This year, the people gathered in places like Selma, where they commemorated Bloody Sunday. They gathered in Roanoke to fight to restore the VRA. They rallied in North Carolina, to demand laws that strengthen our democracy. And they marched more than 1,000 miles from Selma to Washington, D.C. to protect the rights of all Americans.
In communities like Chicago, Ferguson, Baltimore, and North Charleston, the fight for the vote is meeting the movement around pressing issues like criminal justice reform, health care reform, immigration reform, economic inequality, access to quality housing and education, and climate change.
Securing voting rights protections for low-income communities and communities of color is an imperative for anyone hoping to mobilize any kind of effective, lasting change.
Here’s what we know, and what we can do.
Where low-income communities more consistently exercise their voice in the voting booth, inequality is lower. These states have a higher minimum wage, stricter lending laws, and more generous health benefits.
That means enforcing compliance with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) is arguably our most effective tool against growing political and economic inequality.
That means Project Vote’s work investigating and monitoring NVRA compliance, and litigating where necessary is indispensable in that fight.
And next year, we’re taking that fight to North Carolina.
This work has already helped more than 3 million citizens register to vote.
We know that the current political climate is plagued with hateful rhetoric.
And we cannot allow the worst of us—anti-black rhetoric, and fanatical xenophobia—to define our democracy, particularly for the most vulnerable among us.
This year, we beat back proof-of-citizenship legislation in Arizona and Kansas. This was a significant victory, but it will not be the end of this issue.
And we’re promoting reforms that are proven to help more citizens register and vote: same day registration, early voting, online registration, automatic voter registration, pre-registration for 16- and 17-year olds, and the re-enfranchisement of individuals with felony convictions.
We know that next year, for the first time, people of color, young people, and unmarried women will likely cast over half of all ballots.
Project Vote will continue more than twenty years of work to engage and motivate more citizens to register and vote.
We’re partnering with national and state-based organizations serving Black and Latino communities to help them run more effective voter registration drives.
We’ve been here before. In 2008, Project Vote ran the most successful field program in terms of reaching the lowest-income Americans, and accounted for a majority of African-Americans registered to vote by field programs.
This is what we know. And with your help, this is what we can do.
The movement has begun, and our democracy needs to catch up.