About
To us, democracy is a design problem. The centerpiece of solving that problem is ensuring voter intent through design.
Our goal is to make every interaction between government and citizens easy, effective, and pleasant.
We bring civic design skills in research, usability, design, accessibility, and plain language to improve the voting experience, make elections easier to administer, and encourage participation in elections. Through our work, we have helped hundreds of election officials build their skills and capacity, and touched millions of voters in important ways.
Across all of our projects, our research suggests that the voter journey—all of the information, decisions, interactions that get a voter from an intention to vote to actually casting a ballot—is a story of seemingly small barriers that can add up to a vote not cast.
Our projects and research starts from the causes of those burdens. By smoothing out those barriers, our work can help more people vote, and strengthen democracy.
1. Elections place too many burdens on voters.
The burdens on voters—especially those who have been historically disenfranchised—are not well understood or acknowledged, and they contribute to a break down in trust in US elections.
We aim to be a center of knowledge about the burdens in the voter journey and how design can address them.
Our informed voters and election design projects focus on the experience of voters (and those who are not yet voters), learning how they get and use information about voting, and use it to participate in elections.
2. Elections officials need skills in effective design and plain language.
Election materials often place unnecessary burdens on voters and election workers alike, with confusing communications that make it hard to understand how to vote.
We are building a practice of project-based training in which we not only help solve immediate design problems but teach the groups we work with how to think about them in a more productive way.
Our projects towards this objective focus on improving election design and reimagining election administration. We might start with the redesign of a single form in a single county, but we use each project to create samples that can be used across the country.
3. Civic design starts with good policy.
Policies and procedures (and the election code they are based on) rarely consider how design and design practice can improve outcomes. Sometimes, well-intentioned policies actually make elections harder for elections officials and voters.
We focus on design principles for election systems and the standards and principles for the machinery of democracy.
We are leading authorities on usability and accessibility for ballot design, ballot standards, and voting systems, having been deeply involved in developing the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines since the very first draft, and continuing to today.
Our research looks for new ways to engage voters and run elections, including ballot marking systems for vote-by-mail and vote centers, electronic poll books, and voting methods like ranked choice voting.
Our supporters and partners
And our election department partners, and individual donors
The Center for Civic Design is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational research organization, registered in Maryland. Our Federal EIN is 46-3535619. Information about our governance or financial reporting is available on request.
Official address: 5443 Tates Bank Road, Cambridge, MD 21613