Expanding Democracy
Organization Night went virtual! Our physical presence may have been lacking but the passion was not! We spent the evening inspired by our finalists talking about how they, as Pastor Michel McBride put it, can “expand democracy”, making ours a more inclusive and representative society.
Each of our 12 finalist organizations is playing a key role in ensuring the health of our democracy in the U.S., one in which all people are empowered to participate. Below is a recap of the finalists’ presentations. To listen to the full event, you can access the recording here.
Build the Youth Movement
“Did you know that young people are key to saving our democracy?” asked Sarah Audelo, CEO of Alliance for Youth Organizing. Despite what the headlines say and the common narrative about youth, they have been at the cutting edge of democracy reform, securing some of the most critical policy changes in the past ten years. Alliance for Youth Organizing is a coalition of 20 state-based organizations run by and for young people. They will contact more than 2 million young voters this year while advancing key democracy reform policies such as automatic voter registration, online and same-day registration, voting assistance for incarcerated citizens, and expansion of on-campus polling locations.
Activate Voters
DoSomething.org activates millions of passionate young people to volunteer in every area code across the country. But many of them aren’t voting, Aria Finger shared, at least not yet. In 2018, they tested their platform to transform their volunteers into voters, registering 118,00 new voters and turning them out at 57% compared to 39% of all young people. In 2020, they aim to register 400,000 voters and get their4.5 million voting-age members to vote. Since they engage their young members year round on issues they care about, they have the relationships and data on how to effectively reach these voters, turn them out, and continue to engage them well after the election.
Faith in Action will register, educate and mobilize 1 million low-propensity voters through their nationwide network of faith based communities and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Pastor Michael McBride shared that the biggest risk to increasing turnout is apathy and lack of relevance - too many low-propensity voters do not believe their vote counts. Faith In Action’s relational, peer-to-peer engagement, enabled for virtual organizing, is designed to invoke the passion in these voters and develop a pathway for their engagement that removes barriers to civic participation.
After missing three elections because of process issues, Seth Flaxman founded Democracy Works to fix the “turnout problem” in the U.S. Their online voter registration and text notification system reaches millions with accurate information about upcoming elections, personalized polling locations, and tracking for mail ballots. Their work is key to combating voter confusion, and Battery Powered resources will ensure they can offer services online at scale across the country.
Media Matters
Radio Bilingue is the leading national, Spanish-language public radio station delivering much-needed information to news deserts across the United States. Samuel Orozco began working there 40 years ago when it was founded as a radio station serving farm worker audiences in San Joaquin Valley. Now they reach approximately 500,000 daily listeners across the United States, not only bringing them accurate local information, but engaging them civically, including in the Census and voting.
Are you exhausted by media stories of problems, broken systems and polarization? You’re not alone. Journalism has a bias toward reporting on the negative, leaving many stories about solutions untold, shared Tina Rosenberg. Solutions Journalism Network is changing that by training journalists how to bring rigor to reporting on solutions to the problems we see around us. Through their work, they envision a world where, every day, people are informed not only about problems, but also about the ways in which people and communities are effectively responding to them.
The crisis for local news has become a crisis for our democracy, shared Charlie Sennott of The GroundTruth Project. Trusted local news is needed more than ever right now during the pandemic. The GroundTruth Project is bolstering local reporting through a national service program called Report for America. They train and support diverse reporters who are then placed in local newsrooms to increase capacity for rigorous reporting in the most undercovered areas of America.
Secure and Modern Elections
Three finalists are working in a complimentary way to ensure that our 2020 elections are secure and the ballot is safe to access for all.
Tiana Epps-Johnson, co-founder and Executive Director of Center for Tech & Civic Life, spent her last day outside her house on March 17th serving as a volunteer poll worker for the Illinois primary. She had a front row seat to how the pandemic will impact our elections. The mission of her organization is to ensure the U.S. elections are more inclusive, professional and secure. How? They are a key partner in training local election officials who have the greatest direct impact on our election experience. Their focus with our funds will be training election officials that serve 125 million voters on how to run a safe election where no one has to choose between their health and their right to vote.
Liz Howard was Deputy Commissioner of Elections in Virginia when their voting machines were hacked … luckily not during a live election, but by white hat hackers testing for vulnerabilities. The Brennan Center for Justice helped them transform their election security, and quickly. Now she works for Brennan Center! In partnership with Common Cause and Verified Voting, their current focus is to support 10 battleground states to dramatically expand absentee voting and to do so in a secure manner. They are also leading the bipartisan coalition pushing for federal dollars to secure our 2020 elections.
Represent.Us is filling key gaps in advocating for state-level policy change to secure greater access to voting from home in the November 2020 election, and for permanent vote-at-home policies in all 50 states in the future. Their strong bipartisan campaign, VoteSafe, is co-chaired by Republicans and Democrats, and is designed to counter the right vs. left narrative around voting from home to expand access to the ballot this year.
Change the Face of Government
Women have been proven to be very effective legislators: they turn bills into law twice as often as their male peers and send 9% more funds back to their districts. So why do they represent only 25% of elected offices in the U.S.? VoteRunLead is aiming to change that by training and supporting thousands of women to run for state legislative offices. Their goal, CEO Erin Vilardi shared with us, is to transform U.S. state houses to be majority female and reflective by 2024.
Draw Fair Maps
On the heels of our 2020 election is a critical process that will define electoral districts for the next decade - redistricting. Campaign Legal Center is the premier national organization defending the democratic process through litigation, legal action and advocacy. Their request to Battery Powered, Counsel Chris Lamar shared, is to continue their work to ensure #FairMaps through expansion of independent redistricting commissions. As Chris said, “the players should not be the umpires” and their work will ensure that.
To learn more about our spring theme, check out the Issue Brief here.
Our theme on Healthy Democracy continues the week of June 1st with a virtual Allocation Week! All Battery Powered members will be able to vote virtually on which of our finalists will receive grants. Be sure to RSVP for our three Allocation Week events:
- Monday, June 1, 4:30pm - Study Session - review the finalists and get all your questions answered about these organizations.
- Wednesday, June 3 - 5:00pm - Round One Results & Gathering - hear the results of round 1 voting and kick off round 2 voting
- Thursday, June 4, 7:00pm - Final Results & Celebration - hear the final results and celebrate with fellow members
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