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Military Spouses Need More Voting Information to Increase Participation and Confidence

Stacey Scholl

September 24, 2018

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.

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Working Group Offers Meaningful Ways to Make Military Voting Easier

Stacey Scholl

December 21, 2015

One of the many strengths of our military is that our service members come from all across the country, from rural counties to densely packed cities and everything in between. However, the geographic diversity of our military can also present unique challenges to service members’ ability to understand and quickly navigate voting rules.

Most people are unaware of the confusing system our service members and overseas voters face when trying to request and cast their absentee ballot. A patchwork of state rules means that there isn’t one standardized process for this group. Yet many of these voters compare voting information with one another, often close to election deadlines when they have very little room for error. Unfortunately, well-meaning fellow voters from different parts of the country might assume requirements are the same for all and pass along bad information.

In part, it is this challenge that moved the Department of Defense’s Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) to partner with the Council of State Governments (CSG) to assemble election officials and experts to find useful and relevant recommendations to make voting easier, regardless of where a military or overseas voter casts their ballot. FVAP Director, Matt Boehmer, also credits the work of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA), for creating energy and opportunity to address several longstanding issues. Thankfully, CSG has also been able to utilize former PCEA Commissioners throughout the partnership, including Ann McGeehan, former Texas Elections Director, and Tammy Patrick, former Federal Compliance Officer in the Maricopa County Elections Department in Arizona.

One of the partnership’s efforts, the CSG Overseas Voting Initiative Policy Working Group, released their key recommendations on December 17. While some of the recommendations are basic good government practices (e.g. use plain language and better utilize websites), certain recommendations, summarized below, deserve special attention:

States should treat the “Federal Post Card Application” (FPCA) as a permanent request for registration;
State online voter registration systems should allow military and overseas voters to designate as such when they register and apply for ballots; and
Local election officials should affirmatively notify when a military and overseas voter’s application is accepted.

The Federal Post Card Application as a request for permanent registration

The most consequential recommendation involves the FPCA. For those who are not familiar with this form, it is a federal form that can be used by qualifying voters to both register to vote and apply for an absentee ballot. The Democracy Fund has written about the importance of this form before. Although it’s a federal form, with likely Congressional expectations of some uniform treatment, due to the unique situation of military and overseas voters, some states have chosen to treat the FPCA differently.

For example, the state of Kansas only considers the FPCA to be a temporary application for an absentee ballot for one year. The form will not permanently register a voter in Kansas. Compare that with California, where submitting a FPCA will register someone to vote and place them on a life-time absentee list where the voter will continue to receive absentee ballots until they do not participate in four consecutive statewide general elections. They must merely maintain an up-to-date mailing address with their election official.

Imagine the confusion this creates in one Army unit, where soldiers from every corner of the country are trying to make sense of when they need to submit an FPCA or when they need to re-register. To try to simplify, FVAP recommends military and overseas voters submit the FPCA “every year and when they move.” However, as this working group suggests, states might want to do their part to reduce some of the confusion.

If jurisdictions were to consider the FPCA a full, permanent registration, that would prevent the the worst-case scenario of mistaken belief on the part of the potential voter. As it stands, voters can unknowingly find themselves lost in the shuffle of state particularities. If a soldier stationed overseas applies to vote and receive an absentee ballot in 2016 with the FPCA, but returns home to Topeka, Kansas in 2017 with the potential mistaken belief that she is registered to vote, and goes to vote in a local city council election, she is not going to find her name on the registration roll—that’s a problem.

Online voter registration systems must be functional for military and overseas voters

Another major recommendation merely requires vigilance on the part of state and local election officials when they develop new online systems, like online voter registration (OVR). In the course of their business, election officials consider and balance the needs of many voters in their jurisdiction. The needs of the military and overseas voters are not always front and center; and the development of new OVR systems is one example of such a lapse.

Many jurisdictions may not contemplate functionality like military status, overseas status, or FPCA requirements such as where or how a voter would like to receive their blank absentee ballot. Instead, the working group has said that states should ensure their systems allow “voters to submit the request from any location worldwide and would place the voter in the appropriate status in the relevant voter registration database.” Meaning that they will need to be able to designate themselves as military and overseas voters via an online system.

One practical exercise for state and local offices: when developing any new system or process, is to have a standard worksheet of analysis on how particular communities of voters will be affected—especially military and overseas voters, given that they may be more out of sight than others.

Communicate when an application is accepted

Information is empowering. If local election offices notify military and overseas voters when their application for an absentee ballot has been accepted, those voters can trust the absentee system that much more. As the working group explains, officials can communicate volumes more than just acceptance and rejection of an application—why not use email addresses now provided on the FPCA to alert these voters of special elections, changes in ballot return methods, and where their absentee ballot is in the process? As technology has improved, this is now easy and possible.

The Democracy Fund is a big supporter of Democracy Works, a group of election information and technology champs, who stand ready and able to help jurisdictions think through ballot-tracking with their Ballot Scout tool.

These are just a few key highlights from the CSG Overseas Voting Initiative Policy Working Group.The effort required plenty of compromise and thoughtfulness on the part of the bipartisan group assembled. A second group on technology will also release additional recommendations around December 2016. Hopes are high that those will also provide a few meaningful steps to making voting easier for this unique group of voters. But for now, states and local governments should strongly consider adopting practices supported by the working group’s initial findings.

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Elevating Constructive Voices to Disrupt Polarization

Laura A. Maristany

September 12, 2017

Today when people think about entrepreneurship and innovation, they tend to associate those concepts with the private sector. Maybe they think about Steve Jobs or Elon Musk—leaders whose big ideas revolutionized an industry. Or maybe they think about the legions of small business owners fueling the American economy. If you search for the word entrepreneur online, most of the results are about people who have opened their own businesses or developed new products or technologies. The bottom line is that entrepreneurship has become synonymous with the private sector.

Yet, our great nation was built by political entrepreneurs—visionaries who innovated new tools of governance and pushed the boundaries of what is possible. America today is radically different than the America of 1789, and while our founding fathers developed a forward-looking model of governance, we need their modern counterparts to help us think through how democratic institutions evolve and survive in the modern world.

At Democracy Fund, we understand this and actively seek out people and organizations who are working to disrupt the existing polarized political climate by promoting civil dialogue, sharing unbiased research, collaborating on breakthrough ideas, and embracing common-sense steps to strengthen our democracy. As Associate Director for Constructive Politics at Democracy Fund, I had the opportunity to travel across the country this summer learning about a new generation of leaders who are doing just that. My journey took me from D.C. to Chicago to Dallas to Malibu, where I attended several events by organizations focused on fostering a more constructive politics in the United States.

The Millennial Action Project (MAP) is working directly with leading young policymakers on both a national and state level to spur bipartisan legislation and innovative policy solutions. Defined by diversity, technology, pragmatism, and collaborative attitude, the millennial generation refuses to see the world in traditional ideological terms. Through projects like the Future Caucus, the State Future Caucus Network, the James Madison Fellowship, and the Millennial Policy Forum, MAP is elevating fresh ideas and building a network of cooperative millennial thought leaders.
At a convening by the Harris School of Public Policy’s Project on Political Reform, I watched a bipartisan group of political consultants discuss the rise of political polarization and how increasing distrust in our institutions could impact the future of our political system. During campaign season, you could never imagine these folks sitting in one room, much less swapping stories and collaborating on pragmatic solutions. Yet, here they were, focused on developing pragmatic solutions to our nations’ most difficult challenges. They might not have agreed on every policy solution, but constructive dialogue is the first step toward positive action for the American people.
The National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials’ (NALEO) Annual Conference brought together Latino elected officials from across the political spectrum to engage in dialogues about their role in the future of our country. In many cases using their personal time and funding to attend the conference, Latino elected officials were able to take advantage of informative sessions about subjects like how communities prepare for an emergency, how education policy changes at the federal level are implemented locally, and evolution of media and its impact on American politics.
Pepperdine University’s American Project convened conservative thought leaders and academics to talk about the issues and challenges impacting the future of the conservative movement. The conversations served as a reminder that while we will always have differing views, even within the parties, we are all Americans and want our country to succeed. Policy disagreements will continue to challenge us, but healthy democracy requires partisans who are committed to promoting their views constructively.

Overall, this summer I was reassured and inspired by the events I attended. Healthy democracy requires spaces for civil conversations where individuals can learn about each other, hear different points of view, and discuss their differences respectfully and productively. In each city I visited, I met Americans of all ages, races, and political ideologies who share these values and are brimming with ideas to make our democracy stronger. It leaves me with no doubt that America’s future is bright.

To learn more about our grantees who are working to ensure that Americans come first in our democracy, visit www.democracyfund.org/portfolio.

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The Ones Who Care

Laura A. Maristany and Anne Gleich

February 23, 2018

Laura Maristany co-wrote this blog post with Anne Gleich.

As we welcome a new year — and inch closer to midterm elections — the makeup of our current Congress continues to gain attention. With growing frustration around their perceived dysfunction, the need for leadership development and, particularly, candidate development programs across the nation have become a topic of national concern. In response to the spotlight, many groups are using the opportunity to launch new efforts and create pipelines of new candidates for Congress with hopes that helping the institution look more like the rest of America will increase its ability to function. In 2017, we conducted an environmental scan of leadership development programs geared towards elected officials and identified over 700 groups currently committed to this work. While the scan focused on identifying an average number of groups in this space – and not necessarily their models or effectiveness – it made it clear that we are all looking for the secret sauce to ensure more representative, more functional institutions. The question is, does broader representation on its own lead to a more functional Congress?

There is no doubt that we should continue to identify and support groups committed to developing the next generation of leaders, as well as those working with current elected leaders to promote their continued growth. These groups should continue to develop leadership pipelines to Congress and acknowledge that it is not simply about changing the landscape. We also need to ensure this pipeline is filled with constructive voices. We often hear that Congress would be more functional if it looked more like the America it represents. This could help, but we also need to develop leaders who can promote more constructive politics.

Democracy Fund has embraced this challenge as a foundation. To understand why, let’s take a step back and talk about bipartisanship, which is often viewed as a key to making a dysfunctional government functional. The problem is, forcing people — and particularly elected officials — to choose bipartisanship won’t address the underlying issues. People are partisan — generally we believe our own policy approach is the best approach. Our work in systems mapping tells us that even when we agree, there might be other forces — like towing the party line — that get in the way of compromise, and ultimately lead to gridlock and hyper partisanship. In this context, it is not enough that we commit to creating pipelines of diverse voices: we also need to shift political incentives. In our opinion, the missing ingredient to the “secret sauce” is whether the leaders in those pipelines, and our elected officials, care enough about the issues to come to the table to discuss, debate, and ultimately pass legislation with civility and respect. In other words, how willing are they to stand up for their constituents?

Democracy Fund believes that when our leaders care enough — about their community, constituents, or policy agenda — they will be willing to come to the table, have tough conversations, and accomplish the goal of legislating. We believe this work is crucial to the continued health of our democracy. Therefore, Democracy Fund is proud to support organizations and programs that are working to build diverse pipelines and bridges for constructive conversations, including:

Aspen Socrates Program American Values Seminars (AVS) will leverage their network and convene local leaders from a wide range of backgrounds and sectors under the tested Socrates seminar model with the aim of creating connections, promoting civil discourse and increasing dialogue in local communities. AVS will serve as a forum for the open exchange of ideas and the cultivation of leadership steeped in our shared American values. This duty, of citizen engagement and civic responsibility, remain as timely and as timeless, as ever.

The Cato Institute Project on the Prospects for Liberal Democracy which seeks to defend and improve liberal institutions as a way of avoiding the threat of populism. The project will make a concerted effort to vindicate liberal institutions and bolster them where they are weak by identifying reforms that can make them more responsive — not to transient public passions, but to what Madison termed “the cool and deliberate sense of the community.”

The Millennial Action Project works to re-establish cooperation over party lines in Congress by working with millennial members of state and national legislatures to encourage a new generation of lawmakers in our country. It also works to increase the thoughtful engagement of millennial constituents by elected officials.

The National Institute for Civil Discourse at the University of Arizona encourages political and civic leaders to embrace vigorous debate in a way that allows diverse perspectives to be shared, complex issues to be discussed thoughtfully, and challenging topics to be explored. NICD travels the country to provide trainings to elected officials on how to act civilly to one another.

Cultivate the Karass provides tools for emerging leaders to overcome polarization, establish common ground, and build trust with one another. With the goal of promoting a healthy democracy through cultivating civil discourse and bipartisanship, Cultivate the Karass brings together leaders from different disciplines and political backgrounds to work together and acts as another model to break down barriers to civil conversations.

We hope you will join us in tackling this challenge.

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Supporting Listening, Learning, and Community Connection for a Stronger Democracy

Laura A. Maristany

November 5, 2018

From rising discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities to the resurgence of fascist and white supremacist ideologies, both the EU and the United States are grappling with how to respond to the rise of hate¬¬ and fear-based politics. Magnified by foreign and special interest propaganda and misinformation, these dangerous and highly divisive movements could significantly challenge the health and future of democracy around the world. This month, I joined the German Marshall Fund Memorial fellowship program to learn more about how European democracies are responding to these threats, and to share how Democracy Fund is standing up to defend democracy here in the U.S.

After visiting with political, philanthropic, and community leaders in five countries, I was especially inspired by the work being done to foster conversation and connection between communities in both Athens, Greece and Sofia, Bulgaria. In Athens, the civil sector has created common spaces for communities to engage with each other through the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, and local government initiatives are working to integrate migrant communities. In Bulgaria, the Sofia Platform is helping communities reconnect by developing a new model for civic education, including an updated syllabus and new tools and trainings for teachers.

At Democracy Fund, we believe that healthy democracy is rooted in the recognition of the dignity of every individual and in the equal protection of their rights under the law. All people have intrinsic value and bigotry in any form undermines democracy. Grantees of our Just and Inclusive Society project are working to defend the rights and voices of targeted communities through communications and legal strategies. Democracy Fund has also funded new research on The Rise of the Alt-Right and is investing in projects that empower faith leaders to help bridge some of our nation’s most painful divides.

We also believe that constructive dialogue within and between political parties is essential to governing a complex society like ours. Americans must find ways to reestablish trust in our political leaders and institutions, and also with each other. In previous blog posts, we’ve shared how elevating constructive voices, celebrating civility, and ensuring Congress looks more like America are important keys to achieving this goal—but it’s not enough. As Speaker of the House Paul Ryan recently explained, “How do you make inclusive, aspirational politics … strategically valuable? How do you make it so this is the winning thing, this is how you win elections?”

To dig into this question, Democracy Fund is partnering with universities, think tanks, and nonprofit organizations to convene leaders from across the political spectrum and in communities across the country to listen, learn, and connect with each other. Through in-depth conversations about American identity and political philosophy, these projects aim to develop new ideas, strategies, and actionable steps towards a more inclusive America.

In a series of bipartisan events, The Project on Political Reform at the University of Chicago is convening political scientists and practitioners to discuss the scope and nature of governmental and political dysfunction. Participants work together to help identify pragmatic solutions and common-sense strategies for improving political accountability, campaign laws and practices, structural incentives influencing candidate and office-holder behavior, and relationships between governing institutions. The American Project on the Future of Conservatism at Pepperdine University is a multi-year program that brings together conservative leaders and scholars to assess where the conservative movement stands today and to imagine its healthy future. Contributors at recent events have published essays and media pieces and a collaborative principles document entitled A Way Forward, which offers innovative insights on conservatism in an age of rising populism.

The Inclusive Republic Series, an Aspen Socrates Program, provides a forum for emerging leaders and civically engaged citizens from a wide range of backgrounds and sectors to discuss American identity through examination of some of our nation’s founding documents and with expert-moderated dialogue. The Prospects for Liberal Democracy Series at the CATO Institute aims to mitigate the growing threat of populism through discussions about the future of liberal democracy in the United States among a diverse group of activists, academics, and political leaders. By promoting civil discourse in communities across the country, these convenings are working to change the nature of our national dialogue.

To push back against the rise of hate and fear-based politics, we must find ways to rebuild trust and connection with our communities and with each other. By focusing on the ideals and values that unite us, rather than divide us, these grantees give us hope for the future. We’re grateful for their commitment to helping build a more inclusive America and a stronger democracy. I look forward to sharing what we’re learning as these and other projects continue.

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From Strangers to Neighbors: Creating a More Inclusive America

Laura A. Maristany

March 17, 2020

Last week, schools closed and many of us transitioned to a work-from-home schedule. In the same week, I celebrated my three-year anniversary at Democracy Fund, where I lead the Constructive Politics portfolio. It felt ironic that while I was celebrating three years of supporting an approach to building a more inclusive America, one where everyone can feel like they belong and has a seat at the table, the country was asked to practice extreme levels of social distancing to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Now, more than ever, I am sure many of us realize that feeling a sense of belonging requires a certain level of human interaction and connection. In fact, building connections with each other — through listening and learning in communities across the country — is the fundamental goal of the Constructive Politics portfolio. And even though we find ourselves in unusual times, Democracy Fund’s Constructive Politics grantees will continue to focus on developing long-term strategies that support opportunities for connecting, building, listening and work on creating more welcoming spaces to explore what unites us and help change the narrative of our national dialogue. We believe that long-term strategies to help foster an inclusive, multiethnic, multi-perspective democracy are key to defending and strengthening our political system. This couldn’t have been better exemplified by the current controversy around the U.S. government’s response to the coronavirus emergency.

While I believe our government has a key role to play, I have always believed that a heathy skepticism of institutional capacity to solve problems can be a good thing. Today, as I watch many Americans—including many of my friends—express skepticism about the government’s ability to respond effectively to this crisis, I feel somewhat validated in that belief. However, when healthy skepticism gives way to the deep distrust and polarization we see today, addressing division proactively is critical if we want to come up with effective solutions. This is as true for this crisis as it is for our work to mitigate polarization nationwide. From local politics to the highest levels of government, our inability to see our voices represented in our communities, policies, and institutions, fuels the distrust and polarization that is splitting our country apart. And this predicament is especially true for communities that have historically been underrepresented or outright excluded from participating in our system of government.

In late 2018, as former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was finishing his last month in Congress, he shared some of his concerns about the extent to which polarization was weakening America’s institutions. In his 2018 analysis, Ryan asked: “How do you make inclusive, aspirational politics … strategically valuable? How do you make it so this is the winning thing, this is how you win elections?” Winning elections is certainly a powerful, perhaps the most powerful, incentive to embrace more inclusive politics, but the implications of his question reach beyond electoral politics.

Achieving the inclusive politics Ryan talks about requires a long-term commitment to building a truly inclusive democracy. In order to mitigate divisiveness and polarization, we must find ways to build bridges with our political leaders and institutions, as well as with each other. I’ve shared how elevating constructive voices, celebrating civility, and ensuring Congress looks more like America are important keys to achieving this goal. But trust is a very fragile construct. It takes time to develop and is very delicate to maintain. Strategies that aim to develop trust will take a long time, require experimentation, and will be equally difficult to scale. In part, this means that these strategies are high risk, full of uncertainty, and even after implementation they could take a long time to take root.

In spite of this uncertainty, at Democracy Fund, we’ve chosen to continue experimenting with approaches that tackle long-term challenges. We continue to believe that informed dialogue and principled compromise are essential to governing a large, diverse, and complex society like America. The COVID-19 pandemic plus the current climate of hyper-polarization continue to force us to focus on reactive strategies. Fortunately, we have partnered with social entrepreneurs who are rising to the challenge and experimenting with new ways to mitigate drivers of division over the long term. We have also chosen to partner across the political spectrum and especially with those on the right in this effort to create a more inclusive democracy.

The American Project on the Future of Conservatism at Pepperdine University, a multi-year program that brings together conservative leaders and scholars, has spent the last three years trying to assess divisions across the conservative movement with the goal of imagining its healthy future. The Project was one of the first Democracy Fund grantees to draw the connection between loneliness and polarization, calling for a renewed “Conservatism of Connection.” Conversations with conservative-leaning thought leaders since early 2017 have focused on how issues of loneliness, isolation, and lack of belonging appeared as the deeper engines of division within the conservative movement. These led to the development of the project’s Way Forward document and recommendations, and the creation of spaces for conservatives to continue to engage on issues around the future of the movement.

Since 2016, a growing number of organizations and movements are recalibrating their approaches to adopt new paths to consensus building. What these organizations have come to realize is that for people to feel like they belong, they must see themselves as co-creators of what the future of America will be. To this end, we are seeing organizations like The Inclusive Republic Series, an Aspen Socrates Program, and our Faith in Democracy cohort increasingly asking themselves how they can help build more inclusive policy making processes in the communities they work with.

Building meaningful connections across different communities is a necessary condition to reduce polarization, but this alone won’t be enough to solve the many policy challenges our country faces. From stopping the spread of Covid-19 to addressing climate change, Americans disagree profoundly on how to tackle these challenges. And even when there’s agreement, and decision makers buy into the proposed solutions, change is still hard. To tackle this challenge, organizations like Welcoming America are using the power of networks to identify more ways to create truly inclusive paths towards consensus building. Through innovative leadership development programs, Welcoming America leads a strategy aimed at making communities more prosperous by reinforcing their members’ sense of belonging.

Connecting with individuals who hold dramatically different views from the ones we are comfortable with requires a commitment to diversity of opinion, and, most importantly, a willingness to practice how to disagree constructively. The Better Arguments Project at the Aspen Institute was created to encourage Americans to engage with each other in better, more productive debates about core American ideals. In an era of deep divisions, the Better Arguments Project is based on the premise that American civic life doesn’t need fewer arguments; it needs better arguments.

Another grantee, Millennial Action Project, has been able to leverage their network of state legislators to create spaces for conversations among diverse community members with a spectrum of different perspectives through their Red and Blue Dialogues program. Along with members of their local State Future Caucuses, they’re bridging the divide to discuss the issues most important to young people across the country.

In addition, in an attempt to put the Constructive Politics Pluralism approach into practice, Democracy Fund has partnered with Welcoming America and the Better Arguments Project to bring together thought leaders interested in addressing root causes of polarization. We were able to co-create a space for collegial conversation that helped seed new ideas, relationships, and opportunities to address some of the complexities and challenges that we face in bridge building work. At the event last January, almost fifty grant makers representing different viewpoints came together under the auspices that creating a greater sense of we starts with us.

Make no mistake, this is hard work that requires a proactive long-term vision. One conversation at a time, our grantees are proving that making belonging everyone’s business inspires lasting change. By creating more welcoming spaces to explore what unites us, our grantees are working to change the nature of our national dialogue into a more inclusive one. I am grateful for their commitment to helping build a more inclusive America and a stronger democracy.

In this time of deep uncertainty, I’m reminded of what the future of a healthy democracy can look like if we build stronger bridges between people. As Eric Liu said recently, “the coronavirus may require us now to practice ‘social distancing’— but only in a physical, embodied sense. When it comes to the heart, the spirit, and the mind, coronavirus requires us more than ever before to practice civic love.”

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Bridging the Bicoastal Bubbles on Civic Tech

Chris Nehls

September 12, 2016

For all of their enormous clout globally, Washington and the San Francisco Bay Area can be pretty insular places. It’s a dynamic that’s reinforced by the know-it-all attitude of the dominant professional class of each. Washingtonians working in governmental circles think nobody understands politics like they do, while Bay Area tech professionals claim to be transforming humanity through lines of code.

I recently had the opportunity to travel to the Bay Area in an effort organized by the Lincoln Initiative to bring these two dynamic but distant communities closer together. They actually have much more in common than it seems: Plenty of Bay Area technologists are deeply passionate about government and politics, while D.C. supports a vibrant and growing civic tech scene. But the bicoastal bubbles still have a lot to learn from one another.

The Lincoln Initiative invited me and other D.C.-types on a tour of several Bay Area civic and political tech firms, including Crowdpac and Brigade. The leaders of these start-ups demonstrated a deep commitment for improving American politics by making public participation easier and more satisfying. They have developed sophisticated new online tools designed to draw more people into the political system and make it easier to find and organize like-minded fellow citizens. The scale of their ambition to help Americans re-engage with the democratic system is inspiring.

I was struck along my tour by how the tools these firms were developing focused on a single critical problem within the current political system, whether it be the dominance of mega-donors in campaign finance or the difficulty of building networks of like-minded voters. In the context of the Silicon Valley bubble’s fondness for elevator pitches of business plans, this makes sense (Brigade’s Matt Mahan, for example, described Brigade as the “LinkedIn for politics.”)

But few in Washington would take the approach that the difficulties of effective governance at the federal level can be solved by a killer app. Our system of government is shaped by countless competing priorities and power dynamics. Simply adding more of something to (or taking it out from) the system is unlikely to generate much change in a modern democracy.

Democracy Fund’s Governance Program, for example, learned in the process of constructing our systems map that problems of campaign finance and civic engagement combine with other factors to affect the performance of the federal system in complex ways. As some D.C.-based civic tech firms and nonprofits believe, there may be greater leverage in improving the responsiveness of federal politics by focusing first on solutions that can strengthen government institutions. Without doing so, devising new online tools to amplify the public’s voice simply adds more noise to an already cacophonous system.

Congress can be a peculiar and frustrating place. The perspective of Washington insiders can help Silicon Valley create tools that align with how the institution really works and how members and staff do their jobs. With this awareness, the enormous technical talent present in the Bay Area can better be brought to bear on the challenges facing our democracy.

The work of bridging the bicoastal bubbles on civic tech by groups like the Lincoln Initiative is a great first step in this effort. Hopefully in the near future, techies can leave their own bubbles and head east.

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Mapping the Legislative Ecosystem

Chris Nehls

July 5, 2017

Few things about Congress are simple: even different types of information it generates as a legislative body – from bill language and roll call votes, to members’ press releases and statements into the official record – are processed and maintained by a myriad of offices. Over the last half-dozen years, public servants of those offices and citizens invested in open access and easy use of the data Congress produces have gathered annually at the Legislative Data Transparency Conference, hosted by the Committee on House Administration. Originally held as an opportunity for the various stewards of legislative data to discuss collective challenges, in recent years the conference also has become a moment to herald the unappreciated success of the legislative data community in standardizing and releasing datasets that help the American people understand congressional efforts and hold elected representatives accountable.

On June 27, I joined OpenGov Foundation Executive Director Seamus Kraft and Demand Progress Policy Director Daniel Schuman on stage at this year’s conference. Our panel discussed how the legislative data community can use Democracy Fund’s Congress & Public Trust systems map to contextualize its efforts in the broader congressional reform movement.

WATCH: Mapping Congress to Power Meaningful Reform & Innovation

Successes like publishing bill text in machine-readable formats or creating common xml schema are not going to end up on the nightly news. But a proper legislative data infrastructure makes it possible for bill histories and vote records to become evident with a few clicks of a mouse or for instant visualization of how a bill would change existing law. These types of innovations make it easier for members of Congress and their staff and to do their jobs and keep congressional conduct transparent for the electorate. In the broader transformation it encourages, in other words, legislative data reform efforts help strengthen congressional capacity and support a more informed citizenry.

It’s important from a systems perspective to remember that even work on small-scale projects can create ripples of change in a complex environment like Congress. As Schuman reminded the audience, every new dataset that comes online opens possibilities for techies to build new tools that help fill knowledge gaps people within the system can use to solve common challenges.

The panel suggested ways that individual organizations can utilize the systems map to think strategically about their contributions to institutional change. For example, Kraft said that the OpenGov Foundation drilled down on the map in the context of their product design, discovering in the process that constituent engagement was a vitally underserved focus area they could impact with a new project to transform congressional offices’ processing of voicemail and constituent calls.

The systems map also helps remind narrowly-focused communities like the one we addressed Tuesday that their collective efforts also impact the work of similar communities focused on different types of challenges. Washington is full of such groups, whether they focus on government ethics and transparency, the rules and procedures of Congress, of the ways in which advocacy groups make their case to lawmakers. Actions by one community change the dynamics of the system in significant ways for others. The challenge for those across such communities who care about a healthy congressional system is working in concert with one another to amplify efforts.

For our part, our team recently revised our systems map to represent our new thinking on congressional oversight of the Executive Branch. These changes better reflect the importance of government watchdog organizations, transparency and government oversight groups, whistleblowers, the media, and others in holding Congress accountable to its Constitutional responsibility to oversee the conduct of federal offices and the White House.

To learn more about our systems map project, please visit democracyfund.org/congressmap or email us at congressmap@democracyfund.org to sign up for email updates.

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New Report Highlights Challenges to Congress’ Capacity to Perform Their Role in Democracy

Chris Nehls

August 7, 2017

Imagine having a job that requires you to master complex subject matter thrown at you at a moment’s notice in rapid fashion. Now imagine that you have practically no time, training, or resource support to learn that material with any real depth. Nobody else around the office knows anything about what’s on your plate either to even point you in the right direction. Oh, and you’re using a 10-year-old computer and work practices are such that you’re still literally pushing paper around much of the day.

How would you feel about the job you were doing in that situation? How long would you stay?

Unfortunately, for many congressional staffers, this description is all too apt of their workplace. New research authored by Kathy Goldschmidt of the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) reveals how dissatisfied congressional staff are with their ability to perform key aspects of their jobs they understand are vital to the function of the institution as a deliberative legislative body. The dysfunction that the public sees in Washington, the report reveals, really is the product of a Congress that lacks the capacity to fulfill its obligations to Americans.

CMF researchers performed a gap analysis of surveys they took of senior-level House and Senate staffers, measuring the distance between how many respondents said they were “very satisfied” with the performance of key aspects of their workplace they deemed “very important” to the effectiveness of their chamber. The largest gaps appeared in the three areas most closely connected to the institution’s ability to develop well-informed public policy and legislation and with Congress’s technological infrastructure to support office needs.

Although more than 80 percent of staffers though it was “very important” for them to have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to support members’ official duties, only 15 percent said they were “very satisfied’ with their chamber’s performance.

CMF found similar yawning gaps in satisfaction with the training, professional development, and other human resource support they needed to execute their duties, access to high-quality nonpartisan policy expertise, and the time and resources members have to understand pending legislation. Just six percent of respondents were “very satisfied” with congressional technological infrastructure.

These findings reflect a decades-long trend by Congress to divest in its own capacity to master legislative subject material. Just last month, more than a hundred members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted to slash funding for the Congressional Budget Office, despite its integral role in the legislative process.

But as the report concludes, opening the funding spigot and hiring more legislative staff alone will not solve the challenges to the resiliency of Congress as a democratic institution.

The Democracy Fund’s Governance Team has taken up ranks with a growing community to push for a more systemic approach to improving the operations and functions of our 240-year-old national legislature struggling to adapt to the forces of modernity. Certainly, Congress can do much more to support its own internal culture of learning and expertise: but civil society has a critical role in rebuilding congressional resiliency, too. Congress has just started to bring the vast technical and subject area know-how that exists outside its marble edifices to assist a process of institutional transformation. The work of establishing trusted modes of communications with constituents in this digital age, meanwhile, barely has begun.

The CMF report performs a critical pathfinding role, illuminating where the places of most dire need within the institution exist. I read it as an optimistic document: congressional staff know that their deepest deficiencies are critically important to the institution’s health. Energy is on the side of reform. The challenge ahead is not to be discouraged by the scale of the problems but to work systemically so that change can build upon itself and ripple through the system.

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Congress Needs Modern Tech to Keep Up with Constituents’ Needs. Here’s How Philanthropy Can Help.

Chris Nehls

July 12, 2018

Even before the emergence of so-called “resistance tech,” investors, venture funds, and foundations were pumping money into tech tools that make it easier for citizens to express their opinions to their elected representatives. This support has empowered constituents with more ways to contact their elected officials, and as a result, a civic engagement has grown over the past decade, burying members of Congress with ever-increasing volume of emails, phone calls, tweets, texts, and even faxes (yes, faxes).

Although civic engagement is essential to our democracy, Congress sorely lacks the commensurate resources to keep up with the staggering volume of constituent communication. Several reasons exist for this disparity. For one, Congressional offices are a minuscule market when compared to the business opportunity that activating millions of constituents represents to start-ups. Institutional rules and security requirements further hamper product innovation. Vendors must go through rigorous and opaque certification processes with House and Senate administrators before they can release products to congressional staff. These administrators have forbidden common workplace applications like Slack for security concerns. Meanwhile, Congress doesn’t invest adequately in its own technological and communications capacity to the point that offices still have fax machines in 2018.

Democracy Fund and our affiliated social welfare organization, Democracy Fund Voice, recently awarded several grants to address the disparity between the tools available to congressional staff and the technological innovations of the digital advocacy industry. These grants will enable staff to gauge constituent sentiment quickly and efficiently, deliver more meaningful and satisfying replies, and save offices countless hours of staff time currently spent on menial tasks. They also pave the way for further innovation.

A grant to the Tides Foundation will support the Popvox LegiDash Fund to build “LegiDash,” a closed social network for constituents and member offices. This tool will give congressional staff a new way to connect with folks back home one-on-one, offer a clearer picture of district sentiment in the aggregate, and provide a trusted alternative communications portal to Facebook, satisfying a growing concern on Capitol Hill about what the tech giant does with the data generated on members’ official pages.

Congressional vendor Fireside21 will use a grant from Democracy Fund Voice to research machine-learning techniques that automate much of the rote, labor-intensive processes that member offices use to organize bulk constituent email. The resulting improvements of this research could save offices dozens of personnel-hours a week and make further advances – such as content analysis of constituents’ social media comments on elected representatives’ accounts – possible.

These grants follow the success of Democracy Fund grantee the OpenGov Foundation to develop and deploy Article One, a voice-to-text tool that saves offices many hours by transcribing constituent voicemails. Fireside21 recently partnered with the nonprofit to offer this service to members in the House of Representatives.

This approach is an experiment in using philanthropy to build technological capacity for congressional offices in ways the marketplace cannot provide. Importantly, these grantees are trusted partners of congressional stakeholders, with years of experience collaborating with Congress to understand the needs of members and staff as the foundation of product design. If the grants are successful, harried staff will have capacity to craft more meaningful responses to constituents in less time, rebuilding constituents’ trust that Washington is listening. They will also free up staff hours that offices can reallocate to researching public policy, drafting legislation, and conducting oversight.

Using technology to make the most labor-intensive parts of constituent service more efficient is an exciting prospect, but it’s not our only goal in funding this space. We will continue to explore other projects and tools that can rebuild congressional capacity to address the nation’s most pressing public policy issues. Lorelei Kelly at Georgetown University’s Beeck Center likens this lawmaking capacity to a technical stack, or the overlapping components that build a technological system or software platform. Right now, this stack is breaking down. Technology can assist members of Congress in a variety of ways, from helping to build relationships with subject-matter experts at the district-level, creating new venues for constituent-member discussion in real time, leveraging troves of data to formulate policy and evaluating whether those initiatives are meeting desired outcomes.

Building this capacity makes it more likely that constituent sentiment, now often channeled into mass advocacy campaigns, can actually produce desired policy change. Congress needs knowledge-building solutions, like quick access to high-quality, impartial information; situational awareness within the institution itself; visibility into staff networks working on shared issues; and – universally – more time to act upon constituent needs.

Ideally, Congress would give itself this capability with an in-house version of 18F or a Congressional Digital Service; until that happens, philanthropy and private investors have a civic obligation to reinforce the technological infrastructure of the first branch of government. The challenges are so fundamental that even modest levels of funding, if properly placed, can create transformative change within the congressional workplace. A stronger democracy will be the ROI.