NAACP: This van will be a weapon against those 'hellbent on keeping people from voting.'

The Cincinnati NAACP hopes to drive up voter turnout this November with a van that the civil rights organization unveiled on Monday.

The Cincinnati NAACP Mobile Civic Engagement Unit this Sunday will start traveling to what the organization described as "historically marginalized neighborhoods" with low voter turnout, according to the NAACP officials.

"This isn't going to be just during election time," said Cincinnati NAACP President Joe Mallory during a ceremony in Avondale Monday attended by Mayor Aftab Pureval, Hamilton County Board of Commissioners President Alicia Reece and other elected officials. "This will be a year-round proposition."

Civil rights leaders in Cincinnati on Monday called the van a historic effort to fight voter suppression. They decried purging of voter rolls.

"Every generation has a fight for voter rights," said David Whitehead, Cincinnati NAACP chairman of the voter empowerment and political action committee. "This is our fight now. As the themes change around us to keep us from voting, making voting harder to do, we have to adjust to it."

The staff on the van, a retrofitted Ford E-450 with six computer terminals, will help residents register to vote, educate people on the voting process, provide sample ballots and distribute other educational materials about voting. It will have six computers for people to access the local board of elections site.

Initially intended to be launched in April, the NAACP will hold the first event with the van on February 18 at Quinn Chapel in Forest Park, two days ahead of the deadline to register to vote for the March 19 primary.

Forest Park Mayor Aharon Brown spoke at the event and criticized "one side" for voter suppression, though he didn't mention the side by name.

"This is still our fight," said Brown, who also serves as director of the Racial Justice Fund for the nonprofit Greater Cincinnati Foundation. "Especially since we have one side, excuse my language, that is hellbent on keeping people from voting."

The NAACP used private donations to pay for the mobile unit. In addition to the van, leaders talked about other ways to drive up voter turnout in neighborhoods that often have low voter turnout. Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority, known as SORTA, will offer free bus fair to the polls on Election Day, said Darryl Haley, president of SORTA.

NAACP chapters across Ohio could duplicate the mobile unit elsewhere, said Tom Roberts, president of the Ohio NAACP President Tom Roberts said on Monday.

"When this van goes into the community, make sure people who have been purged from the rolls for some reason get back on the roll, make sure we’re educating the community on the issues that we are confronted with," Roberts said. "We may duplicate this because it makes all the sense in the world for us to do that."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: What is the Cincinnati NAACP Mobile Civic Engagement Unit?