Vol. 108 How to: Design impactful voter education materials

This toolkit supports community-based and voter advocacy groups to create engaging, accessible, and action-oriented voter education materials. Whether you are a team of 1 or 200, you will find something valuable to take your materials to the next level.

You can use the recommendations in this book to create a wide array of print or digital materials that fit your budget and staff capacity. You will also find the bite-snack-meal content framework explained and 13 design recommendations that show you how to incorporate information design into your materials to create the most impact.

Section 1. The toolkit
Section 2. The bite-snack-meal content framework
Section 3. Downloadable Canva design templates

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Section 1

The Toolkit

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Section 2

Bite-snack-meal content framework

Figuring out the right amount of information to share with voters is an important part of creating voter outreach materials. Too much information and voters can get overwhelmed. Too little information and voters are left with questions.

We use the bite-snack-meal framework as a way to help figure out how to share the right amount of information with voters when they need it.

• A “Bite” is the smallest information that tells voters the critical steps to take action. Examples include: social media posts, mobile messages and postcards.
• A “Snack” adds more context around that smallest essential piece of information. A “Snack” is usually enough for most voters. Examples include: flyers, short videos and e-mails.
• A “Meal” has everything, including information about particular cases/circumstances that only apply to some. It’s usually a website or a written voter guide. Examples include: Voter guides or booklets and long e-mails.

We go into depth about this framework in the toolkit including how to plan the content you share based on this framework.

We have also created a customizable starter language kit to help answer key voter questions in the bite-snack-meal format. Though this starter kit was created specifically for the November 2024 General Election in Ohio, it can be easily adapted for other elections. Download the document.

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Section 3

Design starter templates on Canva for voting materials in bite-snack-meal framework

The toolkit covers the bite-snack-meal framework as a way to help communicate the right amount of information voters need when they need it. To make it even easier to apply this framework, we created templates you can download on Canva to start editing right away. This is a helpful place to start and can be adapted to match the overall visual look your election office uses. Each template is also available in Spanish.