Learning Session: Can New York Finally Deliver Voting By Mail?
Tuesday, December 5th, 2023
Speakers
Susan Lerner, executive director, Common Cause/New York
Andrew Garber, counsel, Voting Rights and Elections Program, Brennan Center
Bishop Dwayne Royster, executive director, POWER, Pennsylvania
Moderated by Patricia A. Swann, senior program advisor at the New York Community Trust and GoVoteNYC co-chair
Attempts to allow New Yorkers to join millions of other Americans in being able to cast their ballots by mail have been episodic and confused. The ability to vote by mail was expanded during COVID through executive order and a temporary state law, but that provision expired. A 2021 referendum question to amend the state constitution to create no-excuse absentee voting, failed. Then in the final days of the 2023 session, the State Legislature passed The New York Early Mail Voter Act. Governor Hochul signed the bill into law in September and a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality was immediately filed.
This session will update you on the latest developments in this fast-moving dynamic and ask whether New York can finally get it right and deliver voting by mail.
You will also hear about the experience of voting by mail in other states and what New York can learn from them. Pennsylvania recently implemented a similar law to New York to make it easier for voters to request a mail ballot. But other states, particularly in the west, do not require voters to ask for a mail ballot. Instead they have universal vote by mail where all eligible voters receive either a ballot or ballot application by default.
How much difference to voter turnout in New York might these various approaches make?
GoVoteNYC is committed to a welcoming, accessible experience. If you need accommodations or accessibility to join and participate in this event please specify your request in an email to info@govotenyc.org
Learning Session: New York City Hall Civic Engagement Team
October 4th 2023
High levels of civic trust and civic engagement are key to a thriving democracy. In December 2022 Mayor Adams announced an Office of Engagement to prioritize community engagement for his administration and to increase and improve citywide engagement efforts. Chicago is the only other major US city with such an office. Can such a focus within city government increase civic trust and democratic participation in NYC and, if so, how?
The Office of Engagement, led by Betsy MacLean, former executive director of Hester Street oversees the Community Affairs Unit, Public Engagement Unit, NYC Service, and the Civic Engagement Commission and coordinates outreach and engagement across all city agencies. Their efforts to transform the culture of engagement in the city include building on NYC Speaks, increasing cross-agency coordination and collaboration, proactive voter engagement and activation through DemocracyNYC, and “The People’s Money,” which is New York City’s first-ever citywide participatory budgeting process, open to anyone 11 and up, regardless of immigration or incarceration status.
This webinar provides an opportunity to hear from the City Hall “democracy team” and learn more about how they are approaching increasing civic trust and engagement: the challenges and the opportunities.
Speakers
Betsy MacLean, Chief Engagement Officer, City of New York
Kathleen Daniel, Chief Democracy Officer, City of New York
Dr. Sarah Sayeed, Chair & Executive Director, Civic Engagement Commission, City of New York
The conversation is moderated by GoVoteNYC co-chair Martha King of the Revson Foundation.
City Limits: Opinion. Trusted Relationships are the Secret Ingredient to Increased Voter Turnout
“An analysis of voter turnout by the New York City Campaign Finance Board found that from 2008 to 2018, only 3 percent of registered voters cast their vote in every election in which they were eligible. More than a fifth of registered voters did not turn out to vote in any election in which they were eligible to vote.”
GoVoteNYC Fund announces $475,000 in grants to increase voter turnout
(June 28, 2023) New York, NY – The GoVoteNYC Fund in The New York Community Trust has announced $475,000 in grants to nine nonprofits for nonpartisan get-out-the-vote activities.
The grantees, who are all trusted messengers in their communities, include: The Asian American Federation, Center for Law & Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, El Puente, Faith in New York, Hispanic Federation, MinKwon Center for Community Action, New York Civic Engagement Table, New York Immigration Coalition, and United Neighborhood Houses.
Grants build on study finding that leveraging the trust of community groups almost doubled voter turnout in targeted populations
(June 28, 2023) New York, NY – The GoVoteNYC Fund in The New York Community Trust has announced $475,000 in grants to nine nonprofits for nonpartisan get-out-the-vote activities.
The grantees, who are all trusted messengers in their communities, include: The Asian American Federation, Center for Law & Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, El Puente, Faith in New York, Hispanic Federation, MinKwon Center for Community Action, New York Civic Engagement Table, New York Immigration Coalition, and United Neighborhood Houses.
This is the third year of grants by the GoVoteNYC funder collaborative, which brings together a dozen donors to make grants, learns together with grantees how best to advance civic engagement, and has increased voter turnout across the five boroughs of New York City.
In both the 2021 and 2022 grantmaking cycles, the New York Civic Engagement Table (NYCET) helped grantee nonprofit partners build targeted voter lists and refine outreach efforts by providing data support and training on the use of new tools. NYCET also offered field support to grantees as they implemented programs. NYCET will receive a $75,000 grant to continue this work in 2023 and into 2024.
The grant awards build on an evaluation of the first two years of grantmaking by the funder collaborative showing success in increasing voter turnout through local nonprofits using relational voter outreach, which are methods emphasizing conversations and other types of one-to-one engagement with friends, family, colleagues, members, and clients. In 2021, for example, Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) voters canvassed by GoVoteNYC grantees voted at almost double the rate of BIPOC voters who were not contacted (37 percent of BIPOC voters canvassed by GoVoteNYC partners voted versus 20 percent of BIPOC voters not contacted).
The evaluation was conducted by Seema Shah, founder and principal of COMM|VEDA Consulting. In addition to tracking higher voter turnout in targeted communities, the evaluation found that the participating nonprofits built fruitful connections with other organizations, laying the groundwork for a strengthened infrastructure for civic engagement in the city. The evaluation noted ongoing challenges, including voter alienation, election fatigue, a dysfunctional election system, misinformation campaigns, and the ongoing effects of COVID-19.
Historically, New York City's voter turnout for all elections, especially local ones, has been abysmally low, ranking towards the bottom among large American cities, with roughly 1 in 4 registered New Yorkers participating. The GoVoteNYC donor collaborative, which is housed in The New York Community Trust, was formed in 2021 with the goal of changing this trend. The GoVoteNYC collaborative is now focused on building upon the lessons learned from the evaluation report to increase voter turnout in the 2025 citywide elections. This new round of grants will support that work.
“New York’s democracy is being reinforced and rebuilt by community groups working together in every neighborhood in the city,” said Martha King, senior program officer at the Charles H. Revson Foundation and a GoVoteNYC co-chair. “As GoVoteNYC enters its third year and makes another round of grants, it’s very encouraging to see the success of nonprofits’ civic engagement efforts.”
“GoVoteNYC supports nonprofit partners that are deploying both creative new ideas and proven approaches to reach voters, many of whom have not voted in the past or are typically overlooked in the democratic process,” said Patricia A. Swann, program director of Thriving Communities at the New York Community Trust and a GoVoteNYC co-chair. “It’s inspiring to see the success of traditional engagement and the development of new tools and approaches. However, while we celebrate the successful achievement of increased participation we acknowledge that it still leaves New York City voter participation at an unacceptably low number.”
“This evaluation shows the importance of relational outreach compared to one-off, transactional Get Out the Vote mass texts or phone calls,” said Zabrina Collazo, program officer at the New York Foundation and a GoVoteNYC co-chair. “This approach is best suited to trusted community organizations that can embed voter turnout work into existing programs, building on longstanding relationships. That’s a recipe for future success and why we are thrilled to make another round of grants to continue this important work.”
The current GoVoteNYC funders are the Altman Foundation, Brooklyn Community Foundation, the Charles H. Revson Foundation, The Ford Foundation, Moelis Family Foundation, The New York Community Trust, New York Foundation, New York Women’s Foundation, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, Scherman Foundation, Trinity Church Wall Street Philanthropies and the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock.
About The New York Community Trust
The New York Community Trust is a public charity and New York City’s largest community foundation. It connects generous people and institutions with high-impact nonprofits making the city and its suburbs a better place for all. It builds stronger communities, influences public policy, fosters innovation, improves lives, and protects our environment.
Learning Session: Waking the Sleeping Giant of Electoral Politics - A Webinar Hosted by GoVoteNYC and Philanthropy New York
Now outnumbering Baby Boomers, Millennials are the largest American adult cohort, and Gen Z-ers make up ten percent of the electorate. As millions more Gen Z-ers reach voting age over the next decade, their political clout is growing. In the 2022 midterm elections, voters aged 18-29 turned out at a rate of 27% across the country, the second-highest rate in 30 years. But New York continues to be among the states with the lowest rates nationally.
Speakers
· Sanda Balaban, Co-Founder and Director, YVote/Next Gen
· Brianna Cea, Executive Director and Founder, Generation Vote
· DeNora Getachew, CEO, Do Something
· Rachel Gita Karp, Program Director, Unstoppable Voters, Center for Artistic Activism
· Abby Kiesa, Deputy Director, Tuft University’s CIRCLE
· Fanta Ballo (moderator), Poet, Artist, and Activist
Gotham Gazette: Opinion. The Three Vs for Voter Engagement: Validators, Volunteers and Visibility
GoVoteNYC, a collaborative of more than a dozen foundations and donors committed to nonpartisan activity to strengthen democracy in New York City, is an eager contributor to this work. GoVoteNYC supports nonprofit partners that are deploying both creative new ideas and proven approaches to reach voters, many of whom have not voted in the past or are typically overlooked in the democratic process.
Learning Session: 2022 Impact Report
March 28, 2023
Melody Lopez from New York Civic Engagement Table presents an overview of the impact of GoVoteNYC grantees in the 2022 elections.
Learning Session: Open Primaries
December 1, 2023
Session exploring open vs closed primaries as a structural reform.
Speakers:
JOHN OPDYCKE, President of OpenPrimaries.org
BEN MAX, Executive Editor, at Gotham Gazette
MARCO CARRION, Executive Director of El Puente
SUSAN LERNER, Executive Director of Common Cause/NY
Learning Session: Exploring Aligned Elections
Thursday, November 10 2022
New Yorkers vote for mayor and local offices in odd-numbered years. They vote for president, governor, and congress in even-numbered years. They are asked to vote so frequently – oftentimes, every year – it is no wonder millions of New Yorkers skip important elections. For decades, an average of only 25% of New York City’s 5,000,000 eligible voters participate in municipal elections.
Should New York align local elections with high-turnout, high-profile federal elections?
Speakers
Zoltan Hajnal, professor of political science at the School of Global Policy and Strategy, University of California San Diego, author “Dangerously Divided” and “America’s Uneven Democracy.”
Ben Weinberg, Director of Public Policy, Citizens Union Foundation
Daniel Kaminsky, Public Policy Manager, Citizens Union Foundation
Learning Session: Arts. Culture. Civics.
How creativity deepens civic engagement -- and why we need arts & culture to catalyze a culture of voting across New York City.
Friday, November 19, 2021
This panel of artists and cultural organizers showcases current work in New York and nationwide, to help us reimagine innovative approaches to voter engagement. Tom Finkelpearl leads a discussion on the ways in which socially engaged art practices, visual and social media campaigns, and community-based co-creation can strengthen civic participation.
Moderator Tom Finkelpearl is a writer, curator, and arts administrator. He is the former director of The Queens Museum, and from 2014 to 2019, served as Commissioner of the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. He is the author of What We Made: Conversations on Art and Social Cooperation (Duke University Press, 2013) and Dialogues in Public Art (MIT Press, 2001).
Panelists
Yazmany Arboleda is a Colombian American artist based in New York City. As the current Public Artist in Residence at the NYC Civic Engagement Commission, he created The People’s Bus, a community center on wheels designed to engage New Yorkers in civic life through beauty and joy. An architect by training, Yazmany has created public art projects with communities from around the world. He has collaborated with Carnegie Hall, the Yale School of Management, and BRIC; and has lectured at UNC, MIT, and LPAC about the power of art in public space.
Marco A. Carrión is Executive Director of El Puente, a community human rights institution that nurtures and inspires leadership for peace and justice through the engagement of members in the arts, education, scientific research, wellness, and environmental action. He previously served as the Commissioner of New York City’s Community Affairs Unit, serving as a direct link between the mayor and our city’s neighborhoods.
Eric Gottesman studies nationalism, migration, representation, structural violence, history, and intimate relations through his collaborative art practice. His work has been shown at health conferences, on the televised opening of the NFL season, inside government buildings, on indigenous reserves, inside post-war rubble and in museums like MoMA/PS1, the Johannesburg Art Gallery, MFA Boston, Houston Center of Photography, MoCA Cleveland, and the Addison Gallery of American Art. Gottesman is a Guggenheim Fellow, a Creative Capital Artist, a Fulbright Fellow, an Artadia awardee, an Aaron Siskind Foundation Artist and a co-founder of For Freedoms, an initiative for art and civic engagement that won the ICP-Infinity Award and was named the "largest creative collaboration in United States history" by TIME Magazine. He teaches at SUNY Purchase and in the Arab Documentary Photography Program in Beirut, Lebanon.
Amy Khoshbin is an Iranian-American Brooklyn-based artist, activist, and educator. She is the current Fine Arts Fellow in Civic Engagement at Pratt Institute. Her practice pushes the formal and conceptual boundaries of artmaking to foster progressive social change through performance, social practice, video, rap music, teaching and writing. She has shown at The Whitney Museum of American Art The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Times Square Arts, Artpace, The High Line, Socrates Sculpture Park, BRIC Arts, and festivals such as River to River and South by Southwest.
Shaun Leonardo is an artist and Co-Director of Recess, where he co-founded Assembly, an arts-based diversion program for court-involved youth. His work as an artist negotiates societal expectations of manhood, namely definitions surrounding black and brown masculinities, along with its notions of achievement, collective identity, and experience of failure. In his work as an educator, Leonardo promotes the political potential of attention and discomfort as a means to disrupt meaning and shift perspective. He has worked as an educator at the New Museum, the Fortune Society, Cooper Union, and the Point CDC. His work has been featured at The Guggenheim Museum, the High Line, and MASS MoCA.
Diya Vij is the Associate Curator at Creative Time who is committed to critically investigating the evolving role of public art in politics and civic life. Over the past decade, she has held programming, curatorial, and communications positions at the High Line, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA), and the Queens Museum. At DCLA, Vij launched and co-directed the Public Artists in Residence (PAIR) program, a municipal residency program that embeds artists into city agencies to address New York City’s most pressing issues. Additionally, she was a project lead for the Agency’s citywide Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiative, and played an active role in public monument efforts, and CreateNYC — New York City’s first cultural plan.
Learning Session: The Future of Voter Engagement
Relational Organizing, Voter Festivals, and Digital Platforms in the Post-Pandemic Era
Friday, July 30, 2021
Nearly 1,000,000 New Yorkers voted on June 22 2021 – the largest number since 1989 and cause for celebration – but at only 26% of the electorate there is still much work to be done. The GoVoteNYC Fund is committed to deepening its support for nonprofits working to increase voter turnout, narrow participation gaps, and engage communities facing historical and present-day barriers.
Join us as we talk with experts about the research behind effective voter education and outreach, the rise of digital platforms and social media, and how measuring this work can build local capacity and the field. We take a special look at the innovative “voter festival” model tried in other cities and investigate how New York City’s vibrant arts sector can be engaged in creating a just and joyful voting experience.
Speakers
Donald Green is the Burgess Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and the co-author of Get Out The Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout. His research interests span a wide array of topics, including voting behavior, partisanship, and campaign finance. Much of his current work uses field experimentation to study the ways in which political campaigns mobilize and persuade voters.
Tamer Mokhtar is a partner at Investing in US which utilizes a venture capital model to identify organizations capable of bringing about scaled impact in the areas of technology integration into voter mobilization efforts, digital media/messaging, and turnout. In 2018, Tamer founded All Americans Vote, which focuses on non-partisan efforts to engage America’s electorate by elevating turnout among young and diverse voters.
Alex Navarro-McKay is Managing Director in the New York office of BerlinRosen, a nationally recognized communications strategy firm. He directs the firm’s political division where he creates award-winning ads and direct mail that tell the stories of candidates, causes and brands. Since joining the firm in 2008, Alex has been a lead consultant for over 100 winning campaigns, including state, federal, local and ballot initiatives.
Learning Session: Electoral System Reform
Fixing Our Electoral System Once and For All And Why it Matters to Donors Working to Strengthen Democracy Everywhere
Friday, July 23, 2021
“The New York City Board of Election Wins at Screwing Up”
“Fix the NYC Board of Elections or face endless mayhem”
“NYC Elections Board Is a Disaster. This is the Last Straw.”
Despite the flood of media attention following the June 29th 2021 counting error at the City Board of Elections, this dysfunction is not news. With each new debacle, the calls to overhaul the Board of Elections reach a fever pitch. In 2019:
“Amid Another Poorly-Run Election, Top New York Officials Point Fingers, Offer Plans, or Say Nothing”
With more than a dozen legislative “wins” since 2019, New York’s electoral system is significantly better, but persistent problems threaten to undermine all that. It is time to reform New York’s system once and for all. It is time to give New Yorkers the fair, trust-worthy and barrier-free voter experience they deserve.
Join the GoVoteNYC Fund to learn more about the scope of this recurring problem, what can be done about it, and why it matters to healthy democracy everywhere.
Chisun Lee and Joanna Zdanys, senior attorneys at the Brennan Center for Justice, share insights into policy and legal strategies for reform, and report on the momentum of the state-level “wins” orchestrated by the 200-member Let NY Vote Coalition. Professor Ekow Yankah will contextualize that work on the ground and its significance well beyond New York:
Speakers
Ekow Yankah is Professor of Law at Cardozo Law with expertise in voting rights and election law. He serves as co-chair of the New York Democratic Lawyers Council, the voting rights arm of the New York Democratic party. In 2020 he was appointed to New York State’s Public Campaign Finance Board, which he now serves as Chairman.
Chisun Lee is Deputy Director of the Brennan Center’s Election Reform Program, where she works to advance money-in-politics reform and improve election administration.
Joanna Zdanys serves as counsel in the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program. Her work focuses on advancing reforms in the area of money in politics. Zdanys provides policy advice to lawmakers across the country and has testified before state and local legislators.
GoVoteNYC funder collaborative announces $1.05 million in grants to get out the vote
City donors unite across issues to bolster democracy as the foundation of a fair and just recovery throughout the five boroughs
(April 26, 2022) New York, NY – The GoVoteNYC Fund in The New York Community Trust has announced $1.05 million in grants to 11 nonprofits for nonpartisan get-out-the-vote activities.
Targeting more than 2 million new and infrequent voters, these grants will draw attention to the importance of voting in the coming state and congressional elections and is central to the Fund’s mission to shift the decades-long downward trajectory of voter participation in the city.
This year New Yorkers will vote in elections for four statewide offices and all state legislative seats. State elected officials are the decision-makers in myriad issues affecting New York City residents.
The grantees, who are all trusted messengers in their communities, include: The Asian American Federation, Center for Independence of the Disabled in New York, Center for Law & Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, College & Community Fellowship, El Puente, Hispanic Federation, MinKwon Center for Community Action, New York Civic Engagement Table, New York Immigration Coalition, Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition, and United Neighborhood Houses.
This effort builds on GoVoteNYC’s investment in civic engagement leading up to the 2021 municipal elections, which saw an uptick in voter turnout for the June primary. In 2022, these nonprofits will work together, tapping into the voter data expertise of the New York Civic Engagement Table, one of 22 statewide “tables,” or coalitions of nonprofits working on a nonpartisan basis to strengthen democracy across the country. The Table’s technical assistance will guide the GoVoteNYC grantees as they combine in-person canvassing with the digital outreach they successfully ramped up during the pandemic.
“New York City’s democratic processes do not get the national attention that other districts do, but our local democracy needs attention to ensure an equitable recovery,” said Martha King, senior program officer at the Charles H. Revson Foundation and co-chair of the Fund. “New Yorkers need to be heard at the polls, and we are resourcing the nonprofit partners who can successfully get-out-the-vote in diverse communities and make government more responsive and accountable.”
“Roughly three out of four New York City registered voters regularly sit elections out, while those who do vote tend to be older, better educated, and more affluent,” said Neill Coleman, executive director, Trinity Church Wall Street Philanthropies and co-chair of the Fund. “That has far-reaching consequences on policy decisions and allocations of public dollars. The GoVoteNYC Fund’s collaborative giving will help ensure an electorate that looks more like the city.”
“Our success in the philanthropic sector, from climate change to affordable housing, depends on an engaged electorate,” said Patricia Swann, program director at The New York Community Trust and co-chair of the Fund. “With GoVoteNYC, we are providing resources to the organizations across the city with the relationships to move the needle on voter turnout.”
"With a statewide network of partner organizations, we’ve developed a successful model of organizing strategic, regional get-out-the-vote campaigns in the Hudson Valley and Long Island,” said Melody Lopez, executive director at the New York Civic Engagement Table.
“We look forward to working with GoVoteNYC’s cohort of New York City-based organizations to achieve our shared vision of increased voter turnout and engagement. Together, we can help New York City meet its potential as a beacon of democracy.”
GoVoteNYC member organizations include:
Altman Foundation
Charles H. Revson Foundation
The Ford Foundation
Jamie Rubin
J.M. Kaplan Fund
Moelis Family Foundation
The New York Community Trust
New York Foundation
Robert Sterling Clark Foundation
Scherman Foundation
Trinity Church Wall Street Philanthropies
About The New York Community Trust
The New York Community Trust connects past, present, and future generous New Yorkers with vital nonprofits working to make a healthy, equitable, and thriving community for all. It is a public grantmaking foundation dedicated to improving the lives of residents of New York City, Westchester, and Long Island.