What Unions Are Doing to Protect American Democracy

Down Home North Carolina is a nonpartisan get-out-the-vote group that practices “deep canvassing” in rural areas to increase voter participation and elect progressive candidates. The technique involves one-on-one conversations that aim to connect on an emotional level, as a way to find common ground, and involves active listening to people and their concerns. Canvassers go door-to-door, and conduct outreach in public areas like Walmart and food banks, (though COVID-19 moved conversations to the phone) and particularly aim to connect with people who haven’t been engaged in the political process before.

Voter outreach campaigns effectively boosted turnout among Native voters. The Rural Utah Project left informational flyers inside plastic bags at people’s doors (a Covid-19 tactical adjustment), held drive-through voter registration events, ran hotlines to assist indigenous voters, and partnered with Google to create street addresses using latitude and longitude-based plus codes. Senate candidate Mark Kelly ran ads in the Diné language to reach Navajo Nation voters. Precinct data shows 60-90% of Arizona Navajo Nation voters chose Democrats, a rate that pushed Biden and Kelly to a slim victory.

Organizations in politically divided states like Arkansas, Idaho and Ohio are hard at work to protect direct democracy through community organizing and education. These groups have rallied to pass measures like minimum wage increases, medical marijuana and have even organized voters to fail ballot measures like Ohio’s recent Issue 1.

In an effort to fix the climate movement’s voter turnout problem, the Environmental Voter Project’s 6,000 volunteers use behavioral and data science in their outreach campaigns to encourage environmentalists to become consistent voters so the issues they care about are prioritized by politicians.

Leaders in North Carolina’s Transylvania County are investing in home-based childcare by creating a network of caregivers and providing them with financial and technical assistance. The program gives parents affordable options in a rural community where it can be hard to find openings at childcare facilities.

Libya’s Electoral Outreach Ambassadors program aims to increase women’s trust in the political process and register new voters. The female ambassadors are experienced in civil society participation but are not affiliated with any political or religious group, which is key to building trust given the country’s recent civil war. Ambassadors are trained in many tactics and left to tailor their own strategy so that it is best suited for their own district. Outreach efforts include a combination of house visits, workshops in private and public institutions, and talks with women in public spaces.

A new model for cooperatives guarantees a living wage for house cleaners, removing the uncertainty and exploitation typically associated with the gig economy. Up & Go is an app that brings entrepreneurs together as owners of the cooperative - sharing offices and customer service representatives. Wages for their work have almost doubled in comparison to the jobs they found through fliers. Training has also given workers the knowledge to stay safe in addition to keeping their clients from exposure during the pandemic.

The Democratic Party consistently struggles to turn out the Latinx vote, which is projected to be 32 million people. Instead of trying to find a cohesive message for this incredibly diverse group of people like in the past, Democratic candidates this year are letting Latinx people lead engagement in their own communities.

After a Republican led state law that bans people without an address from voting took effect, Native American tribes in North Dakota began organizing to get out the vote. They even began creating their own addresses. They teamed up with Claremont Graduate University in California and overlaid “ voting precinct maps on satellite images of the reservations and assigned each precinct one address.” “The right to vote can be taken for granted until someone tries to take it away from you, and then it can be the reason you do vote.”

Leaders from Lancaster Stands Up, an independent political organization, are bridging the gap between Democrats and Republicans in small, rural, conservative towns. They are building a progressive base by going back to the basics: door knocking and having conversations with voters. Their membership has grown to 800 people, and they’ve closed the gap between a progressive candidate and the Republican incumbent.