Voter Registration and Participation Resolution
Call for GLC SOPHE to support policy and advocacy efforts to increase voter registration and voting participation which leads to healthier communities.
Adopted by the GLC SOPHE Board on May 8, 2024
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Whereas, high levels of community engagement help people recognize their own agency and ensure they are connected with each other, which improves neighborhood cohesion, health outcomes, and community resilience (Nelson et al., 2019); and
Whereas, a positive relationship exists between civic engagement and physical and mental health, health behaviors, and well-being (Dubowitz et al., 2020; Nelson et al., 2019); and
Whereas, regardless of political party, health care issues are considered extremely important by likely voters, with voters’ values, beliefs, and concerns about issues such as health care costs,insurance coverage, and benefits influencing candidates’ campaigns and legislators’ votes; and policy issues about health and health care influencing a majority of voters’ choices when voting for candidates (Blendon et al., 2018), budgets, and ballot initiatives (Nelson et al., 2019); and
Whereas, until recently, public health was viewed as an issue of personal conduct, related more to socioeconomic status or group standing than a political matter (Acharya et al., 2020), but public safety has been compromised during the COVID-19 pandemic by state legislators enacting partisan measures that limit the power of governors and the authority of public health officials in at least 26 states (Weber & Barry-Jester, 2021); and
Whereas, public health considerations should be the guiding factor in health policy decisions (Neelon et al., 2021) and
Whereas, people experience barriers to registering to vote and casting a ballot for many reasons, including many that intersect with barriers to receive healthcare. These reasons include the lack ofidentification documents (Carnegie Corporation, 2019), frequent changes in home address (Barth& Ensslin, 2014), limited English proficiency (Shelly & Forbes, 2013), misconceptions about therights of people with disabilities to vote (Sklar & Nisen, 2013), a combination of poor health and lowincome (Lyon, 2021); and
Whereas, our nation’s public health agenda prioritizes civic participation. Civic participation isincluded in Healthy People 2030, and voter participation was included as measurable coreobjective within the Social Determinants of Health (Office of Disease Prevention and HealthPromotion, 2023), and voter participation has a bearing on health equity and the many disparitiesamong groups in this country (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2020);
Therefore, be it resolved, the Great Lakes Chapter Society for Public Health Education (GLC SOPHE) shall:
1. Support the non-partisan Healthy Democracy, Healthy People Michigan initiatives which aims to strengthen and promote inclusive and representative civic and voter participation to advance health and racial equity.
2. Support legislation, policies, and practices that encourage state and local agencies who administer social service programs to integrate voter registration opportunities for applicants, such as helping to register or update client information within Medicaid and WIC appointments.
3. Support policies that make elections more accessible for all eligible voters, including but not limited considerations for people with varying literacy and/or abilities, language access improvements, and increased voter assistance options.
4. Oppose policies and practices that create barriers - or discourage, suppress, or restrict the ability of eligible voters to either register to vote and/or cast a ballot in free and fair elections asvoting is correlated to the health of communities.
5. Encourage its members to promote the health of communities by reminding them of upcomingelections and to vote in every election for which they are eligible.
6. Provide members with opportunities to learn about issues that will shape policy and share
resources from other entities that do the same.
References
Acharya, A., Gerring, J., & Reeves, A. (2020). Is health politically irrelevant? Experimental evidenceduring a global pandemic, BMJ Global Health, 5(10), e00422. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-004222
Barth, S., & Ensslin, B. (2014). Contacting Hard-to-Locate Medicare and Medicaid Members: Tips
for Health Plans. https://www.chcs.org/media/PRIDE-Tips-for-Contacting-Hard-toLocate-Members_121014_2.pdf
Blendon, R. J., Benson, J. M., & McMurtry, C. L. (2018). Health Care in the 2018 Election. New England Journal of Medicine, 319(18), e32. DOI:10.1056/NEJMsr1813425
Carnegie Corporation. (2019). 11 Barriers to Voting. Carnegie Corporation of New York. https://www.carnegie.org/topics/topic-articles/voting-rights/11-barriers-voting/
Dubowitz, T., Nelson, C., Weilant, S., Sloan, J., Bogart, A., Miller, C., & Chandra, A. (2020). Factors related to health civic engagement: Results from the 2018 National Survey of Health Attitudes to understand progress towards a Culture of Health. BMC Public Health, 20, 635. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-08507-w
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