll monitoring effort was evidence of the increasing scope
of MassVOTE, a nonprofit voting-rights group that organized the
volunteers in collaboration with the Lawyers’ Committee
for Civil Rights.
MassVOTE, which advocates for voting rights legislation and works
with community groups to educate voters in under-served neighborhoods,
recently expanded into four new cities — Springfield, Worcester,
Lynn and Somerville.
The expansion brought the group’s total number of affiliates
to seven, including Boston, Brockton and Lowell.
“Now we can legitimately say we’re a
statewide organization,” said Executive Director Juan Martinez,
hired in April. “We’ll be doing the same model in
all the locations — voter registration, the education piece,
empowerment, election reform issues — and adjusting it based
on what the local issues really are.”
The group has made other changes as well. It recently moved its
headquarters from Temple Place to 18 Tremont Street and hired
an office manager to look after the operation, which now occupies
almost twice as much space as the organization previously enjoyed.
Further hires are expected this coming year, as the group capitalizes
on the increased revenue that has followed the hiring of Martinez,
who had previously worked with nonprofits to enhance their fundraising.
“We are making a much more strategic effort to fundraise
well, focussing on what our strengths are,” said Martinez.
The increased scope of the organization is likely to help MassVOTE
attract more funding. However, the organization must first succeed
in bringing on board community groups in the cities into which
it recently expanded.
To that end, MassVOTE plans to hire staff to coordinate
its Boston affiliate, BostonVOTE, and its affiliate in Brockton.
So far, MassVOTE partners with over 200 community groups and nonprofits.
A major strength of MassVOTE is its community partnerships. Rather
than educate voters directly, MassVOTE trains staff at community
groups and nonprofits to do the work.
The trainings are free, and have become very popular.
“The nonprofits really liked this added value, not added
work,” said MassVOTE Policy Director Pillsbury. “They
just included voting information in their ongoing work. It was
a model that hadn’t been tried anywhere in the country,
365 days a year.”
MassVOTE has expanded greatly since its inception in 1999. Five
years ago, the group was a project of the Commonwealth Coalition
dubbed the Voter Power Project.
When organizers Malia Lazu and Pillsbury saw the need on the part
of community groups for information about how to encourage their
constituents to vote, they launched BostonVOTE, which is by far
the largest affiliate. When the Brockton affiliate was launched,
MassVOTE was created, as the organization looked to become a statewide
entity.
MassVOTE has won some of its policy battles at the state level,
while others remain to be won. The group was one of the plaintiffs
in a suit that forced the state to redraw its districting map
after a previous map was ruled to have violated the rights of
voters of color.
A bill the group recently filed would allow election-day registration,
the lack of which was a major impediment to voters surveyed during
MassVOTE’s poll monitoring.
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