Minneapolis

"Report: Minnesota leads nation in African American political engagement levels" by Dana Thiede, KARE 11 News, February 19, 2020

"Pushing that Boulder Up a Hill" by Briana Bierschbach and Torey Van Oot, Star Tribune, August 23, 2020

"Supreme Court battle 'lit a fire' under Minnesota women ahead of the election" by Briana Bierschbach Star Tribune, September 25, 2020

"Minnesota Voters Alliance sues Minneapolis over elections grant" by Liz Navratil Star Tribune, September 25, 2020

"Feds launch effort to help ex-felons register to vote in Minnesota" by Zoe Jackson, Star Tribune, September 29, 2020

Atlanta

"Georgia Wrongfully Purged 200,000 Voters, Many in the Atlanta Metro Area, From Its Rolls, New Report Finds" by Anne Branigin The Root, September 2, 2020.

"‘I Refuse Not to Be Heard’: Georgia in Uproar Over Voting Meltdown" by Richard Fausset, Reid J. Epstein and Rick Rojas, New York Times, June 11, 2020.

"People are sharing how voter suppression is happening in Atlanta Right Now" by Paul Meara BET, June 9, 2020.

"Done in by a deadline: A Georgia law prevented 87,000 people from voting last year. And it could have a big impact in 2020," by Angela Caputo | Geoff Hing | Johnny Kauffman, APM Reports, October 28, 2019.

"If Georgia primary was an attempt at voter suppression, it failed badly," by Alan Abramowitz, The Hill, June 22, 2020.

Black Voters Matter:

Black Voters Matter goal is to increase power in marginalized, predominantly Black communities. Effective voting allows a community to determine its own destiny. We agree with the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he said, “Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” We seek to achieve our goals with the following 5 core beliefs in mind: The key to effective civic engagement and community power is understanding, respecting and supporting local infrastructure. Black Voters Matter not only on election day, but on the 364 days between election days as well. This means we must support individuals and organizations that are striving to obtain social justice throughout the year. Black Voters Matter *everywhere*, including rural counties and smaller cities/towns that are often ignored by candidates, elected officials, political parties and the media. In order for Black voters to matter, we must utilize authentic messaging which speaks to our issues, connects with our hopes and affirms our humanity. The leadership, talent and commitment demonstrated by Black women in particular must receive recognition and, more importantly, *investment* in order to flourish and multiply.

Fair Fight:

We promote fair elections in Georgia and around the country, encourage voter participation in elections, and educate voters about elections and their voting rights. Fair Fight brings awareness to the public on election reform, advocates for election reform at all levels, and engages in other voter education programs and communications. Voter suppression of voters of color and young voters is a scourge our country faces in states across the nation.  Georgia’s 2018 elections shone a bright light on the issue with elections that were rife with mismanagement, irregularities, unbelievably long lines and more, exposing both recent and also decades-long actions and inactions by the state to thwart the right to vote. Georgians and Americans are fighting back. Fair Fight Action engages in voter mobilization and education activities and advocates for progressive issues; in addition Fair Fight Action has mounted significant programs to combat voter suppression in Georgia and nationally.  Fair Fight PAC has initiated programs to support voter protection programs at state parties around the country and is engaging in partnerships to support and elect pro voting rights, progressive leaders.

Faculty Network for Student Voting Rights:

We are a diverse group of faculty at all levels, at institutions throughout the United States.  We would like to invite any interested faculty, from teaching assistants and adjuncts to tenured professors, to join us in founding nonpartisan national and state-level faculty networks to ensure student voting rights on and off campus. We believe ensuring students’ ability to exercise their right to vote is an important priority for all educators. As this year of crisis plays out, we need to be on guard against stepped-up attempts to suppress voting by students. Student voters are a particularly vulnerable population because many have never registered to vote before, or are attending school in states where they have never lived and don’t know the law or procedures. They may not be able to rely on the advice of family or friends who might live in entirely different jurisdictions spread throughout the country. In this context, the 1.3 million college and university faculty have a key role to play. We propose to create a Faculty Network for Student Voting Rights to activate faculty on behalf of their students.  This new organization will help organize cross-institutional coalitions of faculty at the state level, since that is where election laws are made, and where the specific knowledge of faculty members who may be long-time residents of the state they teach in can be extremely useful to their students. Its focus will be connecting individual academics with student-led groups in their states, cities, and specific institutions to help provide support to students who are helping others navigate the sometimes frustrating process of registering to vote and then exercising their franchise.  

Scholars Strategy Network, Faculty Guide to Student Voting Rights in Your Classroom:

Faculty are the most direct and consistent pathway to students for election information. Use this faculty guide to bring voter registration, education, and voter information directly into the classroom.

Register - It’s important to set aside time in class to talk about why and how students should register, especially with many in-person opportunities for voter registration canceled due to the pandemic.

Educate - Faculty can connect the election and voting directly to policies that intersect with course content, highlight the value of voting.

Turn Out - When faculty provide concrete steps that students can take to prepare to cast their ballots, students are more confident in the process and more likely to turn out to vote. Want to engage with other faculty members around best practices for student voting? SSN now has an initiative dedicated to student voting that is run by faculty, for faculty. If you want to get involved, learn more here and join the student voting email list.

Reclaim Our Vote:

Ongoing voter suppression and voter list purging have been disenfranchising millions of eligible voters -- especially voters of color.  Reclaim Our Vote works in those voter suppression states. Our volunteers inform and mobilize voters of color to make sure they are registered and they know how to get a ballot and vote. It is a nonpartisan campaign of the nonprofit 501(c)3 Center for Common Ground. Our partners include State Voices, Black Voters Matter, Virginia Poor People’s Campaign, DemLabs, Mi Familia Vota, Progressive Coders Network, VoteRiders, National Coalition of 100 Black Women, American Ethical Union,  Religious Action Center for Reformed Judaism, UU the Vote, Rapid Resist and others. In fall 2018, working with our partners, we made hundreds of thousands of phone calls to voters in Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, and Texas. Canvassing teams on the ground followed up with those who could not be reached by phone. In 2019 we sent 347,000 postcards, 114,000 texts, and made 90,000 calls to voters in our target states!  Our goals for 2020 are substantially higher -- and we need your help! We are focusing on Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. We have made more than 470,000 phone calls and sent almost 5 million postcards so far in 2020.

Work Elections:

Many local election officials struggle to recruit the hundreds of thousands of poll workers needed nationwide on Election Day. County and municipal election officials often have difficulty hiring sufficient numbers of volunteers with the technological and language skills necessary for modern elections because they lack a streamlined way to share information on what serving as a poll worker entails, what specific needs they have, and how interested individuals can sign up. WorkElections.com offers a solution to one of the main obstacles to poll worker recruitment: a lack of accessible, centralized information that can reach wide audiences. Typically, local election officials advertise via their limited online presence, local media, and community events, and often overly rely on their existing volunteer roster rather than recruiting younger, more multilingual, and computer-proficient candidates. Work Elections will be promoted widely in an effort to attract a new pool of volunteers. A goal of this project is to help improve election administration by broadening and diversifying the pool of poll workers. In doing so, we hope to address the thousands of votes lost and hours wasted in line due to an Election Day workforce struggling to keep pace with technology, language challenges, and the needs of an increasingly diverse electorate. A new generation of early voting and Election Day volunteers can ensure that the adoption of new technology does not undermine the efficiency of casting a ballot and that language-minority communities receive the assistance they need.

Fair Elections Center:

Fair Elections Center was established in 2017 as a 501(c)(3) organization. The Center is affiliated with and began as the Fair Elections Legal Network which was established in 2006 by Washington D.C. public interest lawyer Bob Brandon and former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman. The organization grew out of a meeting on February 6, 2006 attended by over 60 voting rights and mobilization organizations and a number of pro bono election lawyers. The purpose of the meeting was to gauge support for creating a national network of pro bono election lawyers who could provide support for year-round, proactive election reforms at the state and local level and provide centralized staff to help organizations navigate the intricacies of the election laws in order to increase voter participation. Fair Elections Center continues that work with its staff of attorneys and advocates, delivers nonpartisan creative solutions to the complex web of barriers that have been erected over time to prevent segments of our citizens from reaching their full American potential. Working alongside other national and state groups, the Center works to make the processes of voter registration, voting, and election administration as accessible as possible for every American, with a special focus on student and underrepresented voters. To this end, Fair Elections Center engages in a wide variety of advocacy efforts, including producing reports, talking points and fact sheets, providing state voter guides, providing testimony to legislatures, conducting trainings and seminars for organizations and their supporters, litigating voting rights cases in state and federal court, and working directly with local election officials and Secretaries of State to ensure that the right to vote is protected and expanded. We provide election law expertise to state-based civic engagement coalitions and direct help to organizations representing various constituencies that need help accessing the ballot as they plan their programs, encounter problems or need help engaging elections officials.

Rock the Vote:

In 1990, music executives founded Rock the Vote in response to the censorship of hip-hop and rap artists. Our first partnership, with MTV, promoted the message that “Censorship is Un-American” and activated millions of young people across the country to exercise their rights and represent their interests. For thirty years, we have continuously adapted to the changing landscapes of media, technology and culture to breakthrough and empower each new generation. We are drawing on our decades of experience to deploy the most effective and impactful messages, tactics, and technology to uplift and empower the largest, most diverse generation in U.S. history. We do this while also pioneering innovative ways

Podcasts and Other Media:

Vote! The Podcast by Kat Calvin and Andrea Hailey: "Let’s vote through this apocalypse together. The executive directors of Vote.org and Spread The Vote are here to answer your voting questions with activists, politicians, and your favorite celebs. Vote! is for anyone who has ever felt powerless, overwhelmed, under-resourced, or just plain lost when it comes to voting -- aka pretty much all of us!"

The Tightrope by Cornel West: "As we all navigate the balance between hope and uncertainty, we invite you to join Cornel West & Tricia Rose on The Tight Rope, a weekly podcast where we take time to welcome listeners and guests as thought collaborators with our revered hosts, public intellectuals Dr. Cornel West and Professor Tricia Rose. The Tight Rope is rich in creative, unfiltered dialogue on topics ranging from pop culture, art and music, to the contours of systemic racism, philosophy, the power of Socratic self-examination, and the possibilities of a peaceful and just world. This new and interactive podcast format will highlight the professors’ combined expertise to encourage critical thinking, self-reflection, and human connection as we navigate The Tight Rope."

Scholars Strategy Network presents weekly interviews with top researchers on politics, policy problems, and social issues. (see: Episode #224: "Voting in 2020”)

Suppressed 2020: The Fight to Vote: Voter Suppression is Happening Again. Brave New Films. Documentary by Robert Greenwalk.

Articles/Books

Abrams, Stacey, Carol Anderson, Kevin M. Kruse, Heather Cox Richardson, and Heather Ann Thompson. 2020. Voter Suppression in U.S. Elections. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press.

American Civil Liberties Union. 2020. “Block the Vote: Voter Suppression in 2020.” https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/block-the-vote-voter-suppression-in-2020/

Anderson, Carol. 2018. One person, no vote: How voter suppression is destroying our democracy. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Brown, Tristin, and Elijah Staggers. 2018. "Lessons from the 2018 Midterm Election and How to Protect Minority Voting Rights Posts-Shelby County v. Holder." Georgetown Journal of Law & Modern Critical Race Perspectives. V. 10.

Combs, Barbara Harris. 2016. "Black (and brown) bodies out of place: Towards a theoretical understanding of systematic voter suppression in the United States." Critical Sociology v.42, #4-5: 535-549.

Haselwerdt, Jake. June 4, 2020. “Voting in Crisis: The Likely Impact of Coronavirus on U.S. Political Participation.” https://items.ssrc.org/covid-19-and-the-social-sciences/democracy-and-pandemics/voting-in-crisis-the-likely-impact-of-coronavirus-on-us-political-participation/

Johnson, Theodore R. and Max Feldman. 2020. “The New Voter Suppression.” January 16. Brennan Center for Justice. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/new-voter-suppression

McKeever, Amy. 2020. “Voter Suppression Has Haunted America Since It was Founded.” National Geographic. August 21.

Page, Benjamin I., and Martin Gilens. 2020. Democracy in America?: What has gone wrong and what we can do about it. University of Chicago Press.

Policy Briefs

Scholars Strategy Network, Policy Briefs on Voting Rights and Elections:

Amel Ahmed, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, “Ensure Safe Elections for All”, May 6, 2020 and “When Election Rules Undermine Democracy”, April 1, 2013.

Edie N. Goldenberg, University of Michigan- Ann Arbor, “Tripling the College Student Vote in Ann Arbor”, July 30, 2020.

Page, Benjamin I., and Martin Gilens. 2020. Democracy in America?: What has gone wrong and what we can do about it. University of Chicago Press.

Page, Benjamin I., and Martin Gilens. 2020. Democracy in America?: What has gone wrong and what we can do about it. University of Chicago Press.

Marion Teniade Johnson, Frontline Solutions, “How Conservatives Rewrote North Carolina Elections Laws to Discourage Voter Participation.” May 3, 2018.

Jack Santucci, Drexel University, and Larry J. Diamond, Stanford University, “How Ranked-Choice Voting Could Empower Independents and Make Elections More Inclusive”, February 8, 2018.

Mark Rush, Washington and Lee University, “Two Small Steps to Meaningful U.S. Electoral Reforms”, October 12, 2018.

Douglas Spencer, University of Connecticut, “How Surveys Can Strengthen the Voting Rights Act.” May 25m, 2017.

Dewey M. Clayton, University of Louisville, “The Dismantling of the Voting Rights Act”, Dec. 2, 2014.

National Voter Registration Day:

National Voter Registration Day is a nonpartisan civic holiday celebrating our democracy. First observed in 2012, it has quickly gained momentum ever since. Nearly 3 million voters have registered to vote on the holiday to date. Celebrated on the fourth Tuesday of September, National Voter Registration Day will next take place on September 22, 2020. The holiday has been endorsed by the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED), the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), and the National Association of Election Officials (The Election Center). Every year millions of Americans find themselves unable to vote because they miss a registration deadline, don’t update their registration, or aren’t sure how to register. National Voter Registration Day wants to make sure everyone has the opportunity to vote. On Tuesday September 22, 2020 volunteers and organizations from all over the country will “hit the streets” in a single day of coordinated field, technology and media efforts. National Voter Registration Day seeks to create broad awareness of voter registration opportunities to reach tens of thousands of voters who may not register otherwise.