Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Lately I’ve been getting requests from friends for ideas on how to participate in voter outreach, and I’ve put together a pretty good list of nationwide volunteer opportunities. You probably know my leanings, but I’d rather not get overtly political on the blog,

I’m writing today about Vote.org, which is nonpartisan. If you want anything of a more partisan nature, email me at suzannesmom@lunaandstella.com. Even though the work of knocking on doors or running for office like my mother did (two-time Congressional candidate) is definitely not my thing, I do find that some level of action combats a sense of powerlessness.

The arts ‘zine Hyperallergic has a nice article about how Guerrilla Girls and Julie Mehretu and 60 other artists want to help you and others “Plan Your Vote” to increase voter turnout.

Valentina Di Liscia writes, “A new, nonpartisan initiative launched by the nonprofit Vote.org seeks to channel the power of art to encourage voter participation. … The ‘Plan Your Vote‘ website offers a digital library of voting advocacy visuals that are free for anyone to download and circulate. The images are based on original works created by more than 60 contemporary artists, including Kamrooz Aram, Sanford Biggers, Leidy Churchman, Guerrilla Girls, Jenny Holzer, Elka Krajewska, Caitlin Keogh, Julie Mehretu, Kambui Olujimi, and Wangechi Mutu. …

“ ‘Voters this year face numerous barriers to participation, and widespread misinformation,’ said [Vote.org’s] executive director, Christine Messineo, in a statement. ‘Communicating critical information about how to register to vote has become increasingly difficult.’ …

“Indeed, the 2020 election may go down in history as one of the nation’s most fraught, as voter suppression and the threat of foreign interference collide with the challenges of getting to the ballots during a global pandemic and targeted attacks on mail-in voting. These are compounded by a more longstanding issue: voter non-participation. According to the Knight Foundation, nearly 100 million eligible voters in the US did not cast a ballot for president in 2016 — representing 43% of the eligible voting-age population.

“Vote.org CEO Andrea Hailey believes that art may hold the key to educating and mobilizing citizens across the nation to exercise their right to vote. …

“ ‘Plan Your Vote’ is supported by an alliance of museums and arts nonprofits that are posting campaign images on their social media and promoting the initiative in their newsletters, as well as including an active voter engagement ‘sticker’ on their websites. So far, 56 institutions have become alliance members, including MoMA PS1, the Brooklyn Museum, the Guggenheim, ICA Boston, and MIT List Visual Arts Center.

“A complete list of participating artists and organizations can be found here, and all artworks can be downloaded on the campaign website’s free digital library.” More at Hyperallergic, here.

By the way, an original founder of Vote.org has started Vote America. Suzanne recommends getting trained there in how to reach potential voters who don’t usually participate. She says, “I sent 2000 voter registration texts to people in Michigan in about 45 minutes yesterday. Texts are sent via an online platform from your computer, not your phone, so you can send a lot quickly, and no one has access to your personal phone number.”

From the website: “VoteAmerica is a nonprofit organization founded by a small team of elections and technology experts (including the founders of Vote.org and Vote.gov), who have come together to combat the chaos of the 2020 election cycle by helping to drive record-shattering voter turnout. We will accomplish this via hyper-aggressive and targeted outreach to the millions of low and no-propensity voters who are generally neglected by partisan groups. [Collectively] we’ve registered about 20 million voters and run GOTV to tens of millions more in our past roles. Now we’re scaling up.”

Suzanne knows Debra from college days and is an admirer. VoteAmerica.com has more on Debra’s background on its site: “Debra Cleaver is the founder and CEO of VoteAmerica, a national nonprofit leveraging research-driven campaigns to register and turn out the 100+ million Americans who are traditionally excluded by partisan outreach efforts. Debra is a serial founder whose organizations include Vote.org (2016), ElectionDay.org (2018), Long Distance Voter (2008), and Swing the State (2004). Debra is an alum of Pomona College and Y Combinator, and a former Draper Richards Kaplan Fellow for Social Entrepreneurship.”

Debra Cleaver, serial founder of successful voter organizations