Voting Resources
Getting Started:
The UUA and the Interfaith Alliance  have two excellent handbooks for electoral work:
The UUA has joined three major coalitions to engage in voter work. To learn more about these coalitions and find a local partner near you, see:
Check www.faithfuldemocracy.org  for faith groups active in your area.
To partner with Campaign for Communities see the member organization’s websites at:
• Earth Day Network www.earthday.net
• Southwest Voter Registration Education Project www.svrep.org/cfc/campaign_for_comm.html
• NAACP Voter Fund www.naacpnvf.org
• Project Vote www.projectvote.org
Also see www.nationalvoice.org for community groups doing voter projects.
Additional Resources:
Churches and congregations have tax-exempt 501(c)3 status and therefore must conduct voter registration, education, and Get Out The Vote (GOTV) drives in a non-partisan manner.
The UUA Washington Office for Advocacy has may new resources as well as published "The Real Rules": Congregations and IRS Guidelines on Advocacy, Lobbying, and Elections."
For more information on the 501(c)3 status of your congregation, see the Nonprofit Advocacy projects of the Alliance for Justice and OMB Watch . For voting requirements and deadlines for each state, visit the Project Vote Smart's Voter Registration Page and choose your state from the menu provided. Additional resources which can provide a primer on voter education, advocacy and registration activities are included below:
National Voice , which observes, "This is the time for a creative and powerful voter mobilization," seeks to attact new voters by "making democracy work in communities all across our country." The UUA is a founding organization for this effort.
The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights , a civil and human rights coalition, has issued a statement regarding an October, 2003 vote by the U.S. Senate to approve $1.5 billion in appropriations for the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA).
The League of Women Voters has a Voter Information section with links to on-line registration and a program to "take a friend to vote". They also provide information about the candidates and links to many other sites.
The Federal Election Commission offers complete information on elections and voting, including voter registration and turnout statistics.
The U.S. Census Bureau offers information on voter turnout in the United States, and voter registration links.
The Interfaith Alliance has, since the year 2000, produced a large number of materials to provide guidance and information about the upcoming elections. The TIA website offers extensive information on "equipping people of faith and good will for political participation." Of particular interest is "Religion in the 2004 Election: Setting the Stage" . For further information, contact Matt Rosen at The Interfaith Alliance, 202-639-6370.
The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) provides links to access your elected officials' voting records and "Questions for Candidates: A guide to find out more about candidates' positions on the issues that are important to you."
Working Assets , an independent long distance service company, has mounted a "Your Vote Matters" website, suggesting "five things you can do because your vote matters."
For more information:
Project Vote Smart offers "abundant, accurate, unbiased and relevant information" to voters "in order to cast an informed vote on election day." onlinedemocracy.com is a website that facilitates on-line voter registration. They write that this effort "puts the people back into 'We the people of the United States...' by providing citizen members with the tools and information they need to make the most out of their right to vote."
USA votenet , "linking all Americans to the power of the vote," offers multiple resources such as voter statistics divided by sex, sexual preference, race, and otherly abled. There are also links to other voter turnout and voter registration information, and a listing of successful techniques to use in getting out the vote.
MoveOn.org has a bulletin board devoted to "Voting and Democracy: The Challenges Ahead," offering information on voter security concerns and "A Voting and Democracy Primer."
The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University has assembled an extensive study of citizen involvement in an election campaign, related to the publication of the book "The Vanishing Voter". In introducing the study results, they write, "The period from 1960 to 2000 marks the longest ebb in voter turnout in the nation’s history. Fewer voters are not the only sign of waning interest. In 1960, 60 percent of the nation’s television households had their sets on and tuned to the October presidential debates. In 2000, fewer than 30 percent were tuned in." The site contains the original study and detailed analysis of the results.
For Youth and Young Adults:
The Youth Vote Coalition , a national nonpartisan coalition of diverse organizations, is dedicated to increasing political and civic participation among young people; building an inclusive, accountable, and responsive government; and increasing public awareness about the value of participation in democracy through the electoral process.
Rock the Vote is an organization that focuses on the youth/music world to turn out the vote. The site offers on-line registration* and news about candidates and the election. The organization has also mobilized street teams that organize voter registration
and turnout in specific areas.
African American concerns/ People of Color:
The National Coalition on Black Civic Participation provides a wealth of information on voting and voting rights for African Americans. The site says that the organization "envisions a nation in which all citizens from children to seniors, have the tools to participate fully in the democratic process at the local, state, national and global levels. By continuing to lead the fight to eliminate remaining barriers to civic participation, the National Coalition will promote greater social and economic justice to enhance the quality of African American life."
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has an extensive website on "voter empowerment" including information on why registering to vote is important and offering a voter registration guide.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender concerns:
The Human Rights Campaign offers online voter registration* and information on the upcoming elections with an eye twoard promoting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights. The HRC's slogan, "get informed, get involved, vote" points users to information on campaign forums and key states for upcoming elections.
Organized Labor:
The AFL-CIO offers information on voter registration and links to material on the candidates and their platforms' impact on working families, the working families presidential forum, and a voter registration site*. Read More About this Subject:
"The Vanishing Voter: Public Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty" by Thomas E.Patterson. Knopf (2002); $17.50 from amazon.com . Publisher's Weekly writes, "In the year preceding the 2000 presidential election, scholars at Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy conducted a study designed to uncover the reasons behind the growing national voter malaise. Based on the Vanishing Voter Project results, Patterson, who teaches at the Shorenstein Center, identifies and analyzes why voters have turned away from participatory politics."
The League of Women Voters has just issued a new publication, Helping America Vote: A Guide to the New Federal Provisional Ballot Requirement, a user-friendly resource for implementing new, provisional ballot requirements. Until HAVA, approximately half the states offered some form of contingent voting, which allowed certain voters, about whom questions were raised, to cast a ballot that would be counted after election officials verified their eligibility. These ballots were called "special ballots," "conditional ballots," "provisional ballots," or "affidavit ballots." Now, for the first time since the chaos of the 2000 elections, everyone must be able to cast a ballot and, if they are eligible, have that vote counted, says the LWV.
"Where Have All the Voters Gone?" by Martin P. Wattenbert. Harvard University Press (2002); $18.95 from amazon.com . Library Journal writes, "Wattenberg's book is a lucid presentation of new and prior research on an important problem."
"Why Americans Still Don't Vote: And Why Politicians Want it That Way" by Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward. Beacon Press (2000); $12.60 in paperback from amazon.com . amazon.com writes, "The co-authors were key players in the long battle to reform voter registration laws that finally resulted in the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (also known as the Motor Voter law). When "Why Americans Don't Vote" was first published in 1988, this battle was still raging, and their book was a fiery salvo. It demonstrated that the twentieth century had witnessed a concerted effort to restrict voting by immigrants and blacks through a combination of poll taxes, literacy tests, and unwieldy voter registration requirements."
The Disappearing American Voter by Ruy A. Teixeira. The Brookings Institution (1992); $16.95 from amazon.com . Texiera, who was a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, is also the author of "Why Americans Don't Vote: Turnout Decline in the United States (1960-1984).
"Voice and Equality: Civic Volunteerism in American Politics" by Sidney Verba, Kay Lehman Schlozman, Henry E. Brady. Belknap Press (1996); $29.95 from amazon.com . This book, based on a survey of more than 15,000 respondants, shows that some individuals have a greater voice in politics than others, and that this equality results not just from varying inclinations toward activity, but also from unequal access to vital resources such as education.
Questions? Want to talk?
Contact Sarah Craft, UUA Voting Project Coordinator, with questions, resources, concerns, news, reports, and ideas about your congregation's current or potential voting project.
Sign up for the UUA's Voter-News email list for weekly updates on voter resources and a chance to share your congregation's activities and successes.
*On-line registration is not legal in all states. Check your state's regulations before you attempt to register to vote online.
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