The Next Best Thing

Ilyne Junuén Castellanos

February 05, 2021 |

Voices of Monterey Bay |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Monterey Bay, California

Efforts aimed at recruiting student poll workers, some of whom aren’t yet eligible to vote, increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Monterey County ran registration drives, spoke in classrooms and other student-oriented events, and participated in California’s High School Voter Education Weeks, ultimately recruiting 107 students. The Georgia Youth Poll Worker Project used social media to recruit 1,000 young poll workers across the state. The organization is compiling “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Starting a Poll Worker Project” to help other organizations similarly recruit and train young poll workers.

Read More

Go to Original Story

A GOP Governor and BLM Activists Agreed on Restoring Voting Rights to Felons. Will It Last?

Kaila Philo

February 04, 2021 |

Politico |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Iowa

More than 3,000 Iowans voted in the 2020 presidential election thanks to an executive order signed by the Republican governor after a protest campaign by activists to erase Iowa's permanent ban on voting by people with felony records. But that number was just a fraction of those newly eligible to vote, due to limitations in the order and a lackluster effort to inform the public. Iowa has a disproportionately high number of disenfranchised Black citizens who could be helped by a more permanent constitutional fix. That fix has now been stalled by the choice to act by executive order.

Read More

Go to Original Story

How grass-roots efforts by Georgia's Latinos helped tip the Senate races

Rachel Hatzipanagos

February 03, 2021 |

The Washington Post |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Georgia

Black and Latino organizers with the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR) knocked on over 300,000 doors in between the general election and Senate runoffs. Canvassing in predominantly Latino neighborhoods, they also reached out to ineligible voters to encourage them to urge their U.S. born family members to vote in their family’s interests. Latino support of Democratic candidates increased in the Senate runoffs adding to narrow Democratic victories. GLAHR also helped elect the first Black sheriff of Gwinnett County, who quickly ended a program that allowed the county jail to collaborate with ICE.

Read More

Go to Original Story

By backing Raphael Warnock against Kelly Loeffler, Sue Bird and the WNBA helped flip the Senate

Percy Allen

January 16, 2021 |

The Seattle Times |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States

During her bid for reelection, former senator Kelly Loeffler, also co-owner of a WNBA team, publicly fought with the league for dedicating its season to Black Lives Matters and fighting for racial justice. Players decided collectively to stop talking publicly about Loeffler to limit her media attention. Next, after carefully vetting candidates they decided Raphael Warnock best represented their interests. In a public endorsement, players across the league wore VOTE WARNOCK shirts to nationally televised games. Within days, Warnock gained 4,000 Twitter followers, raised over $250,000, and gained in the polls.

Read More

Go to Original Story

“What You Share Defines You”: Indonesia Has World's Biggest Fact-Checking Network

Meleva Thorn Sienna Curnow

January 16, 2021 |

The Jakarta Globe |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: Indonesia

CekFakta is a collaborative network that fights misinformation with around 6,000 fact-checkers from major Indonesian media organizations, citizens, and academics. The group holds training sessions to help journalists identify doctored images and misinformation, with the idea that participants will pass the skills on to their colleagues. CekFakta impacted 2019 presidential debates with large-scale, real-time, collaborative fact-checking that enabled a quick release of fact-checked information. The collaborative process is key to helping people find high-quality information amid so much online content.

Read More

Go to Original Story

How Youth Turned the Tide in the 2020 Election

Levi Pulkkinen

December 30, 2020 |

Yes! Magazine |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

A team of young people helped Kirsten Harris-Talley win a seat in the Washington state legislature. The 63 young people, ages 12 to 22, did more than the traditional behind the scenes work, like phone banking and door knocking. Rather, the young campaign workers participated in strategy meetings, ran the campaign’s Instagram account, and shaped the campaign’s climate justice and youth rights platforms. Ten of the young people were given paid fellowships and carried out responsibilities in all aspects of the campaign, such as voter engagement and fundraising.

Read More

Go to Original Story

How US cities fixed violations to Asian Americans' voting rights in 2020

Amy Yee

December 22, 2020 |

The Guardian |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Malden, Massachusetts

Violations of the Voting Rights Act during primary and local elections led the city of Malden, where 23% of its 60,000 residents are of Asian descent, to provide voting materials and information - including mail-in ballots, voting instructions, official election websites, and precinct signs - in English and Chinese. The city also hired a trilingual city employee fluent in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin and collaborated with community advocacy groups on voter outreach and recruiting more bilingual poll workers. Advocates see Malden as a role model for other jurisdictions to remedy voter access issues.

Read More

Go to Original Story

Ranked Choice Voting Debuts in 2020 Basalt Mayoral Election

Kathleen Shannon

December 22, 2020 |

KDNK Community Radio |

Podcast |

5-15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Basalt, Colorado

Ranked choice voting (RCV) lets voters select multiple candidates in order of preference. If no one gets a majority, there is a second round where the candidate with the fewest first choice votes is eliminated and the second choice on those ballots is counted. The process repeats until one candidate gets a majority. More elections use RCV, including Basalt ’s 2020 mayoral race where another RCV-experienced city shared public information materials and election judge training. RCV requires close attention to all ballots and campaigns are more civil because of the incentive to be a voter’s second choice.

Read More

Go to Original Story

There is no Gen Z ‘enthusiasm' gap

Iliana Hagenah

December 10, 2020 |

Scalawag |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Mississippi

Civic engagement groups creatively encouraged young Black voters to vote. Mississippi Votes ran fellowships where local representatives educated young people on the political landscape of their state and used "geofencing," to share sample ballot links and precinct information on social media when users’ smartphones were within specific geographic locations. Engage Miami reached young people with "Get Out And Vote" TikTok videos, and partnering with social media influencers. In addition to registering thousands of new voters, both groups lent resources to youth voices in Black Lives Matters protests.

Read More

Go to Original Story

Biden victory in hand, Black church get-out-the-vote workers assess the future

Adelle M. Banks

November 25, 2020 |

Religion News Service |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Georgia

Faith leaders from communities of color mobilized voters to support candidates and policies that empower Black and Brown people. Events such as “Souls to the Polls” and the coalition-run Black Church 75 initiative, registered new voters and urged them to the polls around issues such as police brutality and racial injustices. Support from Black church members is credited with helping elect Democratic candidates, including Democratic senators in Georgia, as well as passing ballot initiatives, such as Measure J in Los Angeles that would decrease police funding in favor of mental health and housing resources.

Read More