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Mapping to Learn: Applying a Systems Lens to Local Journalism

Tom Glaisyer

March 28, 2016

This week we released a visualization and accompanying narrative that seeks to represent the dynamics facing local news institutions and levels of participation of the public in civic affairs.

Original reporting, informed dialogue, and rigorously argued differences of opinion all support engagement in our democratic processes in communities across the United States. Over the past decade, however, local news outlets have struggled. Audiences and advertisers have gravitated to digital and mobile platforms — and the economics of local news has declined. We are being left with media deserts in locations where coverage once flourished.

At the same time, promising local journalism experiments have cropped up across the country. Foundations and venture capitalists are investing not only in individual outlets, but in tools and models that can cut reporting costs and support civic engagement around breaking topics. How can such promising innovations be seeded widely and cultivated fully? These are the issues that the Democracy Fund’s Engagement Program has been grappling with.

Our Journey

Over the past year, we have consulted dozens of journalists and scholars of media and communications in an ambitious effort to create a map that reveals the many dimensions of local journalism’s disruption.

This process flows from the foundation’s larger commitment to understanding democracy as a complex system. At the core of our process is an extensive process of analysis and graphical mapping of the dynamics facing this space. As Democracy Fund President Joe Goldman explains “a systems map describes the dynamic patterns (or feedback loops) that occur in a system, whether they are vicious or virtuous cycles of behavior and reaction.” It is not, as Joe writes “a network map that describes how different individuals or organizations are connected to one another.”

The process of identifying and vetting such loops has been both long and profoundly iterative. Participants in the initial workshop held in March 2014 sketched some 43 loops representing different dynamics surrounding the failure and success of local news outlets to adequately inform and connect with their communities. Over a series of internal and one-on-one meetings, the Engagement team — Program Associate Paul Waters, Graduate Research Fellow Jessica Mahone, myself, and a dedicated set of fellows and consultants — winnowed the map down to tell a “core story” about key factors and connections.

Like panning for gold, these multiple conversations allowed the team to sift through many different layers of the problem to identify valuable elements. The result is not a picture of the optimal local news environment that we might want, or the debatably better environment we might have once had. Instead, it’s a multi-dimensional model of the intersecting forces that shape the markets, missions, and practices of outlets seeking to provide coverage that can help to drive democratic decisionmaking by both audiences and policymakers around the country.

Where We Are

The current map, which comprises 17 loops, hones in on the powerfully disruptive economic shifts that have unsettled legacy journalism outlets, and the hopeful but still nascent creative efforts to build sustainable digital tools and platforms for reporting and civic dialogue. The map identifies Internet adoption and evolution as the key “input factor” disrupting this system, and pinpoints three key factors central to a healthy local information ecosystem:

The shift in audience attention;
The relevance, quality, and quantity of state and local journalism; and
The engagement of the public in civic affairs.

Several related loops hone in on economic dynamics. Perhaps the most important is the decay in income from advertising as a result of news outlets no longer able to obtain the same rates or deliver the same audience reach they once did. In addition, large digital platforms are more able to capture significant portions of the remaining advertising revenue with increasingly sophisticated targeting technologies. The result these dynamics is that membership and philanthropic support for small to mid-sized news projects is increasingly important as is the role government dollars play in maintaining public broadcasting.

Other factors are at work, however, including the rise of user-generated content, the strength of connections between newsrooms and community members, and the fate of journalism skills in an era of mass newspaper layoffs. The map raises questions such as, can audiences trust reporters to recognize and represent their interests, and uncover corruption without sliding into sensationalism? Will outlets with small slices of the public increase hyper partisanship with narrowly targeted content aimed at reinforcing viewpoints rather than informing?

The map also recognizes the importance of policy decisions around online access and how they have fostered the growth of the Internet over recent decades. All of these dynamics and others are captured in this system map, and each loop is bolstered with research, case studies and both supporting and countervailing evidence.

Overall, we have to recognize that the local public square, which has for decades been sustained by a small number of newspapers, television and radio stations, is in turmoil and though it isn’t clear what will replace what was for decades a stable equilibrium it is very clear that change will be a constant over the upcoming decade.

Looking to the future

Like the dynamics it captures, the map is not static. It is a work in progress, designed to serve as tool for discussion and strategy not just within the foundation, but across the field. With this in mind, the Engagement Program worked with the American Press Institute to convene another room full of news experts, editors and reporters this past October. Many had seen the map more than once in its various iterations; others were “map newbies.” We led the room through each loop—probing for points of confusion or competing interpretations of various factors and connections. For us this was just the first step towards more engagement with communities of experts seeking to better inform and engage the public at the local level in our democracy. Ultimately, we hope this contributes to a stronger shared understanding of the field.

How can you assist?

We recognize that as a relatively small organization we will gain a better understanding of the field by soliciting input from others. We also realize that this is a quickly shifting field and we intend to stay in learning mode as the map evolves. This prompts us to continue to engage with the widest range of people working in the realm of local news and participation: What else does the Democracy Fund need to know or understand to better illuminate the dynamics of local news ecosystems?

If your work relates to local news and participation, we welcome and encourage you to take some time to explore the map and dig into the definitions of the loops, factors, and connections. Help us improve its breadth and accuracy.

Please send us your ideas and feedback by emailing newsmap@democracyfund.org.

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Cranking up the Truth-O-Meter: Giving a boost to Truth in Politics

Tom Glaisyer

January 13, 2016

As PoltiFact’s Angie Holan’s December 2015 op-ed in The New York Times, explains, even in the midst of a campaign season full of falsehoods and misstatements, she sees reason for optimism about the efficacy of fact-checking work:

“Some politicians have responded to fact-checking journalism by vetting their prepared comments more carefully and giving their campaign ads extra scrutiny… Accurate information is becoming more available and easier for voters to find… Today’s TV journalists—anchors like Chuck Todd, Jake Tapper and George Stephanopoulos—have picked up the torch of fact-checking and now grill candidates on issues of accuracy during live interviews… In fact, journalists regularly tell me their media organizations have started highlighting fact-checking in their reporting because so many people click on fact-checking stories after a debate or high-profile news event.”

We do too, and in this context, Democracy Fund is pleased to announce our support (via a grant to The Times Publishing Company) for PolitiFact, an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on bringing the public the truth in politics. PolitiFact’s staff of independent reporters and editors fact-check statements from the White House, the president, cabinet secretaries, Congress, state legislators, governors, mayors, lobbyists, people who testify before Congress, and anyone else who speaks up in American politics—rating their claims for accuracy on their “Truth-O-Meter.” Every fact-check includes analysis of the claim, an explanation of reasoning, and a list of links to sources. A well established and esteemed fact-checking team now led by Angie Holan, won the Pulitzer Prize for its fact-checking of the presidential election in 2008.

PolitiFact is a division of The Tampa Bay Times, Florida’s largest newspaper, which is published by the Times Publishing Company, which is owned by the Poynter Institute, a 501(c)(3) journalism school in St. Petersburg, Florida. Democracy Fund has previously supported PunditFact, a project that fact-checks talking heads and opinion leaders, through funding from the Poynter Institute. We decided to provide additional dollars because we see this as an invaluable service for democratic accountability. The support we’re providing will allow PolitiFact to grow its franchise, extending factchecking across states during 2016 and subsequently.

PolitiFact has already been expanding its reach across the country, establishing editions in 15 states already (Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin). This growth is great to see, and we hope it will continue.

Our Commitment to Editorial Independence

As part of this announcement of our support, we want to underscore that the Democracy Fund will not have any knowledge of the claims being checked, nor will we have any discussions with PolitiFact on editorial questions whatsoever.

Prior to finalizing the grant, we committed that Democracy Fund staff will not discuss with PolitiFact staff the editorial content of factchecks, nor will we discuss ratings of future factchecks, or future subjects of factchecks. At the same time, PolitiFact committed not to share any factchecks it is researching with Democracy Fund staff prior to publication.

We wanted to share this commitment as a part of our ongoing efforts to be transparent about the work we do and our approach. Editorial independence has always been crucial to journalism and democracy and as the field enters a new era where it seems likely funding will come from a range of sources, we need to ensure that it is not compromised.

The Democracy Fund is committed to fighting deception and disinformation that prevents voters from making informed decisions at the ballot box. PolitiFact and its state-level affiliates will hold individuals and organizations accountable for the exaggerations and falsehoods that are often found in political speech. We expect their work will continue to demonstrate the valuable role fact-checking can play in holding politicians, pundits and policy advocates accountable, and will influence other media organizations to adopt similar practices, and we are delighted to support them in this endeavor.

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Long Lines: How I learned to stop worrying and love queueing theory

Natalie Adona

January 7, 2016

After seeing reports of would-be voters waiting for hours in long lines to cast a ballot, in 2012 President Obama called for a new effort to improve the quality of voting in the United States. As we’ve identified in prior posts, the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA) helped renew the growing election science movement. Election science can be tremendously helpful to hard working local election officials, who must serve the needs of voters with limited resources. As it turns out, improper allocation of available resources negatively impacts the ability to keep long lines from forming. Local officials need the capacity to anticipate long lines before Election Day and, in turn, improve the voter experience.

Fortunately, the Voting Technology Project (VTP), a collaboration between the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (a Democracy Fund grantee), has built free, easy-to-use tools that can help election administrators run elections more smoothly, serve voters, and save time and money with little effort. Adam Ambrogi and Paul DeGregorio briefly mentioned these tools in a recent Democracy Fund blog post. Here, I’d like to take a more detailed look at the VTP election management tools and show how they’re helpful for election officials.

After extensive research and testing in the field during the 2014 election cycle, the VTP discovered (unsurprisingly) that long lines form when arrivals at the polling place outpace available resources—in other words, lots of voters coming in at once and not enough capacity to process them in a timely way. This is based on the concept of “queueing theory” or the study of how lines form. Featured in a recent report written by VTP co-director Charles Stewart, the tools developed by Mark Pelczarski, Stephen Graves, and Rong Yuan help optimize the use of resources at polling places and have the potential to significantly mitigate the impact of long lines on the voter experience.

Did I mention they’re free and easy-to-use?

The Graves and Yuan tool analyzes and makes recommendations on the data points that many election officials may already be collecting, including:

Arrival rates
Average time for check-in at registration table
Number of check-in stations
Maximum wait (the PCEA strongly recommended voters wait no longer than 30 minutes to vote)
Percentage of people who will be served within the maximum wait time (“Service level”)

Here’s how it works (follow along at home): Plug in your data using the “add precinct” icon at the top right of the screen. In the example provided here and mimicking the example provided in the VTP report, (fictitious) Precinct #0001 has 115 voters arriving per hour (calculated by assuming that a precinct will expect 1500 voters over a 13-hour period that the polls are open), there’s an average of 30 seconds to check-in, one check-in station, and 95 percent of people will wait a maximum of 30 minutes. Then, click “calculate.”

As you can see, the tool provides an analysis and a recommendation. Here, voters in Precinct #0001 will wait in line about 11 minutes on average and almost 8 percent will wait longer than 30 minutes. To meet the 95 percent service level, the tool recommends adding a check-in station.

Similarly, the Pelczarski tool analyzes “what if” scenarios, based in part on anticipated peak hours and other data points. In addition to the data identified earlier, you will also need to know:

Number of expected voters
Number of voting stations (aka, booths)
Average minutes to actually vote (for the average voter—not the ideal voter)

It’s also helpful to know the arrival pattern and other information, which you can see at the bottom of the screen. I created a comma separated values (.CSV) file using fictitious precinct and county data, uploaded it (at the top of the screen where it says “Load Precinct Data”), and toggled the arrival pattern to “Early morning peak” and got the following results:

As you can see, based on the data I provided in my .CSV file, the tool tracks average wait times throughout the day in this precinct in County #001. That precinct will experience wait times of over 30 minutes starting at about 9:30 am and will dwindle as the day progresses (at 3:30 pm, for example, the wait is only 6 minutes). I substantially reduced the wait time after I asked the tool to project how many folks might walk off—here, 28 people will potentially turn away from the polls at this precinct. Based on this data, I might have to consider adding another poll worker, e-poll book, or otherwise re-evaluate the average minutes spent at the check-in table.

The ability to potentially project the number of people who will leave the line is an incredibly important predictive tool.

Gathering all this data can be time-consuming, but this is an investment that will pay off in the short- and long-term. For some election officials, adding another poll worker to the check-in table or adding an e-poll book requires money that doesn’t exist. These tools have the potential to help officials make the case for increased funding by using hard data to justify budget increases.

Try them out! It’s free, so it can’t hurt. Can’t find that link? Click here.

To access the full report, written by Charles Stewart, click here; to see the executive summary, click here. (Democracy Fund is proud to support Dr. Stewart’s “Polling Place of the Future” project.)

For detailed training on how to use the VTP tools, consider contacting The Center for Technology and Civic Life.

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Guest Post: To Strengthen Democracy in America, Think Tech

Micah Sifry

January 5, 2016

A decade-and-a-half into the digital century, the vast majority of large foundations concerned with strengthening American democracy don’t seem to get tech. According to the new Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy tool recently launched by Foundation Center, out of a total of 18,446 grants awarded since 2011 by more than 1,300 funders focused on the broad range of issues and efforts related to democracy, just 962 have been focused on technology.

What’s more, that represents only $215 million out of a total of $2.435 billion awarded to study and/or reform campaigns, elections, and voting systems; expand civic participation; research or upgrade government performance; and/or study the workings of the media and improve public access to media. The Foundation Center tool also reveals that the universe of foundations making technology-related grants is much smaller, at 186, than the overall funder pool, as is the recipient base.

I should note that the data in Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy includes grantmaking by the thousand largest U.S. foundations and several hundred smaller funders. Because much of the data are drawn from IRS tax returns, there’s a considerable lag involved in the IRS making the returns available to Foundation Center. As a result, the data set is only complete through 2012. The fact that the $78 million awarded for technology funding in 2011 declined to $61 million in 2012 and $58 million in 2013 does not necessarily indicate a trend. New data will be added to the platform on a weekly basis, and the totals for 2013 and 2014 are likely to increase.

Still, there are a number of things to be learned from this interactive mapping tool about how the philanthropic sector views technology as a strategy for supporting U.S. democracy, especially compared to other strategies such as coalition-building, litigation, grassroots organizing, advocacy, research, and general/unrestricted support.

First, and most glaring, is the fact that, as late as 2012, the vast majority of foundations concerned with some aspect of democracy in the United States made no grants for technology. As my Civic Hall co-founder and colleague Andrew Rasiej likes to say, “Technology isn’t a piece of the pie, it’s the pan.” Apparently, most American foundations still think it’s just a slice of the larger picture rather than a set of tools and capacities that can change the whole landscape.

Second, of the 186 funders who understand the potential of technology to multiply the impact of their grantees’ efforts, just 17 are responsible for half the total number of grants included in the data set. They include many names familiar to anyone who has tried to raise money for nonprofit tech work: Ford, Knight, the California Endowment, Open Society, Gates, Irvine, the Comcast Foundation, Sloan, Omidyar Network, McCormick, Kellogg, Levi Strauss, MacArthur, Surdna, VOQAL, and Hewlett. Six of them — Knight, Ford, Gates, Omidyar, the California Endowment, and Sloan — provide more than half of the money tracked, which means many grantees could be thrown for a loop if any one of those six decided to sunset or stop funding tech. At the same time, many other high-profile funders allocate relatively small amounts to tech-related grantmaking.

The failure of most American foundations to add technology to their grant portfolios is surprising, especially this far along in the digital age. I suspect it’s because many foundations are still averse to new approaches, viewing them as risky and unproven. That said, tech-savvy foundations have a lot to be proud of. Support for projects like Creative Commons, the Sunlight Foundation, Code for America, the Center for Civic Media at MIT, the Voting Information Project, Patients Like Me, the Citizen Engagement Lab, and Democracy Works/TurboVote has paid huge benefits, fostering a worldwide ecosystem of shareable knowledge, a burgeoning open data movement, the launch of the U.S. Digital Service, the creation of online digital movements engaging millions of active participants, and the provision of timely voter registration and polling place information to tens of millions of people. Our democracy is measurably stronger because many more people and organizations have greater and more affordable access to the political process as a result.

Recently, a number of major foundations — Knight, Open Society, MacArthur, and Ford — announced the Netgain Challenge, a major new commitment to support the open Internet. It’s great they’re doing this, but they are all among the usual forward-thinking foundations you’d expect to be involved in such an effort. While I applaud their vision and intent, I also believe it’s long past time for some of the other heavy-hitters in the sector to step up, stop editing risk out of their portfolios, and make some big bets on tech.

Micah Sifry is the co-founder and executive director of Civic Hall, a community center for civc tech based in New York City and a Democracy Fund Grantee. This is a repost of the second in a series of ten posts on the Foundation Center’s Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy tool, of which the Democracy Fund is a supporter.

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Updates from Governance

Betsy Wright Hawkings

December 11, 2015

For the past 11 months, the Democracy Fund’s Governance Program has been working to develop new approaches to understanding our nation’s system of governance and the forces of hyperpartisanship that currently render that system asymmetrical and dysfunctional.

Nearly one year on, I can say the opportunity to work with a group of people truly committed to representing all sides of the political spectrum has been remarkable and educational beyond anything I could have imagined.

The chance to put a quarter century of experience to use in more deeply understanding the system of Congress – – and where the greatest opportunities for leverage to reduce dysfunction existed – – has been unique.

The space to build a team within the governance program of individuals equally committed to the more effective functioning of government has been rewarding.

And the ability to create collaborations among existing organizations, help new innovative organizations expand, and encourage them all to develop collective impact in the space has been truly energizing.

Among the key challenges we have faced has been developing a strategy that reflects our knowledge and our values while continuing our grantmaking practice in an effort to impact the urgent challenges we hope to address. Described fondly within Democracy Fund as “building the plane while flying it,” we are grateful to have both metaphorically experienced pilots and mechanics on board to help us stay in the air. This infrastructure has enabled the Governance team to support our colleagues by attracting partners that reflect the ideological diversity of the American people, as reflected in their elected officials; develop and support new programs to help build relationships among members of Congress and their staffs; develop technology to enhance congressional constituent engagement systems, identify best practices and train congressional offices to more fully utilize them; and create strategies to advance efforts to “fix Washington” by creating more open and accessible legislative processes, all while developing and refining our strategic plan.

Looking forward to the next year, the governance program is asking itself some hard questions. Specifically: how can we build on our existing work to not just support existing organizations, but incentivize them to evermore groundbreaking work? How can we continue to support the institution of Congress, by strengthening it’s operating systems and processes, as well as the ability of those who work in Congress to use those systems more effectively? And, How can we incentivize government officials, specifically members of Congress, to behave in ways that increase the functionality of government, support bipartisan working relationships, and reward civility?

We know the answers aren’t easy. But we’ve known that all along. It took us a generation to achieve this state of dysfunction; it will take more than a year to fulfill the democracy fund’s mission of increasing engagement, strengthening the integrity of our elections, and improving the functionality of our government. And after all, the essence of systems thinking is that with so many variables, and so many interrelationships, the system is constantly changing and the work is never really done.

But in the Democracy Fund we have an organization that is attempting to not only talk the walk talk, but walk the walk – – of fly the plane—in our teams, in the larger organization, and in the field we are seeking to build as we work to strengthen our system of government.

All in all, a pretty good year, and even more exciting learning to look forward to.

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Live from Austin: The 2015 Knight News Challenge Winners

Paul Waters

July 22, 2015

The Democracy Fund congratulates the Knight News Challenge winners announced yesterday at the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life at the University of Texas at Austin.

The wide range of solutions the winners will deploy seek to inform voters about the candidates and issues at both the local and national levels, as well as to help reduce barriers to getting people to the polls. Their projects cover efforts ranging from increasing transparency in campaign financing to increasing voter participation by providing informational tools on election processes, candidates, and issues. The Democracy Fund was especially excited about the number of the applicants and winners from the state and local election official communities. From the Rhode Island Secretary of State Natalie Gorbea to Cook County Clerk David Orr, this pool of winners really highlights the ability of elections offices to embrace innovation.

When the Democracy Fund joined in launching this challenge on better informing voters and increasing civic participation with the Knight Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, and Rita Allen Foundation, we had great hopes for the creativity it might reveal and are looking forward to seeing the work of the winning projects:

2016 Political Ad Tracker by Internet Archive
California Civic Data Coalition by California Civic Data Coalition, a partnership between The Los Angeles Times, The Center for Investigative Reporting and Stanford University
Campaign Hound by Reese News Lab, University of North Carolina
Inside the 990 Treasure Trove by The Center for Responsive Politics in partnership with GuideStar
Civic Engagement Toolkit for Local Election Officials by Center for Technology and Civic Life
Informed Voting From Start to Finish by E.thePeople
Revive My Vote by Marshall-Wythe Law Foundation
Sharp Insight by Youth Outreach Adolescent Community Awareness Program
The Next Generation Beyond Exit Polls by the Associated Press
Vote-by-Smartphone by Long Distance Voter
Judge Your Judges by WNYC
Lenses by NYC Media Lab
OpenJudiciary.org by Free Law Project
Prompt Data Query by Center for Responsive Politics
Silent Targeting, Loud Democracy by University of Wisconsin (Madison, Wis.)
Tabs on Tallahassee by the Orlando Sentinel
Up for Debate Ohio! by the Jefferson Center
Voter’s Edge by MapLight
Accessible Voting for Everyone by University of Florida
Erase the Line by D.C. Board of Elections
Rhode Island Civic Fellowship by Rhode Island Secretary of State
The Iowa Electorate by The Des Moines Register

The Democracy Fund contributed $250,000 to the total $3.2 million awarded yesterday, and we believe it is money well-invested. Ten of the winners will receive investments of $200,000 to $525,000 each, while 12 early-stage ideas will receive $35,000 each through the Knight Prototype Fund, which helps people explore early-stage media and information ideas.

The Democracy Fund is encouraged and hopeful as we prepare for the next chapter of the News Challenge: the launch of these creative ideas. To those who didn’t win, we want to recognize the courage it takes to put an idea on public display, and we encourage those who were not selected to keep pursuing feedback and partnerships in your efforts.

Good luck to all!

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Combining Media, Tech, and Election Ideas to Increase Civic Participation

Jessica Mahone

March 17, 2015

Political participation in the U.S. is often reduced to Americans’ engagement in federal elections. During campaigns, political observers combine available data and anecdotes to speculate on whether a candidate has the ground, financial, and likely-voter support to win the White House or a given congressional seat. After Election Day, many of the same pundits lament low voter participation rates, as in the 2014 midterms when turnout was at its lowest since WWII.

Rarely do these conversations meaningfully consider what voters’ participation in campaigns and at the ballot box says about broader civic engagement — particularly when it comes to the down-ticket elections and ballot issues that aren’t top of mind or at the top of news cycles but actually make up the majority of questions on most ballots.

This, in part, is why the Democracy Fund recently joined with the Knight Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Rita Allen Foundation on a $3 million challenge to identify how we can better inform voters and increase civic participation before, during, and after elections. (Apply by 5 pm eastern on March 19th.)

The voter participation lag for state and local elections, particularly in off-cycle and midterm years, is typically well behind federal elections. In recent years, local turnout has been falling even further behind, plummeting to a low of approximately 18 percent in 2009 with an average turnout rate near 26 percent between 1996-2011. This is far below the already low 35.9 percent of eligible voters who cast ballots for federal candidates in November.

At the same time that we have seen declines in voting in local races, state and local journalism has also suffered. Local newspapers have shut down and the number of reporters devoted to state reporting has declined by 35 percent since 2003. The result is a local news environment trying to do more with less and in need of new tools to inform and engage voters at the local level. In this situation, citizens lack the information they need to make critical decisions about local and state issues.

While many factors may account for any voter’s decision to participate in a particular election, confidence in one’s knowledge and ability to influence our governing institutions and public squares are important factors. Fundamental to this knowledge is the need for innovative tools that make it easier for the public to access and use a huge range of information, from voter registration deadlines to in-depth reporting on urgent issues. The types of information that voters would find useful are myriad, and so are the platforms and projects that reporters, election officials, and academics, among others, could use to creatively deliver that information in ways that energize ongoing participation.

As the News Challenge brief states: “This contest is open to anyone, from journalists, students, civic technologists, and academics, to news organizations, businesses, nonprofits, governments and individuals. In addition to the projects that better inform voters and streamline the voting process, we hope to find some ideas that will increase civic participation beyond Election Day. We see democratic engagement as more than just the act of voting. It should be embedded in every part of civic life, extending before and after an election.”

The Democracy Fund seeks out organizations and partners that are working to ensure our political systems are responsive to the needs of the American public. It’s a complicated and long-term challenge that requires collaborations like this one, through which we hope to see innovative ideas that cross the media, technology and election administration fields in ways that could give voters the tools and information they need to engage on Election Day and beyond.

The Democracy Fund is partnering with the Knight Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Rita Allen Foundation on Knight News Challenge: Elections, which asks the question, How might we better inform voters and increase civic participation before, during and after elections? The best nonpartisan ideas will share in more than $3 million. Apply at newschallenge.org by 5 p.m. ET March 19. Winners will be announced in June.

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Improving Forms for Military and Overseas Voters

Stacey Scholl

March 11, 2015

This post is co-authored by Stacey Van Zuiden and Adam Ambrogi.

For the thousands of American voters who live abroad or who are in the military stationed away from their homes, the process of casting a ballot can be full of challenges. For those without regular Internet or in a region without routine postal service, where do you tell your U.S.-based Election Official to send the ballot? And can you receive it in time to vote? Do you need a witness to sign your form? Or will your signature be enough?

These challenges, plus many more, contributed to approximately 21,000 rejected absentee ballot requests made using the standard federal form in 2012, according to the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), which is the Department of Defense program charged with assisting military and overseas voters. It is unclear exactly why these rejections happen, and FVAP is doing additional research, but if the design of the federal form is a factor, there’s something we can do.

With the goal of helping to alleviate confusion or problems for voters, the Democracy Fund recently submitted comments in response to FVAP’s open comment period on the two federal forms used by this community, the FPCA and FWAB.

The Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) is used to both register to vote and request an absentee ballot, and the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB) is essentially a back-up ballot most often used when a voter did not receive an official ballot in time to return it. The variance in election rules across 55 states and territories means that FVAP has the ongoing challenge of making the forms straight-forward and user-friendly, but specific enough to accommodate state law. FVAP has made major advancements to help voters use the forms by creating highly successful online tools, but the fact remains that not all voters will have access to the Internet, so the paper forms should be as useful as possible.

We believe that our recommendations could have lasting and long-term benefits for all overseas voters. The following are some of the areas of high priority. (Read our full comments here and here.)

First, clarify that military and overseas voters who request a ballot by email or fax must still provide a current absentee address.

In 2009, Congress enacted the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE Act) requiring these voters have the option to receive their blank ballots electronically, potentially cutting ballot transit time in half. On both FVAP forms there are fields labeled: “Where to send my ballot”/“Where to send my election materials.” Voters could easily assume that an email address or fax number is sufficient for this box. However, most election officials require a foreign or absentee address so they can confirm a voter is away from their home jurisdiction, even if the voter is requesting to receive their ballot electronically. Instead, we recommend this box be labeled: “Absentee address/ Where you reside now.”

Second, keep the affirmation tailored to the voter and don’t make voters “swear” to more than they have to.

Each form also has an affirmation section where the voter must attest to meeting certain eligibility requirements. The affirmations are written broadly to cover variations in election laws across the states. However, as the terms try to cast a broad net, the affirmation length grows and may require a voter to swear to a requirement not applicable in their state on penalty of perjury. And the longer the affirmation paragraph becomes, the less likely voters are to read it. We believe there are three key things a voter should need to affirm: 1) the information is true and accurate to the applicant’s knowledge, 2) they are a U.S. citizen and they meet other state eligibility requirements, and 3) they are not registering to vote or voting in any other U.S. jurisdiction. We can solve the qualifications question by “incorporating by reference” the state-specific requirements.

Third, FVAP and states should do more to reduce unnecessary hurdles for these voters by eliminating witness requirements.

There is an area on the forms for a witness to sign underneath the voter’s signature, but there are only a handful of states that require witness signatures. Unbelievably, in Alabama, absentee voters are required to have two witnesses sign the form. In 2012, less than half of the military and overseas ballots submitted by voters from Alabama were counted in the November General Election.

The MOVE Act banned notary requirements, but witness requirements are an archaic holdover from a time when there were less sophisticated ways to validate a voter’s signature. Today, election officials can more easily compare signatures from DMV files. The Democracy Fund recognizes that the witness lines must stay for now because of these remaining state-based requirements, and we challenge FVAP to talk to these states and the public about the burden this places on voters who are often working with early deadlines to send their forms home.

Fourth, simplify the ballot portion of the FWAB. Voting shouldn’t be overly complicated—the cleaner the design, the better the experience.

We believe there are significant design flaws with the ballot portion of the FWAB. The area where a voter writes the office or issue on which they are voting does not clearly correspond to where the voter writes the name of their preferred candidate or ballot choice. While not quite as bad as Florida’s famous “butterfly ballot,” this format has the potential to produce confusion.

It is worth noting that FWABs are more likely to be rejected than regular state absentee ballots, making up 33.1% of rejected military and overseas ballots even though they are only 7.4% of the total ballots submitted. And while there could be a number of reasons for this, such as whether a voter’s state ballot is returned in time, we believe the design of the FWAB could be adding to the total number of rejections. Because this is a basic usability issue, we recommend FVAP consider incorporating arrows or another design element that makes the form clearer. There are ballot design resources available with guidance on how to make election forms much easier to use.

These are four primary recommendations DF made to FVAP as part of the official comment process. We commend FVAP for both running a meaningful open comment period — where actual engagement was requested. They are required to update the form from time to time — we believe they have a real opportunity here to take several clear steps forward. For some, these changes may seem small, and perhaps inconsequential, but if one imagines the improvement overall for tens of thousands of individuals using these materials to register and request an absentee ballot—every way the forms are improved increases the likelihood that they will have their vote count.

When considering the testimony for the MOVE Act, the Senate heard from Air Force Lt. Col. Joseph DeCaro (in his own capacity). He reflected that service members wanted to vote. The challenge, he indicated, was navigating the complexities of the rules and requirements to receive a ballot. It is with that spirit that we continue to support FVAP’s effort to make voting a little bit easier for Mr. DeCaro and others like him.

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2014 for 2016: Supporting Innovations in Voter Information

Tom Glaisyer

October 16, 2014

This post is by Tom Glaisyer, Kelly Born, and Jonathan Kartt. Tom Glaisyer is the Program Director of the Informed Participation Initiative at the Democracy Fund. Kelly Born is a Program Officer at the Hewlett Foundation, where she works on both Special Projects and the Madison Initiative, and Jonathan Kartt works in Programs & Evaluation for the Rita Allen Foundation.

Last week, we shared our early research on voter information platforms and the breadth of exciting new organizations that our research unearthed. The impetus: The Hewlett Foundation, the Rita Allen Foundation and the Democracy Fund all share an interest in better equipping voters with the information they need: to participate in elections, vote in ways that reflect their interests, understand candidate positions and ballot issues, and to keep track of their representatives.

We partnered to explore dozens of these platforms, and quickly realized that we weren’t sure how best to support the field, or which groups to partner with. So the Hewlett Foundation and the Rita Allen Foundation crafted an RFP to solicit proposals from a handful of potential nonprofit partners, with the goal of funding them in a rapid-cycle innovation project. We were open to all kinds of ideas, and suggested a few possibilities:

Consulting Support: Because the ultimate success of any voter information platform depends on the quality of its design and resultant resonance with users, we suggested potential projects aimed at supporting design iteration and experimentation.
Implementation Support: These needed to be projects that were essentially shovel-ready, capable of being fielded before (and tested during) the 2014 election cycle.
Learning Support: There is much to be learned during this election cycle that might help inform later work in 2016. So we were open to jointly establishing a learning agenda for 2014 and then pairing nonprofit partners with researchers to test the effectiveness of different innovations.

Ultimately the proposals we received included some combination of all of these options.

Independently, the three foundations reviewed and assessed the pros and cons of all of the proposals, and between us we are now funding three public charities that responded to the RFP:

The Healthy Democracy Fund, to pilot its deliberative ballot decision-making approaches in Arizona and Colorado, and to conduct communications research around the efforts to understand what kind of messaging works with voters.
Maplight, to further develop its Voter’s Edge tool such that it can be more easily embedded in other platforms (e.g., news sites, civic organizations).
Seattle City Club’s Living Voters Guide, to further develop the site and to expand it to encompass not just ballot information but candidate data, including information from Voter’s Edge.

All of these projects include a research component to help understand what nonpartisan information resonates with voters, in hopes that we can learn and improve in future election cycles.

We are optimistic about the possibilities of these charitable projects, and about innovations in the sector more broadly – both for-profit and non-profit. These efforts offer hope that in future cycles citizens will have access to—and use—a wealth of information for even down-ticket races.

But we also have (lots of) questions:

When do people search for this information? How do they find it?
How do you expand the audience beyond political junkies to reach a broader population?
How useful do voters find this information? When and how does it actually influence decision-making?
What formats do voters prefer?
Do the platforms increase public trust in the political process or might some, particularly those that offer candidate matching, increase polarization?
How can the platforms be sustained?
Are the approaches scalable? What level of data standardization is desirable or feasible? For example, it is currently easy to get information on Congressional candidates, but much harder to digitally aggregate even the names of candidates for down-ballot races, let alone any meaningful information about them.

We are wrestling with these questions, supporting some research with these partners to test aspects of them, and exploring more broadly how we can aid the emerging community of practice that exists around this next generation of nonpartisan voter information tools. As always, we welcome your comments.

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Guest Post: First State-Wide Partnership Brings Voter Registration Services to 850,000 Students

Seth Flaxman

August 1, 2014

Back in January of 2012, TurboVote had one partner school, our first grant had only just come in, and I was struggling with how to run payroll for the first time. That month I hired a dynamic young organizer, Sam Novey, on one condition: fly to Miami for two weeks with no travel budget and get three colleges that are a little bit interested in TurboVote signed on as partners. Over a dozen trips to Florida later, we’ve come a long way.

Last month, Senator Bob Graham announced in front of a packed audience of student affairs professionals from across the country that Florida was now “leading the charge” with 38 colleges and universities from across the state institutionalizing voter engagement with the help of TurboVote. He was sharing some breaking news. The Florida College System (FCS) had just announced a new partnership with TurboVote to bring our tool to 27 state and community colleges—making this is the first system-wide project of the FCS Civic Literacy Initiative, which aims to make civic engagement part of the experience of all 850,000 students enrolled in the system.

Bringing this partnership to life required some serious teamwork. Our first few Florida colleges were all introduced to us through the Knight Foundation. Funding from Knight and the Democracy Fund helped us keep a team of talented organizers focused on this opportunity for over a year, and funding from the Institute for Strategic Policy Solutions at St. Petersburg College is what made the whole FCS expansion ultimately possible.

This is a big deal. FCS is how most Floridians access higher education – 65 percent of the state’s high school graduates begin their postsecondary education at one of the system’s colleges. And our partnerships are serious long-term love fests, not fly-by-night flings. When TurboVote partners with a school we provide them with a co-branded website and work with administrators on how to institutionalize TurboVote into their student services by integrating our site with class registration, freshman orientation, or other school-wide student experiences.

When students sign up, TurboVote helps them become active voters for the rest of their life. First, we’ll help them register to vote by emailing and mailing a completed registration form along with a pre-addressed, stamped envelope, then send text message reminders about deadlines. After that, we start tracking all their elections—local, state and national, and if students wish to request absentee ballots, we’ll send them all the forms and information they need along with pre-addressed, pre-stamped envelopes. Finally, for every election, TurboVote repeats the process, sending text message and email reminders with important election information, dates and deadlines, to ensure that they never miss another.

However, what’s most exciting about this news was that the move to institutionalize voter engagement was a notably bipartisan effort. Republican Congressman Lou Frey, who founded the Institute of Politics and Government at the University of Central Florida, is also a supporter of the TurboVote effort.

In the words of Congressman Frey, “the adoption of TurboVote by the Florida College System will provide a pathway to a lifetime of participation by the state’s youngest citizens.” Frey knows what he’s talking about. He helped sponsor the legislation leading to the adoption of the 26th Amendment in the 1970s that first gave 18 year-olds right to vote. And now he’s challenging “every student in the state to use TurboVote’s easy website to register and help shape the future of America by voting in every election.”

As schools across Florida come together to bring TurboVote to their campuses, they are doing more than introducing the next generation to our democracy; they are serving as a model for the rest of the country. TurboVote is now at over 140 campuses and signing on more partners every day.

Seth Flaxman is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Democracy Works, a nonprofit dedicated to the idea that voting should fit the way we live.