Lawyers plan to keep eye on voting procedures on voting procedures

More lawyers will be watching Georgia’s polls Tuesday than perhaps in any election in history, according to people involved in the effort.

As a result, just about every poll worker in the state will be under legal teams’ vigilant eye.

“This is really the first year it has been a blanket, where it has been everywhere,” said Randy Evans, a member of the State Election Board.

For weeks, hundreds of attorneys in the metro area and around the state have filed into training sessions to learn what problems to look for on Election Day and what to do if they find them.

“Best estimates, we’ll have about 1,100 lawyers around Georgia,” said Evans, who is also general counsel for the state Republican Party but who has recused himself temporarily from party duties.

The attorneys will represent the parties, the state and federal government, special interests and voting rights groups.

Both state presidential campaigns are gearing up for a tense day. Polls suggest John McCain and Barack Obama are neck and neck, despite Georgia’s history of voting solidly Republican in recent presidential elections.

Obama’s legal presence here may edge out McCain’s. While McCain’s national campaign will dispatch roughly 75 volunteer Georgia lawyers to battleground states such as North Carolina and Florida, Evans said, Obama’s campaign is holding on to lawyers here.

“Georgia is an important state, and the lawyers that are here need to be here,” said Caroline Adelman, spokeswoman for the Obama campaign in Georgia. “It’s part of our whole Election Day plan.”

A close U.S. Senate race and several tight statehouse contests also could draw legal scrutiny.

Many party attorneys will be at the polls simply to observe, waiting in special areas that are closer to voting than active campaigners can get. They will report suspicious activities back to other lawyers who are ready to burst into action and file court motions if needed.

It’s not clear yet which issues will stir them up the most.

“It’s always speculative about what kinds of issues will pop up on Election Day,” said Doug Chalmers, chairman of Georgia Lawyers for McCain-Palin. “But you can use previous elections and history as a guide.”

Typically, flashpoints have included extending or curtailing poll hours, illegal campaigning near the polls, insufficient voting machines or the handling of provisional ballots, which voters cast when they don’t have the right identification or their names do not show up on a voter list. Lawyers will also monitor the tabulation of votes.

With long lines at polling places in metro Atlanta last week, Adelman said one focus likely will be making sure voters know that if they are in line when the polls close at 7 p.m., they still have the right to vote.

Which issues lawyers choose to pursue can depend on the character of the precinct, Evans said, and whether their party is the underdog or on top.

“Each party really kind of picks their battles,” he said. “These lawyers have clients, and they do what they need to do for their respective clients to increase their chances of winning.”

Both Adelman and Chalmers declined to say precisely how many Georgia lawyers their parties have rounded up. Adelman put the number at “a few hundred.”

Evans said he heard roughly 400 lawyers would be working on the Democratic side and about 300 for Republicans. Another 250 or so will represent issue groups, he said, such as organized labor.

But wait, there’s more.

Attorney General Thurbert Baker has set up a hotline and a task force of staff attorneys to answer questions about voting. U.S. Attorney David Nahmias’ office will be looking for election fraud and voting rights abuses, along with the FBI.

And Secretary of State Karen Handel will deploy almost 100 monitors around the state.

Several hundred more attorneys won’t be on the clock or in a party’s pocket.

Nearly 600 volunteer lawyers and law students with Election Protection, a national nonpartisan coalition of dozens of voting rights supporters, will fan out across Fulton, Cobb, Gwinnett, DeKalb and Clayton counties, said Sarah Shalf, a member of the Georgia affiliate’s legal committee.

Election Protection’s volunteers will staff a hotline and stand back from voting lines with black and white T-shirts that say “You have the Right to Vote. Contact 1-866-OUR-VOTE.” At one of the group’s Atlanta training sessions Thursday, lawyers supporting both candidates said they were motivated by a desire to make sure every qualified voter gets to vote.

“I had heard there were a lot of issues going on, particularly in the South,” said Andrew Shenoda, 29, who moved to Georgia from California last year.

Shenoda, a lawyer casting his ballot for McCain, said he sees volunteering Election Day as a service that could prevent an injustice.

Kelli Byers Hooper, 35, said she and her law partner are taking the day off to volunteer for Election Protection.

Hooper, who is voting for Obama, said she is excited to participate in such an effort Election Day.

“I’m ready to go wherever,” she said.

Staff writer Alan Judd contributed to this report