The Brennan Center and Pew Research Center are two of the top sources to follow for reliable and up-to-date research and analysis on a wide range of voting and electoral issues.
Analysis, Advocacy and Activism:
Major Organizations working on voting rights issues
In the 2020 election, Marc Elias and Democracy Docket became a new powerful force defending the legitimacy of the 2020 elections and are now active in monitoring, reporting and fighting against the tsunami of voter suppression laws about to be enacted by state legislatures across the United States.
Election Assistance Commission
This is the federal agency responsible for helping states improve their voting systems. From its website: EAC “is an independent, bipartisan commission established by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA). It is charged with supporting state and local election officials in their efforts to ensure accessible, accurate and secure elections. EAC develops guidance to meet HAVA requirements, adopts voluntary voting system guidelines, and serves as a national clearinghouse of information on election administration. EAC also accredits testing laboratories and certifies voting systems, as well as audits the use of HAVA funds.”
Vote from Abroad
Go here to register to vote and request your overseas ballot! Vote from Abroad is recommended by Democrats Abroad as the easiest, most efficient way to register to vote from overseas.
Brennan Center for Justice
On Voting Rights and Elections:
“Voting is the foundation of our democracy. The Brennan Center is at the center of the fight to preserve and expand the right to vote for every eligible citizen. Through practical policy proposals, litigation, advocacy, and communications, the Brennan Center works to ensure that voting is free, fair, and accessible for all Americans. The Center’s signature proposal to modernize the voter registration system, saves money, increases accuracy and participation — and adds an additional 50 million “voters to the rolls permanently.”
See the Brennan Center’s annual Voting Laws Roundup 2020 and their monthly updates.
Pew Research Center
Find reliable and up to date research on Voter Demographics, Voter Participation, Voter Preferences and Voting Process
Congressional Voting Rights Caucus
The goal of this Caucus is to “educate the public on the current voter suppression tactics in place in their home states, districts, and counties, inform constituencies on their rights as voters, and to create and advance legislation that blocks current and future suppressive and discriminatory tactics that deny American citizens the sacred right to vote”.
Fair Fight Action
Founded by Stacey Abrams in 2019, its mission is to:
“advocate for election reform and engage in voter education and turnout to secure the voting rights of Georgians. In the past, the 501(c)4 arm of the organization, Fair Fight Action, conducted a large vote-by-mail program, worked with churches to register voters, educate voters about the elections, voting procedures, and voting rights, and engaged in a get-out-the-vote program to mobilize voters to vote during early voting and on election day. Fair Fight works to ensure all voters have access to the polls. It promotes fair elections in Georgia, promotes voter participation in elections, and provides voter education. Fair Fight brings awareness to the public on election reform, lobbies the state legislature for election reform and engages in targeted voter registration and other voter outreach programs and communications.”
NAACP
Active in advocacy, legal action and grassroots organization:
“The NAACP, along with our half-million adult and youth members throughout the United States, are frontline advocates committed to raising awareness for political, educational, social and economic equality of minority group citizens in the electoral process. With approximately 2,000 adult branches, youth councils, and college chapters in 49 states, 5 countries and the District of Columbia, the NAACP is actively engaged in increasing the African American responsiveness of citizens to be fully engaged in the democratic process.”
Black Voters Matter
Purposes:
“Black Voters Matter goal is to increase power in marginalized, predominantly Black communities. Effective voting allows a community to determine its own destiny. We agree with the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he said, “Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love”.
The 5 core beliefs include: “The key to effective civic engagement and community power is understanding, respecting and supporting local infrastructure.” and “The leadership, talent and commitment demonstrated by Black women in particular must receive recognition and, more importantly, *investment* in order to flourish and multiply.” See more.
The League of Women Voters
Actively engaged in advocacy, legal action, education and grassroots organizing, for example, voter registration drives. “Rooted in the movement that secured the right to vote for women, the League has worked to foster civic engagement and enhance access to the vote since our organization was founded in 1920. Over time our work has evolved from efforts to gain and foster women’s suffrage to ensuring that all eligible voters – particularly those from traditionally underrepresented or under-served communities, including first-time voters, non-college youth, new citizens, minorities and low-income Americans – have the opportunity and the information they need to exercise their right to vote.”
Verified Voting Foundation
States its mission to be:
“Safeguarding elections in the digital age. We are a non-governmental organization working toward accuracy, integrity and verifiability of elections. We believe the integrity and strength of our democracy relies on citizen’s trust that each vote be counted as cast. Our primary concern lies in ensuring that the means for verifying election outcomes is in place and used for that purpose. We also focus on the reliability and security of voting systems.”
Fair Elections Center
“…engages in a wide variety of advocacy efforts, including producing reports, talking points and fact sheets, providing state voter guides, providing testimony to legislatures, conducting trainings and seminars for organizations and their supporters, litigating voting rights cases in state and federal court, and working directly with local election officials and Secretaries of State to ensure that 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 constituencies that need help accessing the ballot.
Fair Vote
“…is a nonpartisan champion of electoral reforms that give voters greater choice, a stronger voice, and a representative democracy that works for all Americans. FairVote has a proven record since 1992 as a nonpartisan trailblazer that advances and wins bold electoral reforms at the local, state, and national level through strategic research, communications and collaboration. Today we are the driving force behind advancing ranked choice voting and multi-winner legislative districts that together will open up our elections to better choices, fairer representation and more civil campaigns.”
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee
An initiative led by President Obama and former Attorney General Eric Holder.
Voteriders
A non-partisan non-profit organisation that “provides practical assistance and information to ensure voters have the right kind of ID to vote in their state. VoteRiders is the leading organization focusing exclusively on voter ID. ” Our current priority states, which have or are poised to enact stringent laws about which IDs are acceptable to vote, are: AL, AZ, FL, GA, IN, KS, MI, MO, ND, NH, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA and WI. Some of these states’ voter ID laws leave to others’ discretion whether a resident’s vote will count, or require documentary proof of citizenship to even register to vote. We expect this list to grow, as up to 12 states have pending legislation.”
Lift Every Vote
A non-partisan volunteer collaborative that fights for election modernization solutions like Automatic Voter Registration and the Pew Electronic Registration Center.
Let America Vote
Focuses on grassroots activity:
“Jason Kander started Let America Vote to fight back against proposals across the country that make it harder for eligible voters to exercise their constitutional right to cast a ballot. Whether it’s extreme identification requirements, questionable purges of voter rolls, voter intimidation, new and extreme voter registration processes, or anything that makes voting harder, Let America Vote will be there to lead the way against it. Through online and grassroots organizing, an aggressive earned media strategy, and advertising, Let America Vote will play a crucial role among the existing network of organizations fighting for voting rights.”
Links to other organizations or publications imply neither endorsement of their policies nor any association with the Democratic Party or Democrats Abroad – UK