Councilor Ross among those who helped ensure integrity of presidential election

by Sandra Miller
Beacon Hill Times/Back Bay Sun
Councilor Michael Ross recently returned from Florida, where he joined a volunteer crew of lawyers nationwide who arrived armed to protect voters rights at the polls. His efforts were part of a huge outpouring from all levels of Democrats who turned out at key states to keep things clean.
“We wanted to make sure that 2004 and 2000 didn’t happen again,” he said, referring to the Voter Protection program.
Actually, nothing out of sorts happened, he said. Instead, he answered several questions from young voters who had no idea how the process worked, from his Northwest Miami spot in a largely Jamaican community.
“There was a first-time voter, 19 years old, who clearly was not aware of how to or even where to vote,” he recalled. “I said, ‘Walk through the doors, you’ll be fine.’ “ Concerned about the strict regulations many states have enacted to match voter registrations to voter identifications, Ross became impatient. “Look, the people who want to defraud the election system will be able to defraud if they want to. When you put up barriers to voting, you hurt first-time voters, you make it harder for people who want to vote. There’s a lot of people who are underhoused or lost their home or are transient, or college students. A lot of people who had moved were discouraged from the polls.”
Ross was happy to be part of the process, but he was also aware of his role in a strong democracy.
“I felt like I was a part of history,” he said. “Most of all it was an opportunity to watch a swing state that was previously Republican the last couple of elections to watch that state become a Democratic state.”
An early Obama supporter, Ross was in awe of the huge organizational fete. “It was great. If the Obama administration is run half as good as the way they executed his campaign, they will be great,” he said.
Ross noted thousands of others lawyers were organized via numerous conference calls. “Hundred went to Florida, doing what I was doing,” he said, noting strong organizer Cheryl Cronin, a Back Bay resident who recruited Ross.
He noticed a lot of other Massachusetts volunteers in Florida and around the country, including many of his constituents. “They knew their vote was far more useful and their work was far more useful outside of Massachusetts, in a swing state,” he said.
As for his friends on the John McCain side, he said, “I don’t think the Republicans were impressed, and they had come to terms with the way Obama conducted himself with dignity, and how he ran a good campaign.”
Ross is pretty active as a Democrat, traveling to the primaries to cast his vote at the Democratic Convention, and otherwise campaigning for Obama.
“It’s a great experience every four years,” he said, noting that the past few years weren’t great for Democrats. “I was glad to be able to say I voted for Barack Obama in January 2007. … when he spoke at the convention in 2000, I had an opportunity to meet him. I felt up front and close to a historic moment.”