Connecting to community groups
Elections 360 is our name for projects that bridge the official world of elections offices and community groups, giving voters confidence in elections through consistent, accurate information.
CCD has worked with community groups in many of our past projects. Those relationships often started when an election office that we were partnering with made an introduction to local, trusted community groups.
In 2020, we set out to change our approach and begin intentionally and independently building relationships with community groups from the start of new projects. But first, we need to better understand how community groups and election offices differ in their approaches to increasing civic participation, especially in places with large Black and Latinx communities with long histories of unequal voter access and structural barriers to voting.
We aim to:
- Develop a strong framework for our own future work that actively invites more voices into election design
- Create spaces for community-based organizations and local election officials to work together — year-round — to break the pattern of low turnout in American elections
- Support elections offices who want to become more involved in their communities
Our work
Project: Massachusetts-based exploratory project to improve civic and elections participation (2021)
In 2021, CCD spent 3 months getting to know the civic engagement scenes in several of Massachusetts’ Gateway Cities. Through conversations with 21 people, a week-long trip, and attending 3 in-person and 4 virtual events, we set out to learn the challenges and needs of both local elections offices and community based-organizations. Our report includes:
- Insights into the state of civics in Massachusetts’ Gateway Cities
- Recommendations for future work
- City profiles
Research: Anxieties of Voting-by-Mail in 2020: Contending with the Past, the Pandemic, and the Political Climate (2020)
Between August and November 2020, we spoke with 17 residents and 21 community representatives in 4 cities—Baltimore, Detroit, New York City, and Philadelphia. Our goal was to understand how they made decisions about when, how, and where to vote in the November general election.
These conversations took place in a complex and chaotic election year that included widespread misinformation campaigns, stories of fake drop boxes, and calls for armed patrols at polling places.
We hope the insights provided here help shed light on how to re-center future expanded voter access efforts around the histories, needs, daily lives, and trust considerations of people living in cities. While this report focused on Black and Latina/o voters in 4 cities, we hope the findings shared in this report speak to broader structural changes that both respond to and benefit a wide range of voting communities.
Research: Understanding the voter journey (ongoing)
All of this work is driven by our insights into the challenges of the voter journey.
- The epic journey of American voters
- The experiences of new citizens in American civic life
- Short stories from overseas voters
- Information gaps can become lost votes
- Local election websites in minority counties
CCD’s work on connecting community groups and election offices was made possible through support from the Barr Foundation, Democracy Fund, Knight Foundation, and CZI.