Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Archives

Press Release

Democracy Fund, Humanity United, and Omidyar Network Denounce U.S. Family Separation Policy

Democracy Fund

June 1, 2018

In response to the U.S. government’s policy separating parents and children seeking asylum, Democracy Fund, Omidyar Network’s Governance and Citizen Engagement initiative, and Humanity United released the following statement. The organizations are part of the Omidyar Group, a diverse collection of companies, organizations, and initiatives, each guided by its own approach, but all united by a common desire to catalyze social impact, founded by Pierre and Pam Omidyar.

As three organizations working for change, we stand for upholding the United States’ long-standing commitment to fundamental human rights and protecting the most vulnerable.

The U.S. action separating families fleeing persecution and exploitation at the border is an affront to human dignity—theirs and ours. We believe that forcibly separating mothers and fathers from their children is inhumane.

The United States is a powerful symbol of acceptance for the marginalized, of safety for those fleeing persecution, and of hope for those inspired by the democratic ideals cherished by its people. The U.S. leads the world by example, and when we fail to act with dignity and decency, others take note.

“The families fleeing to our country have often endured the unthinkable and deserve the best of America: kindness, respect, and protection. What we are instead seeing is a response that dehumanizes and traumatizes these children and their parents. This policy turns children into pawns and statistics, when they are kids just like our own—who love and need their families. The U.S. must not fail its basic responsibility to protect children from being exploited, trafficked, and persecuted. We must be better than that,” said Randy Newcomb, President and CEO of Humanity United.

“Breaking up migrant families isn’t just an immigration and humanitarian crisis, it undermines the democratic norms that our country was founded on. All people, regardless of where they’re from, deserve to be treated with dignity,” said Joe Goldman, President of Democracy Fund. “It is essential that all of us – from elected leaders to civil society and citizens – stand up to protect the intrinsic value and basic rights of all people.”

“The emotionally and physically damaging practice of separating young children from parents is abhorrent. The U.S. response to families seeking asylum and refuge further traumatizes families and impedes access to a fair process for seeking asylum. These policies do not advance American democracy or values,” said Stephen King, Omidyar Network partner, and global lead for its Governance and Citizen Engagement initiative.

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Ensuring Language Access for Minority Voters Relies on a Fair and Accurate Census

Terry Ao Minnis

April 17, 2018

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.

The Census Bureau continues to face several challenges this decade that have put a fair and accurate census at risk, including funding shortfalls for virtually the entire decade. These funding shortfalls have led the Census Bureau to make tough decisions, like cancelling all on-site field tests in 2017 and curtailing its End-to-End Test in 2018. While the decades-long reduced funding has had consequences, both Congress and the Administration — recognizing the deficiencies in funding to date and the challenges facing the Census — have taken steps to move the Census Bureau in the right direction. Congress recently boosted Census Bureau funding in the recent Fiscal Year 2018 omnibus spending bill, nearly doubling the 2017 funding level and providing $1.13 billion more than the administration’s adjusted request for 2018. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross stated that “an efficient 2020 Census that provides a full, fair and accurate count has been one of [his] highest priorities since being confirmed,” in asking for an increase in funding for the 2020 Census. It is imperative that the 2020 Census gets back on track as an inaccurate count weakens our democracy with just two years to finalize and implement the decennial census. For all these reasons, a fair and accurate census is important for language minority voters and for those who work to protect their voting rights. We can all pitch in and take steps to ensure everyone gets counted when Census Day 2020 arrives!

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.

Follow Terry on Twitter @Tao_Minnis.

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A New Fund Aims to Put the Public Back into the Public Square

Paul Waters

January 23, 2018

Today four foundations are announcing a new joint fund designed to fuel a new era of journalism rooted in listening to communities. The Community Listening and Engagement Fund (CLEF) is dedicated to helping news organizations better listen, engage, and produce more relevant content for the communities they serve. Democracy Fund is honored to join the News Integrity Initiative, Lenfest Institute for Journalism Education, and the Knight Foundation in creating this new resource to bring proven models of public-powered journalism to more newsrooms around the country.

The new fund, which launches with $650,000 from the four founding partners, will subsidize the costs for newsrooms to adopt Hearken and GroundSource, two incredible platforms designed by journalists to bring the public more deeply into the reporting process.

Hearken provides newsrooms with unique tools to foster genuine audience engagement. Their model, called “public-powered journalism,” puts everyday people at the center of journalism, so they are able to communicate their information needs to reporters directly. Audiences are not only consumers, but partners in the production of meaningful stories. GroundSource is a unique platform that connects newsrooms to their communities. Outlets are assigned phone numbers that establishes an open line of communication between reporters and their audiences. Journalists can seek perspective on certain stories in the works, or encourage people to share thoughts on local issues most important to them.

We understand that at the root of so many challenges newsrooms face is the need to make journalism more relevant and responsive to the public. Developing a culture, practice, and workflows around listening is the key to unlocking this potential. Supporting tools like Hearken and GroundSource will help rebuild trust, rethink business models, and rebuild public interest journalism in news outlets throughout the country.

Read more about the Community Listening and Engagement Fund, why we love the CLEF name, and learn how to apply here. We see this new fund as core to our strategy for strengthening trustworthy journalism.

At Democracy Fund, our approach to journalism is focused on building trust and engagement. We are working on many fronts to foster practices that make news outlets more responsive and representative of their communities. To that end, we support efforts to help newsrooms authentically connect with and involve community members, transform reporting practices, represent the perspectives of diverse communities, and produce more relevant and thus more highly valued news.

We break this work up into two key tracks focused on Audience Engagement and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Through our Audience Engagement work we invest in innovations and support projects that help journalists better engage and involve their audiences in news generation, production, dissemination, and discussion. For example, we support the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas whose rigorous research is helping test what works and what doesn’t, the Gather Platform which is building a community of practice around engaged journalism, the Coral Project which is helping newsrooms build online communities and the American Press Institute’s Metrics for News program which helps newsrooms understand what communities want and how best to deliver it.

We recognize that no single product, practice, or platform can improve trust and authentic audience engagement if America’s newsrooms and the organizations supporting them remain disproportionately white in their staff and male in their leadership. We see steady progress on diversity, equity, and inclusion as a necessary condition of success in our work to mend the deteriorating connections between news outlets and the communities they serve.

Our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work focuses on improving the diversity of sources, stories, and staff in news outlets. This work occurs across three dimensions. The first pertains to creating an inclusive environment at news outlets. The second constitutes recruiting, retaining, and promoting diverse staff, including leadership. The third involves working to develop and sustain minority ownership of media properties like Blavity, Q City Metro and the Richmond Times. We are excited for the work of our grantees like the Ida B. Wells Society which is expanding the ranks of investigative reporters and editors of color, the Maynard Institute which is training newsroom leaders, the Emma Bowen Foundation which provides internships for diverse journalism students, and many others. We have begun an exercise to map this space on an institutional level, and we are excited to connect with new organizations.

We believe that the Community Listening and Engagement Fund can help us work across these strategies, accelerating the adoption of new practices that put people back at the center of journalism. We are grateful to the Lenfest Institute who is hosting and managing the fund and to the vision of the News Integrity and Knight Foundation who are joining us in the launch today. At Democracy Fund, we are committed to supporting innovations in engaged journalism through grantmaking, partnerships and collaboration to strengthen the Fourth Estate and the democratic principles that our nation is founded on. We will continue to seek out opportunities to collaborate with news outlets, journalism support organizations, and partner funders to achieve this goal.

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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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Engaged Journalism: Putting Communities at the Center of Journalism

Teresa Gorman

April 26, 2017

This post was co-authored by Paul Waters

The Democracy Fund’s Public Square program is dedicated to supporting vibrant and thriving media through increasing engaged journalism practices in news outlets across the country. Two of the most common questions we hear about engaged journalism are: what is engaged journalism? And how (once you’ve figured out what it is) do you help the practice spread? To begin answering those questions, we commissioned two papers from Dot Connector Studio. Today, we are releasing those papers publicly for journalists, news organizations, funders, and any others that may find them useful.

The first is “Pathways to Engagement: Understanding How Newsrooms are Working with Communities.” In this paper, we have documented a broad spectrum of efforts that help position communities at the center of journalism by creating a taxonomy of engagement practices. Different approaches are outlined, along with useful examples from the field. We refer to the full spectrum of ideas presented here as “Engaged Journalism.” We undertook this effort primarily to clarify our own thinking, not to enforce a uniformity on others. We hope our taxonomy will be of use to the field, but we also see the value in continuing to push and pull on the meanings behind the words we use.

The second paper is “Communities of Practice: Lessons for the Journalism Field.” Organizations in the field need new solutions and ways to spread, compare, replicate, scale, and evaluate engaged journalism. Communities of practice (CoP) are one way to accomplish that for engaged journalism, and also for other groups. This paper examines the theory and evolution of CoPs and explores in greater detail some CoPs that are developing with those working in engaged journalism. The appendix provides a checklist for building and expanding CoPs for any type of group.

We hope that these lessons and examples—drawn from leaders and practitioners—will challenge and inspire both journalists and those who fund them. These papers are designed to share with your colleagues, newsroom leaders, and even community members. We hope that the paper on Communities of Practice will prove useful not only for those seeking to organize CoPs around engaged and local journalism, but for other funders and organizers in the space aiming to coalesce around other crucial responses to disruption in news.

We welcome your feedback on these ideas and look forward to hearing more from you about how engaged journalism and communities of practice are being adopted in your newsrooms and communities. Please send feedback to localnewslab@democracyfund.org.

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The State of Diversity in the Media: A Field Analysis

Taylor T. Harris

February 22, 2017

Diversity in the media is critical to a functioning democracy. In 1827, editors at the Freedom’s Journal, the first African American owned and operated newspaper in the U.S., declared in the paper’s founding mission statement,“We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us.” In short, one voice cannot speak for all.

However, annual surveys conducted by the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) and the Radio Television Digital News Foundation (RTDNF) show that news media professionals simply do not reflect the overall diversity of our country. The vast majority of our journalists are white men. Moreover, they increasingly reside in urban centers on the coasts of the country.

Diversity comes in many forms: racial, ethnic, gender, ideological, ability, geographic, and economic and the inclusion of other underrepresented communities to name a few. Fair coverage of all diverse communities ceases to exist if there is only one dominant voice telling the American story. Even well intentioned coverage can suffer from bias when we only tell a story through one lens.

Through the Local News & Participation systems map, Democracy Fund has described how “the decreasing diversity of sources, stories, and staff reduces the quantity, quality, and relevance of local journalism. This diminishes the engagement of the public in civic affairs and newsrooms. As the public becomes less engaged with the newsroom, it becomes more isolated, and diversity of sources, stories, and staff continues to dwindle.” For this reason, Democracy Fund is committed to working to support more diverse and inclusive journalism.

The Democracy Fund recently completed a field analysis of organizations working to support and expand diversity and inclusivity in media. The goal of this effort was to better map and understand the broader field and identify new ways to change the systems that shape our media. We’ve shared highlights from analysis and our process below.

What Do We Know?

The American Society of News Editors (ASNE) and the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) both keep track of diversity in the media through annual surveys. In their 2016 survey, ASNE received responses from 737 news publications (online and print) in the U.S. The results showed that minorities (defined by ASNE as black, Asian American, Hispanic, and Native American employees) consisted of 17 percent of the newsroom workforce.

The most recent RTDNA/Hofstra University survey on diversity in radio and television was published in July of 2016. The survey included responses from 1,286 television stations and 484 radio stations in the U.S., and found that minorities represent 23 percent of the workforce at TV stations. At radio stations, minorities comprise a mere nine percent of the radio workforce.

Women represent 44.2 percent of the TV news station workforce, according to the RTDNA study. While specific numbers were not given for radio overall, the survey noted that there were twice as many men as women in radio. Representation in newsroom leadership is a particular issue. Minorities make up only 5.6 percent of general managers at non-Hispanic TV stations, while women make up only of 18.9 percent of TV general managers.

Who is Working for Media Diversity?

So far, we have identified more than 50 organizations that have a strong commitment, mission, or purpose to expand diversity in the media and build newsrooms that reflect their communities. Many of these organizations are over 20 years old, and some date back further than that. While the circumstances of the industry have slowly improved, more work must be done.

In 1968, the Kerner Commission reported that the number of black journalists employed by the news media was “less than five percent.” Today, black journalists only constitute 4.68 percent of newsrooms, according to ASNE’s 2016 survey. To better serve communities, every news organization or publication providing information must make a commitment to diversity not only to reflect their audiences but to retain them.

To provide organization and structure to our analysis, we categorized the organizations working to improve diversity under the headers membership, research, advocacy, or training organizations – though many organizations provide several of these functions.

Membership organizations include those organizations that serve a specific and diverse group of journalists. Those organizations include groups such as: National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), and Association of Women in Sports Media (AWSM). These organizations host annual conferences and regional convenings throughout the year that offer workshops, careers fairs, and seminars for their members.

Research organizations conduct both qualitative and quantitative research on diversity in the media. Organizations such as the Media Diversity Forum at Louisiana State University and the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues are dedicated to researching issues about the practice of diversity in the media. As noted above, RTDNA and ASNE have annual diversity surveys that are used as a reference point for media.

Advocacy organizations advocate for various causes related to diversity in the media. Women’s Media Center and Women, Action, & the Media, known as WAM!, both advocate for the image of and prosperity of women in the news media. All Digitocracy and Journal-isms both produce content that discusses the journalism industry’s practices. The latest diverse hirings, firings, and news pertaining to ethnic media are available on these organizations’ sites.

Training organizations educate and further develop the skills of minority journalists, aiding in the creation of a pipeline for minority professionals into the news industry. Examples of these organizations include the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education (MIJE), T. Howard Foundation, and Emma Bowen Foundation.

Collaboration is key amongst these field-building organizations and with news outlets. Working together helps these organizations accomplish their mission and strategic goals.

Moving Forward

These 50 organizations can provide many services to legacy and non-legacy news media. Utilizing these organizations to reevaluate outlets’ approaches to diversity, including their hiring processes, can protect integrity in journalism and our country’s democracy.

Because of organizations such as Writers of Color and Journalism Diversity Project, which maintain a database of diverse groups of journalists and their skill sets, media outlets can no longer claim they are unable to find “qualified minorities” as a valid excuse for their lack of diversity. Journalism can better engage and reflect the public if journalists, field building organizations, and news outlets continue to work in tandem.

By doing so, we are another step closer to ensuring diverse voices are not only being heard, seen, and read in the media, but are also creating the media content which contributes to our marketplace of ideas. The events of the 2016 election year has only reinforced this. It has become clear since the election that many across the country have felt ill-represented, spoken down to and misunderstood by fly-in journalists. In many ways middle america’s experience in 2016 and response has deep parallels with the experience of minority communities over decades.

Surmounting the barriers of accessibility for the widest range of diverse and minority talent in order to better reflect the composition of the American population will be an arduous, continuous effort that should evolve in tandem with the nation’s changing demographics. Yet, such an effort is paramount if the media is to adequately serve and inform the public square.

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Taylor T. Harris is an intern with the Public Square Program at Democracy Fund. Taylor joined the Democracy Fund in September 2016 following her completion of her undergraduate degree. She graduated magna cum laude receiving her B.A. in Print/Online Journalism from Howard University. While completing her undergraduate degree Taylor was active in various media and community service organizations on campus including acting as Editor-in-Chief of her college’s newspaper, The Hilltop. Taylor has worked at organizations such as The Dallas Morning News and The Washington Post, and freelanced for organizations such as American Press Institute and USA Today. She also received fellowships from ProPublica, Online News Association, National Association of Black Journalists, and Investigative Editors and Reporters.

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New Year, New Section 203 Jurisdictions: Tips on Supporting Voters with Limited English Proficiency

Terry Ao Minnis

December 20, 2016

Stacey Scholl co-authored this piece with Terry Ao Minnis.

In 2016 some Alaska Natives experienced something years in the making — the choice to use an election ballot in their primary language of Yup’ik, Inupiaq, or Gwich’in. “When people heard (about the changes) they got a lot more excited to be a part of the process,” an interpreter explained for Mike Toyukak as he voted in Alaska’s primary election. Mr. Toyukak lives and votes in Manokotak, Alaska and was a part of a lawsuit filed in 2013 resulting in Alaska providing election language assistance for 29 communities through 2020.

Apart from litigation, there is another routine process designed to give federal protection to large groups of people needing language assistance. This month, the Director of the U.S. Census Bureau released updated determinations for required language assistance coverage under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), replacing the last set of determinations made in October 2011. The new determinations increase the number of states covered, at least partially, from 25 to 29, and includes, for the first time, areas of Georgia, Idaho, Iowa and Oklahoma. This may be a big shift for some of these jurisdictions. Moving forward government officials will be looking for best practices and next steps as they chart out what compliance will look like. For some it could even start with the fundamentals: what is this requirement and why it is important to their voters?

Currently, over 25 million U.S. residents have limited English proficiency. While ballots can be complicated and confusing even for proficient English speakers, those with limited English proficiency face more difficulty. In 1975, Congress amended the VRA to give these voters some relief and reinforce their value in our representative democracy by adding Section 203. This section mandates making voting materials and assistance available in languages where a community meets a certain threshold, and the language falls under Spanish, Asian languages, American Indian, or Alaskan Native languages, like the one used by Mr. Toyukak. Newly included Section 203 jurisdictions must develop a comprehensive language assistance plan over the next year; determining which dialects to cover for both written and oral language assistance, and deciding how to tailor the assistance precinct by precinct. As part of this comprehensive plan, a translation workflow will need to be created, including actual translators — not just a computer. In this regard it is essential to engage community leaders in the review process to ensure all materials are informationally and tonally correct. Jurisdictions must be proactive in recruiting the necessary workers to staff polling sites. And poll worker trainings should have a strong emphasis on language assistance and the existing laws that protect language minority voting rights. Election officials should reach into diverse segments of these communities, talking to business owners, teachers, religious, and civic leaders. This will put officials in the best position to formulate sound policies and tap into networks to recruit bilingual poll workers.

To this end, jurisdictions should put in the time to create culturally aware outreach programs and engage these voters year round — not just around election time. In an ideal scenario, an office would dedicate a full-time employee to be a liaison to respective language communities. Ultimately, these partnerships can help jurisdictions formulate their language plans by providing them with on-the-ground intelligence and experience.

Finally, ballot design must also ensure that translations meet state requirements for ballot design and are also easily understood by the voter. A human-centered design cannot be overstated when it comes to a well-run election.

A key takeaway from jurisdictions that have been under designation for some time now is that they are most successful in complying with the law when they regularly engaged local leaders. This allows them to ensure that materials and information are conveyed to language minorities effectively. Alaska officials have said they stand ready to engage with more tribes after the U.S. Census Bureau recently expanded Alaska areas in the new designations from eight to 15, which advocates have pointed out nearly replicates the statewide coverage that existed under the Section 4(f)(4) of the VRA. This increased coverage communicates to voters like Mr. Toyukak, that they are valued American citizens and they must be afforded their language rights.

Overall, the underlying standard for effectiveness of Section 203 compliance is whether voters using language services and exercising their language assistance rights are able to participate in the same manner as voters who are fully fluent and literate in English. Democracy Fund remains committed to helping jurisdictions achieve this level of effectiveness and encourage officials in newly covered jurisdictions to use the resources and information produced and collected by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, available at eac.gov.

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Starting With Community: From Civic Journalism to Community Engagement

Paul Waters

November 7, 2016

This week in Chicago journalists from around the country will gather for the People-Powered Publishing Conference. The conference brings together innovators and pioneers who are connecting newsrooms and communities in new ways.

The Democracy Fund’s Public Square Program will be on hand at the event and is releasing a new paper, “How to Best Serve Communities: Reflections on Civic Journalism,” on the history of how newsrooms have partnered with their communities — from civic journalism to today’s engaged journalism.

This past August, our senior fellow Geneva Overholser wrote a blog post on the connections between civic journalism and engaged journalism. Geneva has expanded on this topic with a fuller reflection on the civic journalism movement in the ‘90s. In the paper she describes what civic journalism hoped to do and the lasting impact of ideas around engagement. We found this work to be very useful as we are in the beginning stages of developing a strategy to support engaged journalism.

In Geneva’s concluding thoughts she reflects that:

“Today’s engaged journalism, civic journalism’s replacement in this digital age, enjoys an utterly different environment from the one that confronted civic journalists — one in which disruption prevails, change is the new constant, and innovation is seen, almost universally, as essential. The contemporary movement is landing on far more fertile terrain.”

Engaged journalism repositions news and information as a service rooted in deep dialogue with the public rather than a product for them to consume. This kind of journalism understands that outlets can create better stories, stronger newsrooms, and more healthy communities by bringing people into the journalism process. Engagement generates feedback loops between audiences and outlets to improve relationships, representation, responsiveness, trust, and impact.

The Democracy Fund’s Public Square Program supports the practice of engaged journalism through research, relationships, convenings, and grants. Throughout this process, we will collect, share, and update learnings with the broader field to support a network of practitioners across the country. While this is a national trend, we’re especially interested to understand how it works on the local level.

Our belief is that this reorientation of local journalism towards engaged journalism is critical to fostering a thriving journalism landscape and a more engaged democracy. The people attending this week’s People-Powered Publishing Conference are on the front lines of this work and we look forward to learning from and with them. We hope that Geneva’s paper on civic journalism can provide the historical insight and direction to move forward in the context of financial collapse and technological disruption of traditional print and broadcast news.

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The Language Barrier in the Voting Booth

Terry Ao Minnis

April 4, 2016

During the Democratic presidential caucus in Nevada last month, the issue of language assistance in elections came up front and center — and it was not pretty. Fingers pointed in all directions about what actually happened and who was to blame, but what is clear is that there were caucus participants who needed assistance in Spanish to fully understand the process and their options and that they did not receive this essential help. This incident highlights how important language assistance in the political process is and why more must be done to ensure that language needs are being accommodated.

Today in the United States, one in five people speak a language other than English at home, and of that population who are 15 or older 42 percent report having some difficulty with the English language. Despite the increases in the eligible voting populations of Latinos and Asian-Americans in recent decades, according to the Pew Research Center there continues to be a 15-20 percent gap in voting participation rates between those voters and whites. While a variety of factors can contribute to a voter’s inability to participate in the election process, in many communities language barriers are a huge obstacle.The language-minority voting community often faces the same socio-economic disparities and logistical barriers that negatively impact other marginalized voters. They can face hurdles, and at times discrimination, at the polls from poll workers or challengers who are not able to communicate clearly. In the worst cases, there may be false assumptions that language difficulties mean a voter is ineligible to cast a ballot. And the political process can be overly complicated for those who have emigrated from countries with no democratic system, while our voter materials are often written in complex English.

As the 2016 election cycle unfolds, election administrators, civic organizations, and advocates can take steps to help mitigate problems faced by language-minority voters, helping to ensure equal access to the ballot.

First, at a minimum, election officials should make sure they comply with federal protections for language minority voters under the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The federal law requires jurisdictions that meet a certain threshold of eligible language-minority voters to provide language assistance via translated written materials, bilingual poll workers, and publicizing available language assistance. Another provision of the VRA allows voters the opportunity to bring someone of their choosing to assist them in the voting process. Administrators should ensure that their poll workers are aware of this right and are trained in how to assist voters with language needs.

Additionally—and regardless of any federal or state requirement—elections administrators should attempt to recruit bilingual poll workers, identify which polling locations could have a language need, reach out to local and ethnic-community media to help with recruitment, and partner with local and ethnic organizations to review and share nonpartisan election information. A minimal investment in recruitment and targeting can yield big returns for the same cost as hiring monolingual poll workers exclusively. Civic organizations and advocates can help in this effort by working to educate language-minority voters about what rights they have to assistance at the polls and by sharing resources, such as in-language hotlines to call with questions.

While the Nevada caucus is the most recent incident of a language-assistance failure, it is not the only incident and it certainly will not be the last. Concerns about language barriers continue to be raised by groups across the country, including Latino voters in Massachusetts, Asian voters in Florida and Native American voters in Arizona.

It remains to be seen how well language-minority voters will be accommodated during the rest of this year’s election cycle, but the Nevada incident is a reminder that this is an increasingly important issue in elections. We should address language issues head-on to prevent miscommunication and disenfranchisement, and we should work together to make voting for this growing segment the American population as comfortable and easy as it is for everyone else.

This piece was originally published via GOVERNING Magazine.

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States Are Falling Short In Providing Voter Access

Adam Ambrogi and Brenda Wright

November 30, 2015

This op-ed is co-authored by Brenda Wright, Vice President of Policy and Legal Strategies at Demos, and Adam Ambrogi, Program Director for Responsive Politics at the Democracy Fund. It first appeared in the Nov. 30 issue of The National Law Journal.

Shelley Zelda Small is a 62-year-old Los Angeles resident who believes in voting as a civic duty and has voted in every election since she was 19 years old. So when she moved from Encino, California, to West Hollywood in August 2014, and reported her address change to the Department of Motor Vehicles, she made sure to ask the DMV to update her voter registration as well. But when she arrived at her local polling place last November, she was told she was not on the registration rolls and was turned away – for the first time in her life, Small lost her opportunity to vote.

The good news is that, due to a new law approved this last month in California and advocacy by national and California-based voting rights groups, the DMV will be adopting an automated voter registration process that will, in most cases, seamlessly update voter registrations when voters report a move — solving the problem for Small and millions more like her.

In mid-November, another state took a major step in the right direction. Alabama, conceding that it had never truly complied with a registration law, settled a case with the U.S. Department of Justice. The agreement made important changes to how the state motor-vehicle agencies support voter registration for eligible Alabama residents. The case is notable because the DOJ has not brought an action against a state under the “motor voter” provision of the National Voter Registration Act since at least 2002. California and Alabama were not alone in needing to improve its registration process. It appears that many states are falling short on their obligations to make voter registration widely accessible at DMVs and other agencies serving the public, according to an extensive investigation by Demos, a public policy group. Potentially tens of millions of eligible voters are being left off the voter rolls as a result.

Reforming the voter registration process through state agencies such as DMVs is a policy reform that more states should consider. Moreover, states have strong incentive to do so because of the increasing scrutiny they are receiving on their handling of voter registration through their DMVs. Providing voter registration services at DMVs is already a requirement of a 20-year-old federal law, the National Voter Registration Act.

Passed with strong bipartisan support in Congress, the registration act simplified the process of voter registration in many ways — including the convenience of mail-in registration as well as ensuring the opportunity to register at government agencies such as DMVs, public assistance offices, military recruitment offices and other agencies serving the public on a regular basis.

The law was intended to ensure that eligible individuals have the chance to register to vote. The law promotes integrity at the same time, including “portability” of registration when voters make local moves and notify their DMVs.

However, there is a serious problem with the implementation of this law. There are estimates that the vast majority of Americans interact with the motor vehicle offices, with anywhere from 87 to 90 percent of eligible voters holding a driver’s license that must be renewed periodically and kept up-to-date with address or name changes. Agency registration provides the opportunity to register the vast majority of the eligible population to vote in an easy and secure way.

Neglected Responsibilities

But in recent years, too many states have neglected their obligations. In the recent study conducted by Demos, only eight states earned a designation of “high-performing” on their voter registration obligations at DMVs. Numerous states are falling short. In fact, if all the lower-performing states could perform at the current 75 percent level on Motor-Voter registrations, an additional 18 million eligible persons could register to vote in a two-year period. This is the least we can expect from government agencies charged with facilitating voter registration. Recently, voter advocates have begun the process of holding DMVs accountable. State officials in California were put on notice last summer that they were likely violating federal law by failing to ensure eligible persons can register successfully at state DMV offices, and hopefully will be moving to the head of the class with enactment of its new automated system. North Carolina also has been put on notice, and many other states need to examine their practices and work to improve their systems as well.

Compliance isn’t challenging and it doesn’t have to be costly. States like Michigan and Delaware have been performing incredibly well with one out of every two DMV transactions resulting in a new or updated registration. Compare that to California, where about one out of every 100 transactions resulting in a registration. Any argument that these improvements to the system hurts DMVs or increases wait times also doesn’t pass muster. Automating the system in Delaware reduced overall average wait times by 67%, leading to increased efficiency and (likely) happier DMV customers.

There are too many Shelley Smalls across the country who are being deprived of the most precious right in a democracy, the right to vote. While we are glad California figured out a way to address this problem in their state, many other states need to step up to the plate. Once they do, millions more eligible persons will have their voices heard in our democracy. We should demand no less.