Fair Elections Center is a national, nonpartisan voting rights and election reform 501(c)(3) organization based in Washington, D.C. Our mission is to use litigation and advocacy to remove barriers to registration and voting, particularly those disenfranchising underrepresented and marginalized communities, and to improve election administration.
Last year, our litigation team achieved an significant ruling in Florida to restore voting rights to former felons who have served their time, and building on this success, we filed a similar lawsuit in Kentucky, which is still working its way through the courts. We challenged Wisconsin’s unnecessary requirements for student IDs to qualify as a voter ID and filed a lawsuit in Tennessee and a preliminary injunction that blocked the state’s then-passed legislation which placed severe restriction on third-party voter registration rives. We also opposed large-scale voter purges in Ohio and Wisconsin.
To these ends, Fair Elections Center litigates cutting-edge voting rights cases in federal and state court and engages in a wide variety of advocacy efforts, including: drafting election reform legislation and submitting testimony in support of positive reforms, advocating to defeat restrictive measures, producing reports on election modernization proposals and issues affecting communities of color and students, talking points and fact sheets, providing state voter guides for all 50 states and D.C., conducting trainings and seminars on voting issues for community organizations and their supporters, and working directly with Secretaries of State and local election officials to ensure the right to vote is protected and expanded. We provide election law expertise to state-based civic engagement coalitions and direct help to organizations representing various communities that need help accessing the ballot as they plan their programs, encounter problems, or need help engaging elections officials.
In 2012, Fair Elections Center launched Campus Vote Project (CVP) to focus and expand its work around student voting issues. Since then, Campus Vote Project has been working to normalize and institutionalize student voting by working directly with colleges and universities across the country
Friends,
2018 was a significant and exciting year for Fair Elections Center for several reasons. I am proud of the work our staff achieved, the growth of our organization and its mission, and of the impact we’ve made advancing voting rights across the country. 2018 was particularly exciting because we formally announced our transition to our stand-alone 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Fair Elections Center, and our new Board of Directors
This was more than changing our organizational structure and updating our logo and website. While we are continuing the work that began when the organization was founded in 2006, this was also an opportunity to relaunch and share our work with people across the country. I’m proud to share with you the growth all our programs showed in 2018.
Last year, our litigation team achieved a major success when a federal court ruled that Florida’s arbitrary and glacial system to restore felons’ voting rights was unconstitutional, helping to drive editorial and voter support for the passage of Amendment 4 in November. We continue to find unique and effective ways to challenge barriers to voting in the courts, and, sometimes, pressure states for relief from administrative bad acts with litigation.
We believe that for our communities and economies to be sustainable, inclusive, and equitable, every citizen needs to have a voice in government. Given the steadily increasing threats to voting rights, voters—particularly from underrepresented communities—need to be armed with the knowledge they need to overcome new barriers. Additionally, litigation has become more important than ever to defend and protect citizens’ right to vote.
In advance of the crucial 2018 midterm elections, our legal team developed and updated voting guides, issued reports and trained community advocates on ways to increase language access for minority-language communities, as well as provided technical support and training for organizations mobilizing voters, particularly from traditionally underrepresented communities.
Our Campus Vote Project (CVP) celebrated its seventh year working in partnership with college and university administrators and faculty to institutionalize programs that teach their students about the process of voting and engages them on campus in ways that support voter registration, education, and participation as part of the academic mission of the campus. In 2018, CVP provided year-round support to more than 150 campuses in 31 states to integrate student democratic engagement into campus activities. Our program makes a real difference. Suzannah Grubb Lott, former assistant director, leadership and civic engagement, East Carolina University said, “The flexibility Campus Vote Project has offered our Democracy Fellows and university is the reason why we have been so successful in our voter engagement initiatives… Without the support from CVP, our efforts would be greatly limited, decreasing our ability to address access, registration, turnout, and education of voters at ECU.”
We met or exceeded our expansion goals for 2018, helping move us toward meeting challenges to voting rights across the country. With continuing investment from our supporters, we expect to fulfill our goals for 2019 and 2020, ensuring that more citizens, particularly those who have faced barriers in the past, are registered and able to cast a ballot that will count.
We are grateful for your continued support at this important moment in our democracy.
Fair Elections Center does innovative and high-impact work around elections and voting rights. The Center is a national, nonpartisan voting rights and election reform organization dedicated to removing barriers to registration and voting for students, people of color, people whose first language is not English, and other underrepresented communities.
We have an experienced and dynamic team of lawyers who have successfully litigated cases in federal and state court. The organization has more than 12 years of experience working with and training civic engagement organizations to look for opportunities for voting rights cases to expand and protect voting access. Our legal team has a broad network of colleagues and partners at the local and national levels who help us identify instances where we can file proactive litigation and not just react to new headline-grabbing voter suppression measures.
In early 2018, we won a significant voting rights ruling in Florida, when a federal district judge declared that Florida’s arbitrary and glacial system to restore voting rights to individuals who have completed their felony sentences was unconstitutional, as the result of a strategy pioneered by our legal team. Re-enfranchisement is critical to reintegration in society. The case exposed the fundamental unfairness of the restoration process to a greater number of Floridians and contributed to the passage of Amendment 4, which gives approximately 1.2 million people who have completed their full felony sentences the ability to register and vote. The constitutional amendment was supported by 64% of the voters. We are proud our case exposed examples of the current system’s absurdity and generated editorial support across the state, and across the ideological spectrum, for ending Florida’s system.
The Florida challenge yielded the first court order against a felon disenfranchisement or restoration scheme in decades. It was also the first to highlight the arbitrariness of the process and its susceptibility to viewpoint and any manner of discrimination.
Tallahassee Democrat I February 1, 2018 https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/02/01/ judge-floridas-voter-restoration-process-unconstitu tional/1088569001/
As the Sentencing Project stated in its amicus brief supporting our case, “A number of studies make clear that civic engagement is pivotal in the transition from incarceration and discouraging repeat offenses. It stands to reason that restoration of the right to vote is among the most important ways to ensure reintegration in society and civic engagement. The restoration of voting rights is a way to have a significant impact in improving circumstances for low-income and underrepresented communities.”
Tampa Bay Times I February 2, 2018 http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/Editori al-A-historic-order-for-voting-rights_165103400
The American Prospect I February 5, 2018 https://prospect.org/article/movement-fight-vot ing-rights-restoration
While filing a lawsuit may be the public start to litigation, months of hard work behind the scenes must occur before that point. In 2018, our attorneys were researching, writing case documents, finding plaintiffs, and putting many hours into preparing some of the lawsuits filed to date in 2019, and more are in development.
At the end of 2018, Fair Elections Center joined a lawsuit challenging Kentucky’s arbitrary process for voting rights restoration for people with felony convictions. Along with our co-counsel, Kentucky Equal Justice Center, we represent eight individuals who have served their felony sentences in a First Amendment suit along the lines of our challenge to Florida’s felon voting rights restoration system.
Kentucky is one of three states that deny the right to vote to all former felons unless they file a petition and are granted rights restoration by the Governor. According to the Sentencing Project, as of 2016, Kentucky had an estimated 242,987 people who were still disenfranchised after completing their full felony sentences including parole and probation, or 7% of the state’s voting-age population
Fair Elections Center filed a lawsuit in April 2019 challenging Wisconsin’s unnecessary requirements for student IDs to qualify as voter ID. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin on behalf of Common Cause in Wisconsin and individual student plaintiff Ben Quintero.
The lawsuit argues that some elements required of student IDs are a pointless barrier for casting a ballot in Wisconsin. Most students are newly registered voters and new to the voting process. These unnecessary requirements imposed on students using their campus IDs can confuse and deter these new voters rather than making elections more accessible. The lawsuit is challenging specific student ID requirements, not the voter ID law as a whole.
Fair Elections Center joined the ACLU of New Hampshire in submitting a joint memorandum to the state’s Supreme Court, arguing that a bill, HB 1264, should not be reviewed by the Court at that time, and, if it was reviewed, should be found unconstitutional. This bill purposely targeted people like college students who currently live and work in New Hampshire but who have uncertain plans for the future, and who have historically been able to vote in the state, by imposing motor vehicle fees on them for the first time, to deter them from voting in the state.
Campus Vote Project (CVP) works with universities, community colleges, faculty, students, and election officials to reduce barriers to student voting. Our
mission is to help campuses institutionalize reforms that empower students with the information they need to register and vote.
Worked with more than 150 colleges and universities across the country
11,282,061 digital ad impressions directing young people to registration and voting information
Helped plan and host 9 statewide student engagement summits for 400 administrators, faculty, and students from more than 100 institutions. Summits
were held in Florida (two summits), Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia
Placed 105 Democracy Fellows at 62 campuses supervised by our state staff in Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia
Hosted a national summit for CVP’s 15-member 15 Student Advisory Board
2.2 million enrolled students at our 150 partner campuses
In 2018, Campus Vote Project released two reports to support students, administrators, and faculty in increasing democratic engagement and making it part of the academic life of the institution.
A guide for administrators and faculty on the process of formally adopting democratic engagement into their handbook language and academic mission.
This publication for student leaders highlights tactics to encourage student voter engagement and provides step by-step advice on how to increase student registration, voter education, and voting on campuses. It also provides guidance on working with campus administrators and local elections officials to achieve goals and create a sustainable, long-lasting programs at the students’ institutions.
Our five CVP state staff covered seven states and supervised 105 Democracy Fellows, a diverse collection of college student leaders who collaborate with us and their institutions to build democratic engagement. These stipended Fellows provide energy and passion. We help train them to become leaders and organizers, with skills that will serve them and their communities beyond their academic years
CVP also has a national Student Advisory Board of 15 members. The Student Advisory Board offers structure and coaching as students continue their development into community leaders for change and provides feedback and guidance to the CVP staff on our existing work and future direction. Many of the members are former Democracy Fellows, which means that they are familiar with our mission, our approach to the work, and how to engage students on
their campuses.
THAT’S WHAT DEMOCRACY IS ALL ABOUT, VOTERS HAVING AN IDEA AND WANTING TO SEE CHANGE, AND THEN TRYING TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.
In recent years, CVP has focused on student leadership development and guiding student leaders to act to protect their right to vote. Maya Patel, our Student Advisory Board Chair and a student at University of Texas – Austin, is leading a campaign on the need for on-campus polling locations in Texas. HB 375/SB 841, bills initially drafted by Maya and fellow students, would require counties with college campuses of a population of more than 10,000 students to have a polling location on campus so students and university employees can vote in all elections. Read about Maya’s efforts including her student day of action in this article from the Houston Chronicle. HB 375 did not make it out of committee in 2019 but did recruit a number of co-sponsors, and CVP will continue to support students advocating for greater access to voting sites
A panel discussion on the Democracy’s Future report was held at the National Education Association with partners from CIRCLE, James Madison University, Young Invincibles, Andrew Goodman Foundation, and Forward Montana kicked off the release of the report. A recording of the event is available online.
The Youth Voting Rights group started by CVP in 2016 serves more than 300 members of a broad community of national and state nonprofits that focus on encouraging youth voting (many with an emphasis on college students), on-the-ground groups doing turnout and advocacy work, and students who are interested in advancing this kind of work. During its regular calls, it fosters understanding of the impact various policies have on youth electoral participation, helps youth navigate existing and changing policies, helps youth advocate for more positive policies and identifies barriers that need to be challenged in court.
The Voter Friendly Campus (VFC) designation program was started through a partnership of Campus Vote Project and NASPA, a student affairs professional organization in 2016. The goal of the program is to create a permanent structure to help institutions develop and implement plans to coordinate administrators, faculty, and student organizations in civic and electoral engagement. We saw an increase in designated campuses from 84 campuses in 27 states in 2016 to 124 campuses across 30 states in 2018. Those 124 campuses are designated Voter Friendly Campuses for 2019-2020. We plan to expand the program to 225 campuses in 2020.
James Madison University (JMU) is a 2016 and 2018 VFC designee, partner and hosts Democracy Fellows. JMU estimated they had a 47.6% increase in their student voting rates in 2018 after obtaining an on-campus polling site, with CVP’s help.
The University of Pennsylvania (Penn) is a 2016 and 2018 VFC designee and partner. According to Penn’s Office of Government and Community Affairs, more than 3,300 people voted at their eight on-campus polling stations, more than triple the number who voted in the 2014 midterms.
Grand Valley State University (GVSU) is a 2016 and 2018 VFC designee, partner and hosts Democracy Fellows. According to the Michigan Secretary of State, GVSU holds the record for largest number of voters registered on a college campus during the 2016 and 2018 election seasons. The program resulted in the registration of 1,318 new voters and 524 absentee ballot request forms in 2018.
Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) hosted Democracy Fellows and received the VFC designation in 2018. The democratic engagement work at Tri-C so impressed the Board of Elections for Cuyahoga County that their Community Outreach Coordinator, Catherine A. Goskey, wrote a letter saying, “I work with dozens of organizations and educational institutions who provide voter education. I can confidently declare Tri-C as being one of the strongest and most successful in their efforts to make voting more accessible to their constituents. Tri-C is strategic in their approach to achieving the goals they set for engaging as many students as possible….”
Michigan State University is a 2016 and 2018 VFC designee, partner and hosts Democracy Fellows. Approximately 30% of the incoming freshman in 2018 (approximately 2,400 students) were registered to vote during academic orientation sessions, a best practice advocated by CVP and around which we are developing further materials on.
In 2018, our Work Elections project evolved from a prototype web portal to an integrated program that recruited poll workers across the country. The workelections.com website was developed in 2016 to help alleviate the struggle many local elections officials face in finding qualified election workers that represent the communities they serve, have the required technological skills, and are bilingual. The site also aimed to provide simplified and accessible information for those potential poll workers.
We worked with volunteer designers and developers from Google to improve the function and design of the site itself. In addition to updating the site, we improved the branding and designed a new logo. As part of the project we developed a robust outreach and marketing strategy utilizing Google Ads, Facebook and Instagram ads, and print and online ads. We developed partnerships with businesses, professional organizations, and nonprofit organizations who circulated information and materials on the workelections.com website to employees, clients and members to increase the site’s visibility and more generally increase awareness around the need for a more diverse, tech-savvy group of volunteer poll workers
In the end, we collaborated with 47 businesses and nonprofit organizations to recruit poll workers in the nine pilot states. These partners shared our resources via email, their website, social media, in-person events, and/or conference calls. Partners included:
This work sets the stage for a broader effort leading up to the 2020 elections.
Fair Elections Center, in partnership with Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC and NALEO Educational Fund, released a series of reports covering improved language assistance practices to expand access to the ballot. These guides to language access practices that go beyond the minimums required by federal law were aimed at three different audiences—community leaders, election officials, and policymakers—with the language assistance tools and best practices they need to help voters with language needs access the ballot. Each audience plays a crucial role in improving programs that can reach and help more members of language-minority communities fully participate in elections.You can find the Language Access Reports on the Fair Elections Center website
Each year, Fair Elections Center updates our short, easy-to-read, state-specific materials that help voters understand how to register, vote, and help others register to vote. As laws change and courts weigh in throughout the year, our legal staff continually updates the materials so our partners and anyone visiting our site has the right information to participate in our elections.
Voting guides include registration deadlines and election dates, voter registration requirements, voter ID requirements, links to forms, and options to cast a ballot. We also provide answers to common questions for students and guidance on where students can register to vote: their campus address or home. The New York Times included our guides in their June guide How to Participate in Politics and in their September piece on How to Vote as an American Living Abroad. Our voting guides were also used by the All In Challenge leading up to Election Day.
Voter registration drive guides contain requirements for third parties conducting voter registration drives. They include requirements for gathering forms, where to return them, deadlines, and links for forms or other information. Michelle Obama and a number of celebrities, including Tom Hanks, Janelle Monáe, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, launched the “When We All Vote” campaign to promote voter registration and as part of their launch, they shared materials and linked to our guides for more registration drive information. These guides were also used by National Voter Registration Day as they prepared volunteers and organizations to get thousands of voters registered on September 23, 2018.
In 2018, we partnered with Berkeley City College’s (California) Multimedia Arts students and faculty to develop state specific posters and a video
encouraging young people to “wield their power and vote.” These posters were shared on social media, distributed on campuses, and used in advertising leading up to the 2018 midterms.
Senior Partner of the law firm of Fineman, Krekstein & Harris, in Philadelphia, PA. Former Chair, United States Postal Service
Director of Government and External Relations at Stella and Charles Guttman Community College in New York and Board Member of The Democracy Commitment, a national initiative aimed at engaging community college students in civic learning and democratic practice
Former Chair of Fair Elections Center’s Campus Vote Project’s National Student Advisory Board. Before that, she was a Democracy Fellow for CVP at Pierce College. Ms. Quintero is a senior at UC Berkeley majoring in political science where she is a research assistant on Election Law and a Senior Class Council Board Member. She is also the Communications Department lead for the ESL Student Program.
Vice President of UnidosUS (formerly National Council of La Raza). He oversees the Office of Research, Advocacy, and Legislation which is charged with directing the organization’s legislative affairs, public policy research, policy analysis, and field advocacy work.
Associate Dean and Professor of Law, Loyola Law School. He is a nationally recognized scholar of constitutional law, civil rights, and the law of democracy, with particular focus on election administration and redistricting. He served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice under the Obama Administration.
Former Vice President, Strategic Communications and National Partnerships at the Public Broadcasting Service. He directed communications for several White House race-based Initiatives and democracy and governance projects for the U.S. State Department.
Managing Director for Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Former President of the United States Student Association, Director of the Department of Civil and Human Rights at the AFL-CIO, and former Field Director at the NAACP.
Co-founded the Fair Elections Legal Network in 2006, now the Fair Elections Center. Mr. Brandon, a public interest attorney, has more than 35 years of nonprofit public policy, legislative, media, and campaign experience at the federal, state, and local level
Gregory T. Moore is a leading voting rights advocate and leader with a long and distinguished history of political empowerment and advocacy. He has served as the Executive Director of the NAACP National Voter Fund, Legislative Director and Chief of Staff for John Conyers, US House Judiciary Committee Chair. Mr. Moore currently serves on the Election Assistance Commission Advisory Committee and is president of the GTM Consulting Services, based in Washington, DC and Cleveland, Ohio.
Former Policy Director for the Cook County Illinois Clerk’s office, the third largest election jurisdiction in the U.S., where, for almost 20 years she initiated modernization of the voter communications and outreach infrastructure including online voter registration, Election Day registration, and automatic voter registration.
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please contact Development Director Mary Anne Walker, at 202.248.5349 or
mwalker@fairelectionscenter.org.
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