Making Every Vote Count

What happened in the 2000 Presidential election is history: millions of people across the country were denied their right to vote. As the 2004 election season got underway, the AFL-CIO helped lead the movement to ensure that this time, every vote counted.  Abernathy Associates was called in to build a solid media strategy to bring the problems to light and let the public know what was being done to create solutions.

Meanwhile, problems were stacking up. In Arizona border towns, gun-toting “patriots” declared they would check people’s IDs to prevent “illegals” from voting during the September primary. In cities such as Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Columbus, Ohio, fear and misinformation were spread in minority communities to keep people away the polls in November. Elsewhere, the threats were institutional, from inaccurate felon lists and new ID requirements to partisan voting authorities who tried to dictate how provisional ballots would—or would not—be counted.

Working with the AFL-CIO’s My Vote My Right program and a large coalition of labor, legal and civil rights allies, Abernathy Associates made sure that the world knew about these problems and their solutions. The work included training spokespeople, managing press events from Nevada to Florida, and working to ensure that the message of “make every vote count” prevailed. Most importantly, Abernathy Associates’ media strategy enabled the people in communities who were building the solutions to spread the message themselves. The result: Extensive nationwide media coverage that helped build a volunteer army of lawyers and poll monitors and made voting rights an election issue.

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