Monday was the start of Absentee Voting week, a voting emphasis week for the Federal Voting Assistance Program, the Department of Defense entity helping uniformed service members, their eligible family members, and overseas voters exercise their right to vote. The week is focused on reminding these voters to pay close attention to their ballot return deadlines.
This week can also serve as a reminder for this unique group of voters to register and request an absentee ballot if they have not already done so, as many of the earliest state/territory registration or request deadlines for the November General Election are this week. For example, Alaska, Arkansas, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and the Virgin Islands all have important deadlines on October 7th.
For this group, especially for those living outside of the country, organic cues – like campaign fliers, billboards, or local news coverage of an election – to start the absentee process are often missing. And though there are efforts to get key dates, deadlines, and materials into the heads and hands of this community, there are some troubling early findings released last week by the Military Officers Association of America’s (MOAA) Military Family Initiative, a Democracy Fund grantee.
It seems that military spouses may have a larger informational deficit than those directly serving in the military. For example, according to initial findings, which are part of the MOAA MFI survey conducted in partnership with Syracuse University’s Institute for Military and Veteran Families, only 40% of active duty military spouses felt it was easy to obtain voting information. Only 39% considered themselves knowledgeable (i.e. rated their knowledge as good or excellent) about the use of the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA), which is the most critical election form for the military voter community. This is compared to 56% of active duty members who felt they were knowledgeable. We’ve written about the FPCA before on the Democracy Fund blog, this form allows them to designate as military voters, affording them specific protections under federal law, and acts an absentee ballot request.
Additionally, only 41% of active duty spouse respondents consider themselves knowledgeable about key absentee ballot deadlines as compared to 52% of active duty. The survey findings paint a picture where “awareness and understanding of the absentee voting process is associated with the likelihood of voting.” This is telling, because it is a driver of turnout. Only 36% of active duty military spouses shared that they voted in every election, as compared to 57% of active duty members. Spouses’ top reasons for not voting were:
They did not want to vote;
They did not think their vote mattered; and
Did not know how to get an absentee ballot.
The last two reasons should give us pause. We can and must help this community overcome their informational and confidence hurdles. While the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) has experimented in the past with military spouse outreach, more must be done to equip these men and women with resources. Additionally we should look for new ways to address some of the potential attitudinal challenges. This is an area where Democracy Fund and MOAA MFI will continue to look for opportunities. In the short-term, we encourage a diverse group of stakeholders: military spousal groups, associations, and peer networks to consider urgently sharing relevant absentee voting information with this audience. One option is to share MOAA MFI’s absentee voting guide powered and populated with information from FVAP. MOAA’s incredible name recognition in this community provides an added layer of trust if constituents aren’t familiar with the FVAP brand, and over time it is a way to help them become familiar.
While the purpose of Absentee Voting week is to encourage these voters to return their ballots as soon as possible, there are likely too many who haven’t even started their absentee voting journey. There might still be time for them to catch-up this election season, but we must look to make larger scale systems changes in the future so no one, especially the military spouse, is left behind.
Prior to joining the Democracy Fund, Stacey Scholl worked for the Federal Voting Assistance Program as a program analyst and also has experience working in two state election offices—Colorado and Iowa. Both her father and mother served in the United States Air Force.
Under the leadership its new chairman Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO), and Ranking Member Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), the Senate Rules and Administration Committee hosted a hearing this past week, “Election Security Preparation: A State and Local Perspective.” This is the first hearing since the 2016 election in Senate Rules, the committee with jurisdiction over federal election issues. This hearing was a long-overdue opportunity for state and local election officials and Congress to talk about how they can work together to improve our nation’s election integrity, following the attempts made in 2016 to interfere in the last Presidential election.
In the March 2018 omnibus spending package, states got a boost to help them in these efforts. The omnibus provided $380 million in Help America Vote Act (HAVA) funds that states can use for election security improvements. Specifically, legislative report language outlined key categories to help guide state spending activity. “Consistent with the requirements of HAVA, states may use this funding to:
Replace voting equipment that only records a voter’s intent electronically with equipment that utilizes a voter-verified paper record;
Implement a post-election audit system that provides a high-level of confidence in the accuracy of the final vote tally;
Upgrade election-related computer systems to address cyber vulnerabilities identified through DHS or similar scans or assessments of existing election systems;
Facilitate cybersecurity training for the state chief election official’s office and local election officials;
Implement established cybersecurity best practices for election systems; and
Fund other activities that will improve the security of elections for federal office.”
These resources are critically important given the evidence noted by the Senate Intelligence Committee and other cybersecurity experts about the foreign attacks on our election infrastructure during the 2016 election. According to the EAC, 66 percent of the funds have been requested as of June 19, and the witnesses testified that the Commission worked very quickly to disburse funds to the states. This is a good start, but there is a need for all states to get in the game. There’s also a good practice to provide greater information about how they will use the funds, and to identify how their actions will create greater security for the 2018 election. For example, Ohio recently outlined the steps the state is taking to build confidence in the system. And several Democracy Fund grantees have resources outlining best practices in cybersecurity for election professionals. The Defending Digital Democracy Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has its State and Local Election Cybersecurity Playbook and “tabletop exercise” workshops, and the Center for Data and Technology is partnering with the Center for Technology and Civic Life to deliver online cybersecurity trainings for election officials this July.
Beyond 2018, the hearing was a reminder that election officials are constantly planning and looking ahead. As all the witnesses testified, the complexity of threats to our election infrastructure requires ongoing support from the federal government to aid the states—a challenge that Congress should take seriously if they want voters to have confidence and trust in our election system.
This Fourth of July, Democracy Fund will celebrate its fourth anniversary as an independent foundation. Little did I know in the summer of 2014 just how profound the threats facing our country would turn out to be or the degree to which the health of our nation’s political system would become a near-universally recognized problem. Lately, I find myself thinking that this organization was created for this moment — though I did not realize it was coming.
Fittingly, July Fourth will also mark an important milestone in our growth as an institution — $100 million in grants made to organizations strengthening U.S. democracy. It has been our privilege to make these resources available to a remarkable group of leaders working to ensure that our democratic institutions deliver on their promise to the American people.
While Democracy Fund’s core mission has not changed from its founding, this organization looks very different from four years ago when we had a staff of three and a dozen or so grantees. The events of the past two years demanded that we clarify our core convictions and to dramatically expand our commitment to strengthen American democracy and defend the United States Constitution.
The purpose of this open letter is to share how we have changed, to demonstrate an ongoing commitment to our core programs, and to explain why we think it is so important that philanthropy stand up patriotically in this moment.
With today’s publication of our vision for a healthy democracy, I acknowledge that our commitment to bipartisanship cannot come at the expense of our core values. Indeed, we believe that being bipartisan cannot mean being neutral when actions are taken that threaten our republic.
At Democracy Fund, we believe a healthy democracy requires at least two competitive political parties — and that democratic institutions work best when they have broad support from across the political spectrum. We deeply value our ability to work with Republicans, Democrats, and independents to find ways to ensure that our democracy works for all Americans.
But we also believe in the dignity of every individual and in the equal protection of their rights under law. We believe that checks and balances, as well as respect for the rule of law, are critical to protect against abuses of power. We believe that political leaders bear an uncommon burden to act with integrity. And we believe that threats to the health of our democracy — as well as solutions to these — can come from all sides of the political spectrum.
Over the past two years, I have seen alarming and sometimes unprecedented violations of our country’s democratic norms. For an organization committed to strengthening democracy on behalf of the American people, this isn’t just disturbing — it’s humbling.
Over the past two years, I have seen alarming and sometimes unprecedented violations of our country’s democratic norms. For an organization committed to strengthening democracy on behalf of the American people, this isn’t just disturbing — it’s humbling.
Our first priority was to articulate the beliefs that underlie our work, and clearly assert those core democratic principles for which we stand. Working with our advisors and a diverse group of scholars, we created a healthy democracy framework to help explicate the values that motivate our efforts. The framework will serve as a compass, inform decision-making, and provide clarity about the principled positions underlying our actions for ourselves and others.
Having articulated these beliefs, we knew that staying the course in the face of new and widening gaps between our vision for a healthy democracy and the realities of America today was not an option. We rebooted some of Democracy Fund’s core programs and added new, bipartisan initiatives to stop abuses of government power, secure our elections, defend press freedom, and combat misinformation. We increased our staff by more than 40 percent and tripled the size of our grantmaking budget. We also created three new special projects that include two-year commitments of:
In addition, we launched the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group to help policymakers keep in touch with the beliefs and attitudes of ordinary Americans.
Even as we continue our ongoing work to strengthen American democracy, we’re taking a stand against real and direct threats to our Constitution.
Combatting the Abuse of Power
Core to our understanding of a healthy democracy is the notion that constitutional checks and balances protect against abuses of power and preserve the rule of law. Over the past year, Democracy Fund has worked to reinvigorate government accountability in a challenging environment in which government leaders have openly flouted ethics rules and challenged the independence of everything from the courts to the Justice Department.
Democracy Fund’s grantees are fighting back aggressively. Collectively, they have participated in more than 35 lawsuits targeting government corruption, secrecy, and ethics violations. In addition to exposing abuses, these legal actions are helping to protect institutions that have come under attack. For example, a FOIA lawsuit filed by Lawfare helped secure the release of 100 F.B.I. emails that contradicted the White House’s false narrative that former F.B.I. Director James Comey had lost Bureau support before his firing.
Other grantees, like the National Security Archive, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), and the Government Accountability Project, have filed more than 2,300 FOIA requests to expose government corruption, misconduct, waste, and conflicts of interest. Work by POGO and Open the Government has led the Department of Homeland Security to release an Inspector General report criticizing initial implementation of the Muslim travel ban.
POGO, the Lugar Center, and the Levin Center are also continuing to encourage bipartisan congressional oversight by training nearly 300 Hill staffers on how to hold the executive branch accountable. In addition, POGO and the Government Accountability Project have distributed whistleblower education materials to more than 2,100 federal employees, NGO employees, journalists, and engaged citizens.
Another grantee engaged in especially urgent work is the Protect Democracy Project, which was established in February 2017. In its first month of operation, the Project successfully helped force the Trump administration to release a policy restricting communications between the White House and the Department of Justice. Then, it helped expose instances in which the White House had violated those restrictions. In just a year, the Protect Democracy Project has forced important public disclosures on issues ranging from potential executive overreach into a major healthcare merger, to alleged intimidation of federal workers, to the legal rationale behind military strikes in Syria.
Three grantees of our affiliated 501(c)4, Democracy Fund Voice — R Street Institute, Stand Up Republic, and the Niskanen Center — are working to build bipartisan networks to push back against threats to our democracy. These networks are working to stand up for democratic norms while building consensus on a vision for American democracy over the long term.
To stop the abuse of political power, our grantees are cutting deep into the weeds of government. But we are confronted by threats that go deeper still, undermining the most basic feature of our democracy: free and fair elections.
Securing Our Elections
We believe that voting is the cornerstone of our democracy; but when it comes to elections, Democracy Fund worries less about who wins than about whether people have faith in the outcome. False claims that millions of fraudulent votes were cast in 2016 have the potential to undermine faith in our elections — while creating a spurious justification for erecting barriers that make it more difficult for Americans to vote.
M.I.T.’s Election Data and Science Lab and the Center for Election Innovation & Research played a leading role in pushing back against these false claims that the Pence-Kobach Voter Fraud Commission sought to justify. These efforts to correct the record — alongside legal actions by Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, the Campaign Legal Center, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense Fund, and others — contributed to the eventual dissolution of the Commission.
We believe that voting is the cornerstone of our democracy, but when it comes to elections, Democracy Fund worries less about who wins than about whether people have faith in the outcome.
At the same time, we know malicious foreign actors made a concerted effort to undermine the 2016 presidential election and that the security of our next election cannot be taken for granted. For more than 12 months, Democracy Fund Voice worked with its partners to persuade Congress to provide state and local election officials with the resources and training necessary to maintain the highest possible security. This work paid off last month, when Congress included $380 million in grants to the states to improve cybersecurity, replace paperless voting machines, and perform post-election audits (among other measures). Lawmakers also approved $10 million in funding for the Election Assistance Commission — a 10 percent increase — and provided the F.B.I. with an additional $300 million to bolster election cybersecurity.
Democracy Fund grantees have also found innovative ways to get ahead of the next attack on our election infrastructure. The bipartisan duo of Robby Mook and Matt Rhoads (former campaign managers for Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney, respectively) launched a new program at Harvard to help campaigns and election officials protect sensitive data against intrusion. The effort is organizing “tabletop exercises” that simulate attacks on election systems — and allow election officials and security experts to practice their response.
Additional grantees with a focus on money in politics have also played important roles. The Campaign Legal Center (CLC) developed a symposium and report about whether current laws are sufficient to prevent or deter future intrusion. Campaign finance complaints filed by CLC and Common Cause forced other actors, including President Donald Trump’s lawyer, to disclose more information about alleged foreign interference than otherwise known. Additionally, CLC and others have done important work to promote greater disclosure on social media platforms.
Defending the Fourth Estate
At a moment when journalists face profound economic and political threats, Democracy Fund is helping to ensure our fourth estate remains free and resilient. In the healthy democracy framework, we assert that journalists provide a critical check on power, holding our leaders accountable and revealing corruption, wrongdoing, and conflicts of interest. They provide Americans with the information they need to uphold the promise of a democracy of, by, and for the people. That’s why Democracy Fund has made a two-year commitment of $11 million to strengthen investigative reporting. It’s also why we’re supporting press freedom watchdogs, including the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Reporters Without Borders, and the Student Press Law Center.
Grants to the nation’s premier investigative watchdogs have enabled these nonprofit newsrooms to pursue a wide range of stories that have held administration officials accountable for wrongdoing, forced divestitures, and changed laws.
ProPublica has taken on biased algorithms, forced changes in Facebook’s advertising rules, and prompted New York City lawmakers to pass the country’s first bill to address discrimination produced by social media algorithms. And Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross divested from his global shipping company after an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity showed significant conflicts of interest.
Too often, journalists become targets for threats and abuse as a result of their work to advance the public interest. Trump administration officials have gone so far as to call out Democracy Fund grantees by name. One grantee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning newsroom ProPublica, faced a cyberattack that took down its entire email system — an attempt to silence ProPublica journalists in retribution for hard-hitting reporting on hate crimes and extremists groups. In the face of these attacks, Democracy Fund’s support provided these grantees with the resources and independence they needed to stand firm, fix their systems, and continue their indispensable work.
Local newsrooms are, in many ways, the building blocks of our democracy, covering stories that matter to residents and holding local leaders accountable in a way that no other organizations can.
Local newsrooms are, in many ways, the building blocks of our democracy, covering stories that matter to residents and holding local leaders accountable in a way that no other organizations can. Yet, across the country, we’ve seen an increase in “trickle-down” attacks on the press, where those in power use their positions to undermine — or even encourage violence against — local journalists. These attacks have come at a time of severe economic turmoil for many local newsrooms, when their business models are failing — and their continued viability is in serious question.
That’s why Democracy Fund has worked hand-in-glove with peer funders to launch NewsMatch — an unprecedented campaign to strengthen nonprofit journalism and make 2017 a record-breaking year for giving to local investigative news. With the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and a partnership of five additional funders, we matched donations to nonprofit newsrooms for the last three months of 2017, helping journalists raise more than $4.8 million. Among the more than 100 nonprofit newsrooms that participated, nearly all raised more dollars from more donors than ever before.
Even as we work to ensure that all Americans have access to quality local news and investigative reporting, Democracy Fund’s grantees are also striving to combat the misinformation that pollutes our public square. For instance, long before Cambridge Analytica captured national headlines, we published a report examining the ways in which social media platforms exacerbate information disorders, spread hate, and threaten our democracy.
But declining trust in media is not only a product of this political moment. It also stems from the ways journalism has at times stood apart from communities and failed to deliver stories that matter to them. Grantees in our Engaged Journalism portfolio continue to experiment with tools that foster a deeper connection between newsrooms and the public. In the context of that work, we’ve made significant commitments to making newsrooms more diverse and representative of their readership.
Through all of our efforts in this space, Democracy Fund is working toward a future where we can trust the headlines we see — and the democracy we shape together.
Protecting the Dignity and Rights of Each Individual
First among our core beliefs is a fundamental dedication to the dignity of every individual in our democracy, and the protection of their rights under the law. Without a recognition of our common humanity and a common American identity, our democracy cannot function. All too often, however, divisive rhetoric targeting Muslims and immigrants — rhetoric that has been embraced, over the past year, by policymakers, government officials, and media figures — encourages bigotry among the public while creating political momentum for policies that demean individuals and threaten to violate basic civil rights.
Nationally, as well as in individual communities throughout the country, Democracy Fund grantees are fighting for greater inclusion — and pushing back against policies that undermine what it means to be an American. While some leaders in government and the media blamed the hate-motivated violence we saw in Charlottesville on “both sides,” Democracy Fund grantees like Faith & Public Life were training clergy in nonviolent strategies to protect peaceful demonstrators from gun-wielding white supremacists. In the aftermath of that conflict, Georgetown University’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) acted to prevent it from happening again. ICAP lawyers discovered provisions of Virginia law — dating back to 1776 — that prohibit “paramilitary activity.” This discovery became the basis of a 79-page lawsuit ICAP filed in Charlottesville last October.
As activist groups, members of Muslim, Arab, and South Asian (MASA) communities, and allied organizations came together, over the past year, to challenge the Trump administration’s Muslim and refugee ban, the Proteus Fund’s Security & Rights Collaborative (SRC) played a critical coordination role. Through the #NoMuslimBanEver campaign, SRC helped facilitate mobilization efforts across the country — and also provided direct monetary and strategic support to MASA organizations. Their and their grantees’ work continued this spring, when ICAP’s Neal Katyal, a former acting U.S. solicitor general, argued against the ban before the Supreme Court.
In our effort to maintain a just and inclusive society, Democracy Fund has also partnered with Freedom to Believe, an organization that brings people of all faiths and backgrounds to mosques to learn more about Islam and forge connections with Muslim communities. Similarly, our grantee Veterans for American Ideals is using proven strategic communications tactics to promote tolerance. Their #WhatIFoughtFor campaign showcases moving collaborations between refugees and military service members that are helping to make America, in every sense, a more perfect union.
In recent months, Democracy Fund staff have also worked closely with Civic Nation and NBCUniversal to support the re-launch of their “Erase the Hate” campaign to combat prejudice, hate crimes, and the spread of hate speech online.
Understanding the American Public
The concept of robust representation is embedded throughout our healthy democracy framework and is fundamental to the proper function of our democratic republic. In this unique and consequential moment, it is as important as ever before that America’s leaders — in public office and at every level of civil society — hold a nuanced understanding of the American public, their experience and preferences, and how their changing attitudes are reshaping our politics. To this end, Democracy Fund created the Voter Study Group to dig deep into public opinion data — and then to analyze and share those results with policymakers, government officials, and the media.
There are two key attributes that distinguish the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group from other polling efforts. First, the group itself is made up of a diverse group of scholars from across the political spectrum, ranging from the Center for American Progress and the Brookings Institution on the left to Heritage Action and the American Enterprise Institute on the right. This remarkable diversity of opinion not only increases the quality of our analysis; it also means we have been able to gain attention and interest from media and policymakers in important and unusual ways. Second, the use of a longitudinal dataset — which surveys the same group of people who have been questioned since 2011 — has yielded deep insights into how the American electorate is changing in ways that are quite unique. We believe that the collaborative nature of this project lends itself especially well to the vigorous, informed dialogue across ideological difference that is necessary to sustainable policy and sustainable politics.
Since its launch, the Voter Study Group has released ten reports. Initial analyses focused on understanding the 2016 electorate, examining the composition of President Trump’s political base, and considering how party coalitions are changing. More recently, the group published “Follow the Leader,” a report that sought to assess the health of American democracy by better understanding authoritarian attitudes among the public.
What we found was alarming. Nearly one in four Americans say it would be good to have a strong leader who doesn’t have to bother with Congress or elections. Nearly one in five say the same of military rule. In aggregate, 29 percent of respondents showed at least some support for an authoritarian alternative to democracy.
And yet, the cause for hope was clear: when offered a direct choice, the overwhelming majority of Americans chose democracy. Moreover, we didn’t see a correlation between dissatisfaction with democracy and support for authoritarian options.
Frustration and anger at the state of our democracy are well founded; openness to autocracy is not. The big question for us — as an organization and a leader in the philanthropic space — is what more we can do to strengthen our democracy, both for the next election and for the next generation.
Our Commitment to a Healthy Democracy
We live at a time when the principles articulated in our healthy democracy framework are threatened by uniquely dangerous circumstances. At Democracy Fund, we firmly believe these threats demand a full-throated response.
Admittedly, the approach I have outlined above is far more aggressive — necessarily so — than the one we took during our first few years of operation. In the face of unprecedented threats, philanthropists — including Democracy Fund — can’t just do what we’ve been doing. This moment demands something more than business as usual. That’s why Democracy Fund is calling on our peer organizations to take action — and why, moving forward, we will be proud to serve as a partner and resource to any funder willing to stand up and speak out for our Constitution.
Even as we respond to the current crises, we know the conditions that gave rise to this moment will still be with us for the foreseeable future. So we all need to commit to the long-term health of our democracy. Beyond the work outlined in this letter, Democracy Fund continues its work to reduce polarization, modernize elections, diversify newsrooms, and perform other essential tasks to strengthen our political system. Our hope is that peer funders will also join us on these longer-term projects.
At a time when our political institutions are under tremendous strain, Democracy Fund and its partners have been inspired by ordinary Americans who are standing up in extraordinary ways to help protect our republic. Their examples are proof that the vision outlined in our healthy democracy framework is not too much to hope for. That is why we’re rallying experts, activists, political leaders, and patriotic philanthropists to renew their personal responsibility for the greater good of our democracy.
What motivates voters to participate? The love of a charismatic candidate? The disgust of a less-than desirable one? Passion for a specific ballot initiative? Habit? The answer is as varied as the voting population, as is the reason that voters do not participate. Research shows that while voters’ confidence in their own vote being counted accurately remains relatively constant, their belief that results at the national level are correct is in decline. The threat of interference in our elections by another nation-state has heightened this sentiment.
At Democracy Fund, we believe that our election system can remain both accessible and secure. We invest in organizations working to bolster public confidence in our elections through modern, voter-centric election administration and registration, as well as other projects that are helping to identify and elevate best practices and protocols to improve the American voting experience. With these goals in mind, Democracy Fund is launching the Election Validation Project which aims to increase trust in elections through rigorous audits, standards, and testing.
Jennifer Morrell, a nationally recognized election official with over eight years of experience managing local elections, has joined Democracy Fund as a consultant to lead this project. Jennifer’s work in Colorado was instrumental in the successful implementation of the first statewide risk-limiting audit and she has been an outspoken advocate of implementing election audit standards beyond just post-election audits and has a vision of creating uniform audit and testing standards for all critical components of the voting system.
According to Jennifer, “Many states do a tremendous job testing voting equipment and performing post-election audits, but the scope and method vary. Improving trust in elections requires a uniform set of audit standards that go beyond auditing ballot tabulation equipment.”
The Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA) called for the review of testing and auditing being done by the states in their 2014 report as well as the need to replace aging voting equipment—another reason why testing and auditing is so critical. Jennifer has been a proponent of testing and audit standards as the next iteration of guidelines to boost confidence and trust in our elections—and the election administration profession. In her experience as an election official, PCEA served as the foundation for collaboration amongst the profession and transformed it into a field of public service.
As states purchase new voting equipment and implement improved audit requirements, our hope is that we can provide information and guidelines about risk-limiting audits tailored to election administrators as well as policy makers and the voting public through our work. Jennifer’s work will include:
Creating a collaborative of election officials and subject matter experts to identify best practices for pre- and post- election audits, standards, and testing.
Completing an assessment of the current state of post-election audits and outlining a path towards risk-limiting audits.
Meeting with election officials to illustrate the pros and cons of different types of audits and providing a plain language explanation of what a risk-limiting audit is and how it works.
Most importantly, Jennifer will be working directly with a handful of states that can benefit from observation and informing their auditing and testing policies.
This new project comes at a critical time in election administration, and Jennifer understands what needs to be done to be successful, “This is a complex project that will take some time and some trial and error before it is successful. But starting the discussion is the first step. I am optimistic that election professionals at all levels will be willing to collaborate and lend their ideas and expertise to this endeavor. The table for this discussion needs to be large. We need researchers, we need technologists, we need policy experts and statisticians, but most importantly we need election officials who understand the complexity of running a successful election.”
Democracy Fund is thrilled to engage with Jennifer on this project and to be able to offer additional tools and guidance for election officials to use. We are confident that the collaboration will serve to inform the field and make certain that our elections continue to demonstrate the validity and integrity of the Great American Experiment.
If you are interested in working with Jennifer, she is available to work with states and present at association meetings on these topics. For more information, reach out to jmorrell@democracyfund.org.
“Vote-by-mail” is a growing trend in the United States. According to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), more than 33 million voters in the 2016 Presidential Election voted by mail. Voters registered in Oregon, Washington and Colorado already automatically receive their ballot in the mail, and California will join their ranks once they implement legislation that passed in 2016. As vote-by-mail is becoming more widely used, it’s important for elections administrators to educate the public on the process and continue to find ways to improve the voter experience.
One great place to start is a report published by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Democracy Fund grantee, that highlights the ways voting by mail and absentee voting has changed and what voters, legislators, election officials, and the United States Postal Service (USPS) can do to ensure that type of voting remains a viable option for the American electorate.
Another useful resource is the 2014 report (PDF) from the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA), which includes several recommendations to improve the voting experience for voters.
USPS has played a key role in the development of election administration best practices for the vote by mail process and has instituted some of their own. During the final days of ballot return postal employees sweep processing plants hourly looking for mail pieces bearing the official election material mail logo to ensure that ballots are being processed within their delivery standards. In 2016 they embraced a new tool to communicate with election officials. Electionmail.org was developed by Democracy Fund grantee Democracy Works and provides a channel for administrators to communicate issues directly with postal leadership.
Why does this matter?
We live in an increasingly digital era where most people go online to communicate, pay bills, and transact business. The volume of mail – while still in the billions of mail pieces each year – no longer required the supporting infrastructure that was in place. Because of this, the U.S. Postal Service consolidated its processing plants and streamlined the sorting of mail. All mail now goes through the centralized processing plants, is sorted, and redirected to its destination. This automation allows for election ballot tracking, a PCEA recommendation, but it has also contributed to the delivery standard changes that happened in 2015.
Has this had a significant impact on a voter’s ability to cast an effective ballot? The EAC reports that, in 2016, more than 47% of rejected ballots were due to missing or invalid signatures, and roughly 23% of the rejected ballots were because they were returned after the deadline. Historically there are always some people who miss the deadline to return ballots in time to be counted in a given election, but the EAC data shows that the number of late ballots has decreased since 2012 even though greater numbers of voters are choosing this method of voting and we have longer delivery standards.
If voters fail to get their ballot mailed with enough time for delivery to their election office, many have the option of dropping their ballot off at their polling site. In addition to offering this drop-off option, some states allow for information on the envelope to be used to ensure that the voter did, in fact, mail the ballot before the polls closed on Election Day. Iowa and Indiana have passed legislation allowing for the use of Intelligent Mail Barcode data. In Ohio, the Secretary of State issued a directive that the orange USPS processing marks could also be used—and because of this Cuyahoga County was able to count an additional 73 ballots in the 2016 Presidential Election.
Close elections bring scrutiny, and Virginia is the perfect example of how crucial process is to ensuring and retaining voter participation year after year. In 2017, the state experienced elections with razor-thin margins in vote counts—in one instance the winner was determined by a draw after a tied result. The day after Election Day, election officials in Stafford County picked up 55 ballots at their post office box, and questions were raised about whether the ballots arrived in time, and who exactly was responsible for ensuring they were counted—the voter, the Postal Service, or the jurisdiction.
What have we learned from last year’s election in Virginia?
First, ballot tracking is important and election officials should use it. The state of Virginia recently implemented a statewide election mail tracking system called BallotScout—a project by Democracy Fund grantee TurboVote—as a way for both voters and election officials to determine where the ballots are in the process. Indeed, Virginia Registrar Dave Bjerke from the City of Falls Church posted on social media that a voter called to complain that they had not gotten their ballot. The tracking showed that the mail had been delivered to the voter; and with the Registrar on the line they began to dig through the piles on their desk and subsequently found the missing ballot. The question we should ask regarding the close election in Virginia is: was election mail tracking used to the full extent—and if not, why?
Social media post from Virginia Registrar Dave Bjerke from the City of Falls Church, VA
Second, ballot envelopes should have the official election material mail logo on them so that the voters know it is official information and USPS can recognize it as an important mail piece.
Election mail logo
Third, voters need to have information to make informed decisions. Voters may be prone to procrastination and need to have options the week before Election Day if they fail to get the ballot mailed in time. Data can be used to identify whether ballots have been put into the USPS system. Some jurisdictions make available secure ballot drop off sites, and some allow vote by mail ballots to be turned in at the polls on Election Day.
Eligible voters will greatly improve their ability to “vote by mail” successfully by following these recommendations. At Democracy Fund, we are committed to supporting election officials in their work to run elections and improve the voter experience. For more info on vote by mail best practices, visit the resources page at electionmail.organd the election mail page at USPS.gov.
Democracy Fund, in partnership with Reed College, is excited to announce a new survey of local election officials (LEOs) on issues relevant to election administration, integrity, and reform. Beginning the week of May 7, 2018, participants will be chosen randomly and will receive an email invitation to complete the survey. Below, we explain our goals for the DF-LEO survey, provide a sneak peek into its content, and explain why we think it will be a valuable resource to local and state election officials, policy experts, advocates, and others interested in American democracy.
We have two main motivations for the survey. First, we want to better understand LEO’s views about the roles, responsibilities, and challenges of their work. By tapping into their experience and deep knowledge of election administration, we hope to uncover new ideas to improve the capacity and quality of elections, and address LEOs’ most urgent needs.
Second, we want to amplify the voices of LEOs in national, regional, and state conversations about election administration, integrity, and reform. Far too often, these conversations don’t consider the “street view” realities of election administration. The insights of LEOs from across the country are vital and should be considered in the national dialogue about improving and securing our elections.
We’ve purposely kept the DF-LEO survey brief (only 10 minutes long) and easy to complete. The survey is conducted using Qualtrics, a state of the art, secure platform for survey administration. The survey covers several topics that include:
Changes in election administration over time, and whether these changes have made the elections process easier or more difficult for local election officials and voters;
The role of technology and whether the integration of tech improves elections overall;
The impact of voter registration modernization policies; and
The availability of financial, human, and other resources needed to make elections run smoothly.
DF-LEO was inspired by previous efforts to better understand the views and needs of the LEO community. Over ten years ago, the Congressional Research Service and the Government Accountability Office surveyed LEOs about their perspectives on the implementation of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), among other things. Most readers know HAVA’s requirements 1) to designate a state official responsible for the creation and maintenance of a statewide voter registration database; and 2) to replace old voting equipment—specifically punch card ballots—with newer forms of voting technology, had a long-lasting impact on the conduct of elections at the local level. The CRS and GAO surveys helped us understand how local election officials were adapting to the new law.
We also relied on the survey work that MIT Professor Charles Stewart shepherded for the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA) in 2013. The PCEA was prompted by President Obama’s call to promote the efficient administration of U.S. elections. The PCEA’s mission was to make public new recommendations for improving our elections—which it did in a 2014 report. The PCEA sought to include LEO input in crafting their report and recommendations, and we continue in the same spirit of inclusion.
Democracy Fund is committed to supporting election officials through grant making, research, and educational activities—especially in the lead up to an election where the integrity of our election system remains under close scrutiny. The best way to meet that commitment is to listen to their opinions, perspectives, concerns, and needs. DF-LEO is an important part of this effort.
In constructing the survey, we’ve consulted experts including local election officials, state election directors, and scholars who are experienced in survey research. These reviewers have provided us with constructive feedback on the survey questionnaire and are committed to working with us on interpreting and reporting the results.
We hope that you are as excited as we are to see the results of the survey. All individual responses to the survey will remain confidential, but broad findings from the DF-LEO will be published this summer. We look forward to sharing the results with policy experts, researchers, and advocates so they will better understand the perspectives of election officials and can collaborate alongside them to ensure a modern, secure, and trustworthy election system for the American people.
For those with questions and comments about DF-LEO, please feel free to reach out to:
NATALIE ADONA, JD/MPA
Senior Research and Learning Associate, Elections Program at Democracy Fund nadona@democracyfund.org
202.420.7931
PAUL GRONKE, PhD
Professor of Political Science, Reed College
Director, Early Voting Information Center paul.gronke@reed.edu
503.517.7393
We are a mere two years out from “Census Day” 2020 — April 1, 2020 — and we need all hands on deck to ensure a fair and accurate census. The census is paramount for a multitude of reasons — the data are used to make critical decisions in distributing over $600 billion annually in federal spending, developing legislation, making business decisions, and for federal, state, and local planning. On a more foundational level, the census is a pillar of our democracy. Census data are used to appropriate seats for the U.S. House and in turn, the Presidential electoral college, and in redistricting to redraw lines. The Census has major implications for our federal elections and voter confidence as it is integral to demonstrating the system is fair and representative. It is also vital to language minority voters and their active and meaningful civic engagement.
While the census strives to get a fair and accurate count of everyone in the country, the reality is that some are missed in census after census. Now, if different communities are missed equally, then the resulting census would still be fair, if not as accurate. Unfortunately, decade after decade we have seen a persistent, disproportionate undercount of certain population groups, including people of color, young children, and renters. Thus, when there is a differential undercount in communities of color, voters of color are further marginalized. Rights are unrecognized and unrealized when people are undercounted in these communities.
Data from the American Community Survey (ACS) are used to make Section 203 determinations under the Voting Rights Act every five years. It dictates which jurisdictions are required to provide language assistance during the voting process. The ACS – an ongoing survey that provides vital socio-economic characteristics on a yearly basis about our nation and its people – allows us to know more about topics including: jobs and occupations, educational attainment, veterans, language ability, and whether people own or rent their homes. While the ACS is conducted separately from the decennial census, an unfair and inaccurate census will negatively skew the ACS. Because the ACS is sent to a sampling of households, the data collected uses a weighting methodology that forces consistency of ACS estimates with official population estimates by age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin. The population estimates are based on the most recent decennial population results (currently, the 2010 census) updated with annual changes in births, deaths, domestic and international migration.
Since there is a higher risk of an undercount in immigrant and limited English proficient communities, as indicated in the Census Bureau’s own research, language minority communities are more likely to refuse to participate. This lower participation by language minorities could mean missed jurisdictions for Section 203 coverage that should be covered throughout the decade. During the most recent determinations in 2016, a total of 263 political subdivisions nationwide are now covered by Section 203, with a total of 214 political subdivisions in 26 states providing assistance in Spanish, 15 political subdivisions of Alaska providing assistance in an Alaska Native language, 35 political subdivisions in nine states providing assistance in an American Indian language, and 27 political subdivisions in 12 states providing assistance in an Asian language. Inaccurate census data would result in less language assistance across the nation.
Census data are also important for jurisdictions working to comply with their Section 203 obligations. For example, Census data are often one factor taken into consideration in making the determination of the language for written assistance, as well as the languages for oral assistance at the polls. Additionally, jurisdictions can target their language assistance. For example, translated materials and bilingual poll workers can be placed in those polling locations that serve covered language minority voters as opposed to all polling locations. Jurisdictions can look to census data to inform their planning to determine which polling locations should offer language assistance.
Census data are also important for jurisdictions looking to provide voluntary language assistance to their constituents. For example, Fairfax County, VA decided to voluntarily provide language assistance in Korean in addition to their Section 203 obligations under Spanish and Vietnamese. Recognizing that the county has a growing Korean population, the county looked to Census data which indicated that approximately 35,000 of the million or so county residents spoke Korean at home, with about 55 percent of them not speaking English very well, for confirmation that this was a community that had a significant need for language assistance.
Terry Ao Minnis is a Senior Fellow and Consultant at the Democracy Fund where she advises staff on emerging needs and opportunities to improve voting for all—specifically for those who face unique challenges under our current system. Terry currently serves as the Director of the Census and Voting programs for Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC), and co-chairs the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights’ Census Task Force. She received her Juris Doctor, cum laude, from American University Washington College of Law and her Bachelor’s degree in economics at the University of Chicago.
Democracy Fund Senior Advisor Tammy Patrick issued the following statement in response to the dissolution of the Pence-Kobach Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity:
“From nearly the moment it was created, the Commission was the source of bipartisan concern. Its unprecedented demands for voter information were rebuffed by Secretaries of State and other election administration officials from both parties in dozens of states across the country. These officials deserve credit for standing up for the privacy of voters in their states in the face of the Commission’s dramatic overreach and minimal transparency.
“Our democracy depends on citizens voting and on every ballot being counted accurately. Voters should know that states are working hard to ensure we have a secure election system. But we must remain vigilant in keeping it that way.
“We hope that any future presidential commissions in this area return to the successful, bipartisan model employed by the Presidential Commission on Election Administration and similar past efforts. These efforts were guided by research and the facts, not personal agendas.”
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Democracy Fund Senior Adviser Tammy Patrick is available for further comment on the dissolution of the Pence-Kobach Commission. Please contact Josh Dorner at jdorner@skdknick.com to schedule.
Tammy Patrick co-authored this piece with Stacey Scholl.
At Democracy Fund, we believe that Americans deserve modern, voter-centric elections as a part of a responsive political system. As a grantmaker, this means investing in other organizations, projects, and platforms that support the spread of good information and foster dialogue. At times, it can also mean developing and creating our own internal efforts. In that spirit, we are excited to welcome electionline.org as a Democracy Fund project and to continue working with Mindy Moretti as the site editor.
Electionline.org is the nation’s only nonpartisan, non-advocacy clearinghouse for election administration news and information. Over the last 17 years, former editor Doug Chapin and current editor Mindy Moretti have provided a unique place where election administrators can find news relevant to their work — apart from political horse races and partisan campaign rhetoric. Daily and weekly content illustrates the routine business of our American elections and features stories ranging from serious issues with ballots to lighthearted moments with poll workers.
Democracy Fund has been a long-time supporter of electionline.org, providing significant financial support since 2014. As the partnership grew, we had the space to consider what the future could look like for both organizations — and an agreement was made to bring the project within Democracy Fund. Over the next year, Democracy Fund will work with Mindy to manage and grow the site. It will continue to operate through a strictly nonpartisan lens and with a commitment to transparency about the role our organization plays. Our goal is to ensure the site remains a trusted source of the latest news, tools, and best practices for accessible and secure elections.
Over the years, several organizations who care about the quality of American elections have contributed to building and sustaining the electionline.org website, including The Pew Charitable Trusts and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. We value their contributions and they cannot go unthanked for their vision for the site. We also remain so grateful to Doug and Mindy for their pioneering work. Doug explained that the site grew bigger and better than he ever expected. He’d originally hoped that the site would prompt national and local media outlets to take on election administration as a routine beat after a few years, making the site unnecessary over time. That hasn’t happened, but electionline.org has outlasted his initial prediction as a result, becoming a truly one-of-a-kind place for the elections community.
Part of Mindy’s passion for the site is that “there is a story behind every vote cast. There is a story behind every new innovation or piece of equipment purchased.” And while electionline.org might have started as Doug’s baby, it has been Mindy’s unruly teenager and she’s glad that the site now has a home and “co-parent” with Democracy Fund.
While we’re working on what the future holds, not much is going to change immediately. Regular electionline.org readers will see Democracy Fund’s commitment to disclose when weekly articles cover our grantees or other work in the field. As always, the site will have a curation of daily news and a weekly feature about the election world. And Mindy will work with Democracy Fund’s Elections team to grow the network of readers and enhance the types of information available on the site.
For those new to electionline.org, we hope you will check out these posts and research:
As a systems change organization, Democracy Fund is committed to learning, iteration, and partnering in ways that strengthen both our work and the field at large. We understand that addressing challenges in our elections system will take patience, persistence, and a deep partnership with administrators, officials, and advocates across the United States. For this reason, we anticipate that changes and updates to electionline.org will be a collaborative process. We plan to relaunch a new design for electionline.org after evaluating how it can be even more useful to the election administration community. Please email us at elections@democracyfund.org with your thoughts and feedback.
For language minority voters, poll workers can make or break the success of their voting experience. Well-trained poll workers will know how to properly interact with language minority voters – providing proper customer service and care in assisting the voter experiencing language barriers to ensure they are able to cast a proper ballot. Poll workers who are less aware of the rights of language minority voters and/or who treat language minority voters with suspicion or in the worst case, hostility, can turn language minority voters away from voting.
Though they recognize the benefits of quality poll workers, elections officials face difficulties in recruiting enough of them and, as a result, have a limited pool of trusted, well-equipped poll workers each election. There has been a critical national shortage of poll workers, with up to a 500,000 worker deficit at any given time in the two last decades. When it comes to bilingual poll workers, the deficiencies can be even greater. In response to this problem, jurisdictions are looking outside the box to devise innovative methods for to recruitment, which can be replicated across the country.
Tapping high school students has been particularly helpful in onboarding bilingual poll workers, because younger generations often serve as translators for their parents and family members. Democracy Fund staff reached out to election officials in Minneapolis, Minnesota about the state’s student election judge program, which recruits kids from public schools, charter schools, and private schools, as well as home schooled students. Through this program, Minneapolis has doubled the number of student election judges providing language support between 2014 and 2016, growing from 89 to 159 participants. Even though they only comprised 12 percent of Minneapolis’s total judges, they made up 30 percent of those with secondary language skills.
Montgomery County, Maryland has gone beyond working with high schoolers to mobilize middle school students too, bringing students as young as sixth graders into the polls through a program called Future Vote. Future Vote aims to increase future voter knowledge, by strengthening ties to specific participation and emphasizing the importance of participatory democracy. Dr. Gilberto Zelaya, Outreach Coordinator with Montgomery County, shared that since 2004, the program has worked with approximately 38,500 students and 21,500 families. These students have uniquely bolstered the county’s language support overall. For the general election, a third of the students who served had language capacity in another something other than English, helping to cover 68 languages.
Jurisdictions can complement and expand the reach of traditional outreach methods such as engaging community-based organizations and ethnic media, by leveraging social media platforms. Harris County, Texas utilizes Twitter and Facebook to promote it’s #StepUpToServe campaign, which is geared toward recruiting Election Day poll workers, especially bilingual English, Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese speakers. The effort, which targeted civic-minded professionals, and retirees, but namely high school students and their parents, has had over 100 students apply to help with this year’s election. Harris County officials, Hector DeLeon and Kristina Nichols, confirmed that meeting their language coverage was a top priority. “In particular it was hard to find people who speak both Vietnamese and English, but high school students are able to fill this role in a unique way, because they more readily available than college students and they’re excited to make a little money,” said Kristina Nichols. Incredibly, most of the students who applied spoke a language other than English. Harris County officials have been thrilled with the results and continue to rely on social media and visits to local high schools to spread the word for more recruits in 2018.
The elections official’s own internal community – city and county government workers – is another ripe source for recruiting bilingual poll workers. For example, in Maricopa County, Arizona, officials created an online survey to solicit poll workers from county departments as well as from the staff of the municipalities and school districts in their borders. Maricopa County designated the time to work on Election Day as civic duty pay so employees do not have to use personal time off. The simple act of emphasizing civic duty within their own ranks provides support across departments and has leveraged the professionalism of their own employees, many of whom have bilingual skills. This has been a tremendous resource of individuals who already have a lot of the training needed for providing bilingual services to the community.
Finally, some jurisdictions have turned to the legislative process to expand the pool of potential bilingual poll workers. In California, community advocates worked to pass a bill, with key support from the California Secretary of State and the California Association of Election Officials, to have legal permanent residents (LPRs) become eligible to become poll workers. The bill was even expanded to include high school students who are LPRs. In 2013, Los Angeles County conducted a pilot project and they were able to recruit 200 bilingual poll workers that are legal permanent residents.
Poll workers play such an important role in our elections – they can inspire confidence in our election system, which is sorely needed today as apathy and lack of confidence abound in our elections. But they can only do so when properly educated, trained and prepared to address the needs of voters at the polls. This is particularly the case for voters experiencing language barriers, who may find the process and materials very confusing and daunting. To have a set of quality poll workers at your polling locations, jurisdictions must have a proactive recruitment plan in place and must look at innovative ways to encourage people to serve as poll workers. Many jurisdictions have already done some good thinking and work on this front and others should replicate these methods for future elections.
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