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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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The 5 Principles of Integrity in Elections

Paul DeGregorio

February 29, 2016

With Super Tuesday upon us, we’re reminded that the intensity of a presidential-election year brings increased scrutiny for the nation’s election administrators. Presidential primaries, state primaries and the general election in November will beget a sharp focus on those whose job it is to make our democracy work. Their efforts will be watched closely by political campaigns, advocates, voters, the media and even conspiracy theorists.

In most cases, election administrators work hard to be fair and transparent and to promote integrity. But a large percentage of election officials are elected to their offices on a partisan ticket or appointed on partisan basis. This can lead some to believe that these officials will favor one political party over another in their decisions.

Even the best-written laws, regulations, policies or standards will pale in comparison to the personal ethics of an election administrator and the cultures of the offices they run. It’s imperative that election administrators ask themselves if they and their offices can withstand enormous scrutiny. This mandates trustworthy personnel and clear ethics policies.

Overall, ethics in elections includes five elements: independence, transparency, integrity, competence and fairness…

This was originally published via Governing Magazine. To read the full piece, click here.

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New ‘Healthy Congress’ Report Shows Signs of Hope

Betsy Wright Hawkings

February 2, 2016

Just over 18 months ago, the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) published recommendations by its Commission on Political Reform (CPR) to address the hyper-partisanship characterizing American politics.

BPC initiated its Healthy Congress Index last year to measure progress on several key issues, including the number of days Congress spends in session; the openness of the Senate debate and amendment process; and the strength of “regular order” in the congressional committee process, floor debate, and conference committees.

This week—on the heels of the Republican congressional retreat designed to outline priorities and issues for the remainder of the 114th Congress—BPC released its latest quarterly assessment of Congress’s ability to effectively govern.

The diagnosis? There are signs of hope, but still too little function in the system.

Based on the metrics of the Index, even with the upheaval of a new Speaker, the 114th Congress has made some progress. The ability of committees to make policy and resolve differences has improved.

The number of days the House and Senate were in session fell short of the CPR’s recommendations and House Rules still allowed for fewer amendments to be offered, but the Senate spent more days working in Washington.

The Senate also considered many more amendments compared with recent years—bearing out Majority Leader McConnell’s stated desire to return to “regular order.”

At the recent GOP retreat, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Leader McConnell outlined their respective plans for the year. These included a more ambitious policy agenda on Ryan’s part, and a shared commitment by the two leaders to return to a more functional Congress—one that exercises its power of the purse on time in the annual appropriations process, conducts more effective oversight, and produces agreements on key legislation. These are also positive signs.

Time will tell whether they will be able to deliver—and whether we will continue to see progress in BPC’s “Healthy Congress” assessment—in the coming election year.

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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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Working Group Offers Meaningful Ways to Make Military Voting Easier

Stacey Scholl

December 21, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

The Federal Post Card Application as a request for permanent registration

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Communicate when an application is accepted

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

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

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

Prior to joining the Democracy Fund, Stacey Scholl worked for the Federal Voting Assistance Program as a program analyst and also has experience working in two state election offices—Colorado and Iowa.

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The Governance Program One Year Later

Betsy Wright Hawkings

December 14, 2015

Looking back at my first year at the Democracy Fund, I can say working with a group of people truly committed to engaging the whole political spectrum is a remarkable and educational experience—beyond anything I could have imagined.

Since I joined the Democracy Fund, the Governance Program has been working to develop new approaches to understanding our nation’s system of governance as well as the forces of hyperpartisanship that currently render the system unable to function effectively. Nearly one year on, I can say working with a group of people representing all sides of the political spectrum has been challenging but productive.

For me, the chance to combine a quarter century of Hill experience with systems thinking to more deeply understand the system of Congress—and where the greatest opportunities to reduce dysfunction exist—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 foster collaboration among existing organizations, help new innovative organizations expand, and encourage them all to collaborate to deepen their impact in the space has been truly energizing.

Among the 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 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 working with a range of stakeholders to ask some hard questions. Specifically: How can we build on our existing approach to not only support existing organizations, but incentivize innovation as well? How can we support the institution of Congress by strengthening its operating systems and processes? How can we expand 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 and many voices, organizations, and public officials to solve the challenges. 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.

At the Democracy Fund, we are working to walk the walk when it comes to bipartisanship in our 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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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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States Are Falling Short In Providing Voter Access

Adam Ambrogi and Brenda Wright

November 30, 2015

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Neglected Responsibilities

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

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

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