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Introducing the new Local News Lab

Tom Glaisyer
/
February 10, 2017

We don’t know what the future of media and journalism holds, but we do know that no matter what technological, economic, or cultural shifts occur, a vibrant and resilient press is central to a healthy democracy. This is a priority of our work at the Democracy Fund. As we pursue efforts to strengthen local news and participation we want to share what we learn, provide an opportunity to highlight the work of our grantees, and engage with the community of people working on these issues.

In that spirit, today we are re-launching the Local News Lab as a testing ground for the future of journalism. The site will be managed by our Public Square Program as a resource for those working at the intersection of media and democracy. It will be a site of inquiry, experimentation, and learning where the Democracy Fund and its grantees and partners will explore new models, tools, and practices for creating a robust and diverse public square. Through the Local News Lab we will share what we learn, invite your input, and shine a spotlight on the people helping make journalism more sustainable, collaborative and engaged with its community.

The Local News Lab was originally developed by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation through a grant from the Knight Foundation. The Democracy Fund was also an early supporter of the Dodge Foundation’s work. We look forward to building on their pioneering work developing an ecosystem approach to transforming the landscape of local news in New Jersey and continuing to work with them as partners on this site.

As an introduction to the work of the Local News Lab, check out these featured posts and research:

  1. Read the latest from the Lab: dive into a topic of your choice from community engagement to business models to philanthropy.
  2. Let the Lab guide you: our new detailed guides offer advice on how to help newsrooms develop new revenue models.
  3. Learn from the Lab: don’t miss this report on lessons learned in the first 18 months of experiments undertaken by the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation.

You can still expect to find information about the Democracy Fund’s grantmaking around journalism, civic information, and participation here on our main website. The Local News Lab will focus, not on how to get a grant from Democracy Fund, but rather on what our grantees and partners are doing and learning in the world. As a systems change organization we are committed to learning, iterating, and partnering in ways that strengthen both our work and the field at large.

We understand that the challenges we face will take patience, and persistent and deep partnership. We see this as a chance to invite people into our work and be transparent about what we are trying and how it is working. Want to talk to us more about the Lab? Email us at localnewslab@democracyfund.org.

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In 2017, Journalists Have to Partner, Not Parachute

Josh Stearns
/
January 18, 2017

It might be tempting for national newsrooms, most of which are headquartered on the coasts, to boost their travel budget in the wake of the 2016 elections. A common refrain in the media post-mortems that followed the elections was that national journalists and political reporters need to spend more time in small, rural communities the middle of the country. It’s true, we do need a wider diversity of stories and perspectives in media, but parachuting into “flyover country” isn’t going to solve anything.

In 2017, editors who are committed to telling more diverse stories about American communities across should partner with talented journalists on the ground who know the history, culture and context of the places they work. National newsrooms should approach these partnerships with humility and a spirit of reciprocity. Both national and local journalists have a lot to bring to the table — see for example ProPublica’s work on interactive satellite reporting paired with the boots-on-the-ground journalism of the New Orleans Lens. Plus, at a time of limited and dwindling resources, collaboration can help outlets strengthen both the stories they tell and the newsrooms that tell them.

Heather Bryant, a Knight Fellow at Stanford University, wrote about this in the wake of the election. Rather than flying in national staff or setting up new newsrooms locally, she argues, “journalism as a whole would be better served by supporting and improving the newsrooms that might already be in these places.” The results of Bryant’s fellowship research will be a valuable contribution, surfacing new models and best practices for local/national reporting. Follow her work on Medium here.

There are already some great models*:

  • Last year the Center for Investigative Reporting also launched Reveal Labs which they describe as “a series of partnerships across the country to form networks that help newsrooms find and tell tough stories, connect them to those most affected and bring them to a national audience through Reveal.” In 2015 Nieman Lab reported on how Reveal was embedding reporters in local newsrooms to expand investigative capacity and bring local narratives to a national audience.
  • The Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Regional and Local Journalism Centers are bringing newsrooms together across state lines to report on shared issues across different regions. The centers are designed to both serve local people better and to “feed national public media news programs.”

Strengthening local newsrooms is not just about creating a runway for stories to bubble up to the national level or creating a training ground for journalists who aspire to the New York Times and the Washington Post. Creating healthier local news ecosystems that better serve local communities is critical to people living in those communities, and to democracy itself.

In a prescient post from March of 2016 Josh Benton of the Nieman Lab pointed out how digital journalism has become concentrated “more firmly than ever in New York and a few other major cities.” There is no beat where that is more true than in political and campaign reporting. And that, Benton notes, has had “real impacts on the kind of news we get.”

“America is a big, highly distributed place. Our democracy is structured around cities and counties and congressional districts and states,” writes Benton. “Our media used to be too.”

After the election Benton reminded us that many communities have faced a dramatic erosion in community institutions. “The factories shut down; the church pews were emptier than they used to be; the braided fabric of their towns had unraveled,” writes Benton. And for many “the local newspaper was one of those key institutions — the daily or weekly package of stories that connected you to your neighbors.”

This isn’t to say that we should go back to the “good old days” of journalism. Instead, it is an argument that we should work together to create brighter days down the road. We are better equipped to do that by working together than we are on our own.

In the most recent Nieman Reports, Nicco Mele calls for the rethinking of newsrooms as “civic reactors.” He calls on us to imagine a role for newsrooms that can begin to build new kinds of institutions to replace some of what Benton notes has been lost. He writes: “A possible future for journalism is more in the mold of grassroots organizing, where the newsroom becomes a sort of 21st century VFW hall, the hub of local activity.”

For national outlets, supporting community-driven news is an opportunity to reinvigorate the profession from the ground up and build new pathways for audience recruitment in the process. Rather than parachuting in, they can subsidize springboards for new talent and practice, and invite local newsrooms and communities to enrich national stories in the process.

This piece was originally published by MediaShift. Josh Stearns is the Associate Director of the Public Square Program at the Democracy Fund. Follow him on Twitter and sign up for the weekly Local Fix newsletter on innovation, community engagement and local news.

 

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Democracy Fund Welcomes Five New Leaders to its bipartisan National Advisory Committee

Democracy Fund
/
January 18, 2017

Washington, D.C. – Today, the Democracy Fund welcomes five new leaders to its bipartisan National Advisory Committee which provides advice on organizational initiatives and assesses strategic opportunities to advance the Fund’s work to ensure that our political system is able to withstand new challenges and deliver on its promise to the American people.

The Democracy Fund’s National Advisory Committee includes Republicans, Democrats, and Independents who are committed to finding achievable solutions to our nation’s biggest problems. Advisors include former White House and elected officials, as well as esteemed leaders from government, academia, and advocacy.

The Democracy Fund’s new National Advisory Committee members include:

  • Anthea Watson Strong, a lead on the Civics team at Google, builds products that help decision makers govern more effectively, help people access public services more efficiently, and help users engage in the civic process.
  • Charles J. Sykes is one of the most influential conservatives in Wisconsin. The author of eight books, he is a senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, founder and editor in chief of the website Right Wisconsin, and is the editor of Wisconsin Interest magazine.
  • Geneva Overholser is an independent journalist and media critic in New York City. She is a former ombudsman for the Washington Post and editorial board member of the New York Times. Previously, she was editor of the Des Moines Register, where she led the paper to a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
  • Kristen Soltis Anderson is a researcher, pollster, and political analyst. She is a leading expert on the millennial generation and is author of The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (And How Republicans Can Keep Up). In 2013, she was named one of TIME Magazine’s “Thirty Under 30 Changing The World.”
  • Sonal Shah is a global leader on social innovation policy, including impact investing, data and technology for social good, and civic engagement through government, business, philanthropy, and civil society. Previously, she founded the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation where she led the Obama Administration’s efforts to leverage technology and partnerships to solve some of the nation’s toughest challenges.

Joe Goldman, President of the Democracy Fund said:

“In times of uncertainty, the value of a strong community of diverse voices is clear. Discussing our values and concerns with trusted peers and reaching out beyond our immediate networks to hear new perspectives will help make our work to promote healthy democracy more effective.”

Members of the National Advisory Committee serve a two-year term. The Committee meets twice a year, and its next meeting is in February 2017.

About the Democracy Fund

The Democracy Fund is a bipartisan foundation established by eBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar to help ensure that the American people come first in our democracy. Today, modern challenges—such as hyper partisanship, money in politics, and struggling media—threaten the health of American Democracy. Since its creation, the Democracy Fund has committed more than $30 million in grants to ensure our political system is able to withstand these new challenges and deliver on its promise to the American people.

The Democracy Fund invests in change makers who advocate for solutions that can bring lasting improvements to our political system and build bridges that help people come together to serve our nation. Grants include projects to find workable solutions to the challenges facing our elections system, local media ecosystems, and Congress’ ability to solve problems in the face of hyper-partisanship. Learn more by visiting democracyfund.org.

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My 9 Resolutions for 2017

Joe Goldman
/
January 18, 2017

Before we get too much farther into January, I want to take a moment to wish everyone a Happy New Year on behalf of the Democracy Fund team.

I’ve always believed that developing resolutions for the new year is a powerful act of renewal and commitment. 2017 brings with it a wide range of challenges to our democracy that are deeply concerning. But it is also an opportunity for each of us to apply what we’ve learned from the past to our future plans and to recommit ourselves to those principles that we each hold most dear.

I hope you will consider joining me in making the following resolutions:

  1. I will remember that while our democracy is resilient, it is more deeply vulnerable than many of us realized and requires constant vigilance.
  2. I will seek to engage and understand people who anger me, rather than shaming and isolating them.
  3. I will do my best to keep in mind that history is long and conditions change in unexpected ways (both for the good and bad).
  4. I will remember that I have blind spots and that perceptions based on recent history may be wrong (especially in our new environment).
  5. I will speak out when I see injustice and stand up for those who are targeted by bullies.
  6. I will look to support efforts that are ambitious enough to make a difference, even if there is significant risk they may not succeed.
  7. I will be unafraid to fail and will make every effort to learn from experiments that don’t work out.
  8. I will remain committed to strengthening the core institutions and norms of our democracy.
  9. I will maintain my confidence in the goodness and wisdom of the American people (even when it can be challenging to do so).

In times of uncertainty, the value of a strong community of diverse voices is clear. Discussing our values and concerns with trusted peers and reaching out beyond our immediate networks to hear new perspectives will help make our work to promote healthy democracy more effective.

At the Democracy Fund, our staff includes Republicans, Democrats, and Independents who are committed to working together to make our democracy work better. In 2016, we hired 10 new full time members of our staff – and as we look ahead to 2017, we are continuing to recruit for several open positions.

Today, I’m pleased to welcome five new leaders to our National Advisory Committee:

Anthea Watson Strong, a lead on the Civics team at Google, builds products that help decision makers govern more effectively, help people access public services more efficiently, and help users engage in the civic process.

Charles J. Sykes is one of the most influential conservatives in Wisconsin. The author of eight books, he is a senior fellow at the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, founder and editor in chief of the website Right Wisconsin, and is the editor of Wisconsin Interest magazine.

Geneva Overholser is an independent journalist and media critic in New York City. She is a former ombudsman for the Washington Post and editorial board member of the New York Times. Previously, she was editor of the Des Moines Register, where she led the paper to a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

​Kristen Soltis Anderson is a researcher, pollster, and political analyst. She is a leading expert on the millennial generation and is author of The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (And How Republicans Can Keep Up). In 2013, she was named one of TIME Magazine’s “Thirty Under 30 Changing The World.”

Sonal Shah is a global leader on social innovation policy, including impact investing, data and technology for social good, and civic engagement through government, business, philanthropy, and civil society. Previously, she founded the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation where she led the Obama Administration’s efforts to leverage technology and partnerships to solve some of the nation’s toughest challenges.

Please visit our About Us page to learn more about our team. Together, we are committed to finding achievable solutions to our nation’s biggest problems and will work to ensure that our political system is able to withstand new challenges and deliver on its promise to the American people in 2017 and beyond.

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

Terry Ao Minnis
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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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Welcoming New Democracy Fund Teammates

Democracy Fund
/
December 20, 2016

Democracy Fund has grown a lot in 2016. Since January, we have hired 10 new full time members of our staff – and as we look ahead to 2017, we are continuing to recruit for several open positions.

As an organization, we believe that the inclusion and participation of diverse voices from across the political spectrum and from all walks of life is critical to our work to strengthen our democracy. Our staff includes talented, tireless Republicans, Democrats, and Independents who are committed to working together to make our democracy work better.

We are delighted to welcome our new Board Member, Sarah Steven, our three new Senior Fellows, Daniela Gerson, Marty Kaiser, and Rick Shapiro, and three new staff members, Isaiah Castilla, Teresa Gorman, and Robin Stevenson.

  • Sarah Steven is the newest member of Democracy Fund’s board of directors. Since 2008, Sarah has held a variety of communications and program management roles across the organizations and initiatives of The Omidyar Group (TOG), where she currently serves as Director of Communications. Sarah works closely with Pierre and Pam Omidyar, their advisors, and leadership teams, to develop communications strategies and platforms that allow TOG to share its efforts, key findings, and unique contributions with targeted audiences. With a career spanning more than two decades, Sarah draws from a diverse set of professional experiences beginning in Washington, D.C., where she managed public affairs programming for such clients as Home Box Office, Microsoft, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Silicon Valley, she worked with both Fortune 500 companies and startups on programs ranging from environmental sustainability to consumer and enterprise technologies and services. Sarah holds a B.A. in communications from George Mason University.
  • Daniela Gerson is a Senior Fellow for the Public Square Program. Bringing extensive expertise in immigration reporting and participatory media, Daniela will advise on ways to strengthen ecosystem news through journalism innovation and engagement with multiethnic communities. In fall 2016 Daniela joined the California State University Northridge Journalism Department as its first assistant professor with a focus on community, ethnic, and participatory media. Previously, Daniela worked with the Los Angeles Times as a community engagement editor, charged with bringing in new perspectives that reflect the diversity of L.A. and with creating feedback loops to inform coverage. Before joining the Los Angeles Times, Daniela directed the Civic Engagement and Journalism Initiative at University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. She has also reported for Financial Times Magazine, The New York Times, PRI’s The World, Weekend America, Der Spiegel, WNYC: New York Public Radio, among other outlets.
  • Marty Kaiser is a Senior Fellow for the Public Square Program. He is a nationally recognized media consultant specializing in leadership, digital innovation, ethics, investigative reporting, and editing. He has worked in the United States, Canada and Europe. He was Editor/Sr. Vice President of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from 1997 to 2015. Under his leadership, the Journal Sentinel earned a national reputation for its journalism and digital innovation. Kaiser’s newsroom won Pulitzer Prizes in 2008, 2010, and 2011 and was honored as a finalist six other times from 2003 through 2014. While he was editor, the Journal Sentinel won awards in almost every major U.S. journalism contest. Columbia Journalism Review wrote that the Journal Sentinel had one of the most acclaimed watchdog teams in the country, period.
  • Rick Shapiro is a Senior Fellow for the Governance Program. He is the President of Strategic Assets Consulting, a management consulting firm that specializes in providing services to federal, state and local government, non-profit organizations, and businesses. Previously, Rick served as Executive Director for the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF), a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to improving the effectiveness of Congress. Over the past 25 years, Rick has provided management consulting services to leaders in both the House and Senate and more than 200 House and Senate offices. He has authored or co-authored of a number of books and reports on congressional operations, and testified before Congress. He has appeared on the CBS Evening News, CNN, C-Span, CNBC, and National Public Radio and is frequently cited in newspaper, radio, and television stories about the Congress. Rick holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communications from the University of Illinois and an MPA from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.
  • Isaiah Castilla joins the Democracy Fund as Senior Counsel, bringing an array of knowledge to our team as he both oversees the Democracy Fund’s legal affairs and provides guidance on its strategy development. Isaiah previously served as the Bolder Advocacy Counsel at Alliance for Justice (AFJ) where he advised foundations on how best to maximize their advocacy capacity. Before joining AFJ, Isaiah was the founding partner of The Castilla Law Group, where he simultaneously managed a caseload of civil and criminal matters and provided legal guidance to nonprofits and political organizations. Isaiah holds a J.D. from Mississippi College School of Law, and earned a BA in Music from Tougaloo College where he graduated magna cum laude.
  • Teresa Gorman joins the Democracy Fund as the Local News Associate for the Public Square Program, supporting the Public Square team’s mission to invest in innovations and institutions that help people understand and participate in the democratic process. Teresa previously worked as the Supervising Producer of “Localore: Finding America,” for the Association of Independents in Radio, adapting new storytelling models to meet the individual needs of communities across the country. She has spent her career at the intersection of public media, local news, and digital media, working as one of the first ever social media editors for PBS NewsHour. Teresa attended Boston University where she received her BS in Journalism.
  • Robin Stevenson joins the Democracy Fund as the Executive Assistant to the President and Vice President of the Strategy, Impact, and Learning, bringing more than 25 years of related professional experience to the position. She recently she served as the Assistant to the Regional Chief Operating Officer of MGM Resorts International. Robin previously has worked as the Executive Assistant for various Vice Presidents and Directors at The American Institute of Architects, the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center, and George Washington University Hospital.

To learn more about our board, fellows, and staff, please visit www.democracyfund.org/who-we-are.

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6 Things To Know On #GivingTuesday

Emma Thomson
/
November 29, 2016

As Americans head back to work with full hearts after Thanksgiving, we have an annual opportunity to support nonprofit organizations in the work they do year round. While there are plenty of reasons to give, here are six tips to keep in mind:

1. Think about today’s priorities

There’s no shortage of needs from which to choose – from education and advocacy to meeting basic needs, there are plenty of great options! We’re partial to democracy issues.

2. Check the charity rating on a resource like Charity Navigator

Before you give, confirm that the organization is a certified 501(c)3 nonprofit and in good standing.

3. Donate directly through the charity

Eliminate the middle man! By contributing directly to the charity via its website or another way, you’re making sure the beneficiary gets the whole donation.

4. Earmark your contribution for a specific program or need

Passionate about a certain program or area in which a nonprofit works? You’ll be more invested in your donation if you know that it’s going to something you care about.

5. Take advantage of your workplace’s matching gifts benefit

Do your employee benefits include an opportunity for matching gifts? If so, make sure to report your giving to qualifying charities to double the impact.

6. Generosity is good!

In addition to benefits like better mental health and stress management, giving makes you feel good and is a great way to pay your good fortune forward.

The Democracy Fund is grateful to our grantees who are making a difference for the American people. We support them because we believe in their commitment to making Americans’ voices come first in our democracy. To learn more about their work, please visit our Impact page. This #GivingTuesday, we can all make a difference!

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Starting With Community: From Civic Journalism to Community Engagement

Paul Waters
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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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Progress Report Shows Promising Gains for Voting Access & Efficiency

Stacey Scholl
/
October 20, 2016

In 2014, the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA) highlighted best practices in election administration to improve the voting experience for all Americans. The bipartisan group, lead by chief attorneys for President Obama and Governor Romney’s campaigns, released a comprehensive—and unanimous—set of recommendations to make voting easier and more efficient.

In advance of the 2016 presidential election, we wanted to know: what recommendations were adopted and where? Answers to these questions became the Democracy Fund Progress Report on the PCEA. In it dozens of election officials and stakeholders reveal areas of improvement, notably:

  • Modernizing voter registration systems;
  • Expanding early voting and access to voting;
  • Reducing lines and improving polling place management; and
  • Modernizing voting technology.

Modernizing Voter Registration

A major recommendation was expanding Online Voter Registration (OVR), which is valued for its usefulness to both voters and election administrators. Since the release of the Commission’s report, the number of states with OVR has doubled to 39, including the District of Columbia.

Other recommendations continue to impact voter registration in major ways. Due in part to the Commission, two networks that facilitate voter registration information sharing between states, for the purpose of improving the accuracy of voter rolls, have grown. Voter Registration Crosscheck now has at least 29 states participating and 20 states and the District of Columbia have joined the Electronic Registration Information Center.

Expanding Early Voting and Access to Voting

The PCEA report also spurred five states to adopt forms of early voting or expand its role in comprehensive election plans. There is a drastic change in Massachusetts, where prior to 2016, most voters had one alternative to voting on Election Day: have a legally accepted excuse and vote an in-person absentee ballot. Under the new law, there will be 11 days of in-person early voting at multiple sites across the Commonwealth.

There has been a reinforcement of ideas to help military and overseas voters. A working group formed by the DoD’s Federal Voting Assistance Program and the Council of State Governments built on the PCEA’s recommendations. Notably, they recommended that military and overseas voters should be sent absentee ballots for all elections during a two-year period and asked states with OVR to designate a section of their portals for these unique voters.

Reducing Lines and Improving Polling Place Management

Polling places are changing for the better with data-informed innovation. In 2015, the Voting Technology Project published an online Elections Management Toolkit to help officials allocate polling place resources, allowing them to model line lengths based on past data. Videos even walk election officials through using the tools.

States are also taking action to recruit public and private sector employees and students, to become poll workers. Rhode Island and Illinois started programs to recruit student workers as a catalyst for increased voter participation among young people. Additionally, the Bipartisan Policy Center and Democracy Works successfully recruited Spotify, Starbucks, Target, and several other large companies in a coordinated effort to generate greater civic participation among their employees.

Modernizing Voting Technology

With strong urging from the PCEA, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission approved new voting system certification guidelines and a manual for certification and testing. The hope is these actions encourage voting machine vendors to bring new systems to market.

The accounts of PCEA influence are revealing that our system is open to change. In fact, the bipartisan efforts to implement the recommendations of the Commission are a sign of possibilities when people work together. We acknowledge that problems will occur this November; any time 100 million plus people do anything, problems will occur. For those places where problems emerge, there are some solutions to be found in the guidance of the PCEA or the bipartisan spirit of their work. We are encouraged by this progress and look forward to continuing to work with our grantees, election officials, and advocates to improve the voting process for all Americans.

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Transforming a Tradition: Rethinking Debates with Civic Hall

Tom Glaisyer
/
September 26, 2016

The 2016 election cycle has been described as unique or like no other. Clearly at the Presidential level this election has been unlike other recent cycles, but it is also remarkably different in another way: the public is getting much of their news beyond television broadcasts, and they are responding, sharing, and engaging with politics in ways they never have before.

It is this change in the nature of our communications that Civic Hall’s Rethinking Debates project seeks to explore. It does so, not blindly, nor in an “add technology and the world will be better” kind of way, but rather with the sense that given the opportunity to engage the public before, during, and after debates, we should use it to explore how people learn about candidates and their positions.

There is no question that the challenges for productive debates are significant. Political polarization in the United States is more pronounced. Americans now have shorter attention spans than a goldfish. The standard format of a televised debate has turned—despite the efforts of moderators no less experienced or skilled than in the past—into what one might describe as a three ring circus. The networks may be expecting massive viewership for the upcoming Presidential debates but its viewership that is partly driven by the sort of enthusiasm one has for a wrestling match rather than something Presidential. In a context where disillusionment within the electorate with politics and candidates is extensive it seems more likely that the debates will not inform, but incite, not engage, but aggravate, not clarify but confuse.

In spite of all that, debates continue to be a staple of the campaign season in many races. They are seen as a key test of a candidate, intellectually, temperamentally, even a candidates’ body language and wardrobe choices become the subject of countless post-debate news clips.

Several groups are working on this challenge. The Annenberg Public Policy Center formed a working group and issued a report advocating for multiple innovations in the debates. The Open Debate Coalition has also been advocating for specific reforms around the debate format. Democracy Fund’s grantee, the National Institute for Civil Discourse, also recently issued civility standards for candidate debates. Politifact will undoubtedly be fact-checking the claims made during the debate and the Internet Archive, also a grantee, is using its capacity to help journalists and the public see how TV covers debates.

The Democracy Fund’s Public Square Program focuses specifically on supporting efforts to help people understand and participate in the democratic process. We invested in Civic Hall’s work because, as their new report reminds us: “The debates are [the public’s] one opportunity in the campaign to see and hear the candidates speak directly to each other in a face-to-face encounter.”

In their extensive report, “Rethinking Debates: A Report On Increasing Engagement,” and at their recent mini-conference, Civic Hall brought together experts to explore technologies and platforms that have the potential to strengthen debates, increase their relevance, and ensure they continue to be central, but in different ways than in the past.

A few of the most promising ideas include:

  • CNN’s use of a technologically advanced auditorium and polling of an in-person audience to add nuance and immediate responses that could be fed back into the debate via the moderator seemed to successfully pair the strengths of a moderator and an advanced facility.
  • Google’s election hub, a platform developed in collaboration with Watchout a local organization in Taiwan. The platform allowed the public to generate questions for Presidential candidates. It elicited 6,500 questions that generated 220,000 votes and 5 questions were used in the debates.
  • At a state level: In New York, Silicon Harlem hosted a debate and utilized Microsoft’s Pulse tool and the above mentioned Open Debates Coalition had their question generation tool adopted for a debate in Florida. Both provided opportunities for the public in the United States to become more engaged in driving the questions used prior to and during the debate.

We hope that as this debate season gets underway we will see more examples both at the state and local and perhaps at the Presidential level that will be new models to follow if we’re to better serve the American public as they consider who they wish to vote for.

Click here to learn more about Civic Hall’s Rethinking Debates Project.

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