On Thursday, September 16 ADL’s Western Division hosted Access to the Ballot Box: Get Engaged. Take Action. The Zoom call, moderated by ADL National Policy Counsel Lauren Krapf, featured Kathy Sakahara of the League of Women Voters of Washington and Jonathan Mehta Stein, Executive Director at Common Cause California. If you missed the program, a recording is now available HERE.
Looking towards the upcoming November general election, the panelists described the challenges in increasing voter registration and access to voting. Jonathan spoke about the disparity in voter participation rates between older and whiter voters on the one hand, and younger voters, immigrants, and communities of color on the other. He said that the work lawyers and politicians do in making access to voting easier is “necessary but not sufficient” in correcting these disparities, and that community-driven work by volunteers and nonprofit professionals and other local leaders is essential.
Kathy discussed how people’s “sense of efficacy,” the feeling that their vote matters, is key to increasing voter participation. She described a common feeling among non-voters that campaigns are dominated by corporate and other powerful interests, and added that one of the best ways of increasing turnout among immigrants and communities of color is to elect people from those communities.
The panel also spoke about the success of independent citizen-run redistricting commissions, such as exist in California, in building further trust in the electoral system and generating an impetus for further participation. The meeting concluded with recommendations for how listeners can take action, including by working before and on election day as volunteers and by being a messenger of accurate information to their communities in both formal and informal capacities.
Please check out ADL’s plethora of resources on the upcoming elections:
- ADL Los Angeles Election Page and Voter Engagement Page
- ADL Central Pacific Election Guide
- ADL Orange County Voter Engagement Page
- ADL Pacific Northwest Election Page
- ADL San Diego
- ADL National Election Resources
Here are the websites mentioned during the webinar: