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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:

I will remember that while our democracy is resilient, it is more deeply vulnerable than many of us realized and requires constant vigilance.
I will seek to engage and understand people who anger me, rather than shaming and isolating them.
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).
I will remember that I have blind spots and that perceptions based on recent history may be wrong (especially in our new environment).
I will speak out when I see injustice and stand up for those who are targeted by bullies.
I will look to support efforts that are ambitious enough to make a difference, even if there is significant risk they may not succeed.
I will be unafraid to fail and will make every effort to learn from experiments that don’t work out.
I will remain committed to strengthening the core institutions and norms of our democracy.
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

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

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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Our Political System is Not a Game: Real Leaders Know When to Accept Defeat

Joe Goldman

September 21, 2016

With just weeks until the American public chooses our next president, it is troubling to see headlines filled with dubious suggestions that our elections might be “hacked” or “rigged” when the likelihood remains so remarkably small. Even more disturbing is the possibility that these kinds of stories could undermine the election results if things don’t work out after election day.

The wonder of American democracy is that we resolve our conflicts with votes and laws, not tanks and guns. This tradition is possible only because we treat the other party as opponents, not enemies, and we respect the integrity of our democratic institutions.

If the margin is very close, we rely on our election system and our judicial system to use predetermined rules to bring the election to a settlement. The alternative to relying on elections and rule of law is unthinkable and should be rejected in the strongest possible terms. When the votes have been cast and ballots counted, we expect that losing candidates will make a phone call to congratulate the winner and then publicly acknowledge the will of the electorate.

Refusing to accept election results wholeheartedly and without reservation is not just wrong, it is un-American. Gracefully accepting defeat is one of the truly powerful moments in our nation’s political life. Both of the major party candidates should commit to doing so this year.

Before it’s too late, we must call on political, media, and civic leaders to make clear that this is not a game. When candidates lose elections, we expect that they will accept defeat and call for the American people to come together as a nation. Period.

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Bridging the Bicoastal Bubbles on Civic Tech

Chris Nehls

September 12, 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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