How Your Nonprofit Can Help Your Clients Register to Vote in the 2024 Elections - Episode 62

0:00 You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. In today's episode, we share how your Nonprofit can help your clients register to vote in the 2024 elections. So. Stay tuned. If you want to have real and powerful influence over the money and policy decisions that impact your organization and the people you serve, then you're in the right place. I'm Kath Patrick and I've helped dozens of progressive nonprofit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter.

0:40 It is possible to get a critical mass of the money and policy decision makers in your world to be as invested in your success as you are. To have them seeking you out as an equal partner. And to have them Bringing opportunities and resources to you. This podcast will help you do just that. Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. Hey there folks. Welcome to another episode of the Nonprofit Power podcast. I'm your host, Kath Patrick. I'm so glad you're here for today's episode. There is no question about the significance of the 2024 elections from the presidential race on down to every single local race.

1:24 I'm pretty sure I don't have to convince you on that front. Nor do I have to convince you how much your client's votes matter. Both in the larger sense, but also in terms of ensuring that we have elected officials who support policies and the allocation of resources that will in concrete ways help make your clients' lives better. But the reality is that many of the people we serve are infrequent voters or don't vote at all. And there are a lot of reasons for that. But the simple fact is you can't vote if you aren't registered. And that's where you come in. As a nonprofit, you and your team are in a uniquely valuable position to help your clients take the critical step of registering to vote, which is the first step in making their voice heard at the ballot box.

2:12 Here's something you might not know. Low-income voters engaged by non-profits are 15% more likely to vote than folks in that same cohort who don't hear from a nonprofit about registering. Local organizations like yours are trusted sources of information in a world where a lot of information, it's hard to know what's real and what's not. Your voice and credibility really matter to the people you serve. And your offering to help them register to vote might make the difference as to whether they decide to participate in this election. One of the most common reasons that people haven't registered so far, is that no one has ever asked them.

2:54 It's very possible that you will be the first person that has ever asked your client to register. In episode 54, we talked about how you can increase awareness and engage your clients around the idea of voting. And that's really important to do, and hopefully you've been doing that. But now it's time to help them register to vote. You can't vote if you're not registered. And now's the time to get started. September 17th is national voter registration day and kicks off the registration season. It's kind of hard to believe, but it's only a few weeks until election day. And in some states early voting is already underway or will be very soon.

3:36 Something that is different in 2024 that is really exciting is that early voting is widely available. 46 states and the district of Columbia offer early voting options to all voters. That is a very big deal. It's also a little bit daunting in the sense of if we're involved in registration. The sooner we do this, the better, so that our clients have the widest possible window in which to cast their ballot. With client voter registration, you can help a little or a lot. And you and your team will have to decide how much energy you're willing to invest. But I hope you'll consider going all in on this. Because the more you do, the greater the impact on clients actually following through and registering to vote.

4:23 There are three levels of support you can offer from basic to advanced. They are all valuable, but the level of impact definitely increases with each increasing level of support that you provide. At the most basic level of involvement, there are some really fundamental things that you can do that are super valuable. And you'll want to do these, no matter how much additional involvement you choose. But at the very basic level, you can ask every client if they're registered to vote. And if they say yes, ask if they've updated their voter registration to reflect their current address or any other changes, like name changes and so on, since they last voted. Encourage them to register or update their registration, whichever is appropriate.

5:08 And let them know the deadline for registering in your state. You can research that information very easily. I will put some links in the show notes that will take you to a really excellent federal resource that is pretty much one click access to all the things you're going to need. Including links that will take you directly to your local elections office. In addition to asking those couple of questions and providing basic deadline information in your in-person interactions with clients. You could include that same content on your website, in social media posts, in email and snail mail to your clients. And on posters and flyers that would be visible in whatever spaces in your shop where clients tend to be present.

5:53 With this basic level of activity on your part. It's great, but the likelihood of follow-through is relatively low. But it's definitely more than if you hadn't done anything. For the price of a little more effort, you can really increase your impact. At this kind of mid-level support you're getting a little deeper in, in your involvement with helping the client actually complete the registration process. If they're not registered, ask if they'd like to register. Today. And then immediately give them the web links and/ or the physical address where they can register to vote or update their registration. In most states you can register online.

6:34 There are a few states where that isn't possible. That's something you can quickly check with your. local elections office. You can also provide your clients with the paper version of the voter registration form for your state. And answer any questions they have about how to fill it out. And/ or you can offer to help them as they fill out the online form. But if you don't have the capacity to do that, you can certainly at least provide them with a physical form. And say, does this all make sense? Do you have any questions about it? Is there anything that feels a little tricky? And you can go through that with them. Because if here's what happens if they have unanswered questions or if they feel like there are certain questions on the form that make them feel uncomfortable, like having to supply a particular type of ID or questions about citizenship and things like that.

7:20 Obviously only citizens can vote so that's a valid question. But for folks in immigrant communities where they may experience a lot of harassment and other issues for their immigrant status, they can be an immigrant who is also a citizen and still feel like that's a dangerous question to answer. So it's important for you to be there to be able to help them understand that in this context, this is not a gotcha question. There is no relationship between local elections offices and say, immigration authorities. Those two things do not connect. So that's a place where you, as a trusted source of information, can be incredibly valuable, to help take the worry and the fear out of any of those questions that might be on the form that might be a concern for folks.

8:07 Offering to help them actually fill out the form is a huge value. It's one step beyond answering questions that they might have about the form. The likelihood of follow through with this is much better. Because of the greater personal engagement and assistance that you're giving. And also you're leveraging that trust factor a little more and they're getting their questions answered in real time. A lot of times when folks have a question, if it doesn't get answered right away, that form goes in a drawer or disappears in a file somewhere and is never seen again. And they forget to do it. The highest, most impactful level of support you can engage in. is to actually become a third party registration partner.

8:49 Which means that you will collect the registration forms from the client and turn them into the elections office. Now no question that's an extra layer of work that's pretty significant. But obviously, you can see why the success for that would be much higher. So when you do that, you provide clients with the voter registration form for your state. And answer any questions they have about how to fill it out. Or if they want to fill the form out online, you're helping them in real time to do that. If they're filling out a paper form you can do the additional step of checking the form for errors or omissions before they leave your office. Now, obviously this works better if your set up is that you see your clients in person on a somewhat regular basis.

9:36 If you don't, then you're going to be supporting them in other ways. And similarly with the online form you can offer to help them as they fill that out, and offer to check that for any errors before they submit it. Obviously the likelihood of follow through on registration with this is very high. You are actually helping them fill out the form. There's no, hey, here's the form. Get to it when you get to it. It's like, let's do this today. Right now. And so if you are in a situation where you're regularly interacting with your clients directly, this is obviously the ideal. If that is not your service model, then one of the other options will make more sense for you.

10:16 The other thing that you can do if you don't have a setup where you are interacting with your clients on a regular in-person basis. The other thing you can do is connect them with other community-based organizations that do provide hands-on help with filling out voter registration forms. So if it's not practical or sensible for your organization to become a third party registration partner, you can refer your clients to trusted Nonprofit in your community that is doing that work. And it should be fairly simple to ask around and find out who's doing hands-on voter registration assistance and connect with those folks.

10:57 If you're offering that mid-level of voter registration support. and you're asking your clients if they have any questions about the forms, and providing reassurance with anything they're not sure about. You can then say, If you'd like hands-on help with this, here's an organization down the street that can do that with you. You have that option of connecting with them and getting that help. So there's plenty of different choices for how you do this. If you decide to go the third party registration partner route. Which, if it fits your service model, I highly recommend it because it is so powerfully effective and successful in getting clients to actually follow through and register. And making sure that those registration forms are complete and accurate and are going to count as valid.

11:43 This is super important, particularly as a number of state legislatures have created policies that are quite honestly designed to make it harder to vote and harder to register. They are attempting to suppress the vote. And so we want to push back on that and say everybody's vote matters. Everybody's vote should count. And there shouldn't be anything in the way of that. But the fact is some states have created a number of barriers. And one of the very valuable roles that you can provide is to help push aside those barriers and make it as easy as possible for clients to register. Giving them a heads up about any particular voter registration rules in your state that are additionally restrictive is an incredibly valuable service all on its own.

12:29 And in fact it can sometimes actually be a motivator for some clients to say to them, Hey, you know what. The folks in the state legislature, they don't want you to vote. They know how powerful your vote is, and they want you to stay home because they're afraid that you'll vote for policies that benefit you and not just the rich and powerful. However you want to phrase it. Choose your own adventure on that messaging. But a lot of times when, particularly members of traditionally disenfranchised and marginalized populations start to understand that there is an organized effort to keep their vote from being counted, to keep them from ever voting at all. That gets people pretty worked up and motivated to say, you know what?

13:09 I really do want my vote to count. How do I do that? Help me make sure that not only do I get my registration in in the way that's going to get it counted. But then, also tell me whatever I need to do to make sure my vote gets counted. So there's some ways to do messaging around that that are actually highly motivating and that's something to consider as well. In the context of particularly the states where there are some policies that have been created relatively recently in many cases, to make it harder for particularly disenfranchised and marginalized populations to register and to vote. There are some great supports available to help you help your clients navigate those issues. There are two excellent national organizations that are there to help you.

13:54 Particularly to do third party voter registration as a partner. And that's Nonprofit VOTE and the Fair Elections Center. And I'll link all their contact information up in the show notes. And here's the thing. Each state has its own specific rules around how third-party voter registration can be done. And it also has its own rules around how you register to vote as an individual. As a third party voter registration partner it is super important to follow all the rules to ensure that the registrations are valid. If you miss one of the steps, the registration can be denied as not complete or not valid. So together these two national organizations have created a fantastic resource to help you with this.

14:38 Which are a set of 50 state specific guides to the third party voter registration rules in every single state. They've done all the legal research. They've made sure that everything is a hundred percent up-to-date. And the awesome thing is that each of these state guides is no more than a page and a half long. It's everything you need to know in a nice, clear, concise spot with links built in. So that if you need to go gather more information or link to a form or whatever you need, it's all right there in one place. All you need is that guide to get you started and to make sure that you're doing everything by the book. And as easily and efficiently as possible with minimal hassle for you and your team.

15:23 Cause I know you're busy. And it's a bigger lift to become a third party registration partner. But the value is incredible. I will link up in the show notes, how you access those state guides. It's super simple. All you do is you click on your state from a pull-down menu and up pops the guide for your state. Almost all states permit non-profits to do voter registration drives. You can find out really fast by clicking on your state guide if your state does not allow that. But it's a very small handful of states that don't allow it. These guides include all the deadlines that you need to know about, including any special deadlines for third party voter registration activities.

16:03 Links to the state elections office and resources for that. All the rules you need to follow. How to register your third party registration effort with election officials, because they have to know about you. You have to let them know that you're doing this. Some of them require that you receive some training. Which is not onerous. It's just really helpful stuff. It's basically like you sit through a webinar or a slide presentation that says these are all the rules you need to know about because they want to make sure that everybody gets the same information. And then they will share with you what forms can be used and make sure that you have all the copies you need of those forms. They will also make sure you have all the links you need if there are online forms available.

16:43 Again, most states allow for online voter registration, but not all of them. So to get forms in quantity, obviously you're going to want to reach out to the local elections office for that. In some cases they'll even give you posters to put up. Cause remember there's a big difference. And particularly for those of you who live in states where there's some voter suppression stuff going on, there are legislatures who are enacting policies that are designed to restrict access to the ballot. You can start to feel like everybody in an official position is kind of against your clients and against them voting. But the fact is that the folks in the local elections office virtually 100% of the time are people who actually are really motivated to make democracy happen.

17:28 And they want everybody to participate in voting. That's their mission in life is to make everybody who is eligible to vote, be a registered voter and get to the polls or vote early or however they do it. And they get to make their voice heard through the ballot box. They really want that. And so 99 times out of a hundred, they are going to be a very willing and helpful partner for you. Like everything else that we talk about all the time on the podcast, relationship building really matters in this context. You want to build a relationship with those local elections officials. Now, granted you don't have a ton of time if you're just now starting on this. As you hear this episode in mid September, right before national voter registration day on September 17th.

18:14 You'll want to get moving. And if you don't have any relationship at all, You may find yourself having to cold call them or email them. Here's a caution about that. This is also their crazy busy season, obviously. So it may be that it's going to be hard for you to get a reply to a cold email or a cold phone call if you don't already have a relationship there. So the smartest thing may be for you to just go on down to the local elections office and meet the people. And just take an hour or two out of your day to just go do that and say, Hey, this is who we are. This is what we do in the community. This is our role. We're very interested in becoming a third party voter registration partner.

18:54 We want to do it right. And you know, help us do it right. And that's pretty much all you've got to say, and they'll be excited to help you do that. And they'll give you whatever you need to make sure that you are doing everything by the book and that every registration that you help make happen is valid and gets counted. And allows your client to actually cast their ballot on election day or in early voting. I mentioned earlier on about the importance of asking folks if they have updated their registration since either there have been any changes of address or change of name. Or if it's just been a long time since they last voted. Or maybe they registered once and never voted.

19:34 All of those are situations in which there is a risk that their previous registration is no longer valid. And again, the restrictions on how long a registration is valid and who gets bumped off the rolls. That's a matter of state policy. And so in the states where the legislatures have been aggressively restricting access. Chances are good that they are also trying to purge the rolls of voters who registered once and never voted, or who haven't voted in a long time. So a good rule to live by is that if they haven't voted in the last year, they should just check to make sure their registration is still valid.

20:20 And that all the information in it is correct: their name, their address, et cetera. In any state that allows online voter registration, you can also check your registration status online. In the links that I'll provide will be access to how you can find all of that. And when you're giving links for clients, There's really only one that you need. And that is a federal site called vote. Dot gov. It's really one-stop shopping for all voter information. For most of your clients, this will be a non-scary thing. But because it's a federal site, for members of immigrant communities this may be a more complex relationship. It's important to let clients know that the vote.gov site is not only completely nonpartisan, is also not connected to any other part of the federal government.

21:11 And they are not collecting any information from anyone who accesses the site. What they've done is they've set up a way for any voter to quickly find their local elections office information so that they can check their voter registration status. Or to register directly. And to get information on how to do early voting. It also has a great section on know your voting rights that covers voting as a new us citizen, voting while unhoused, voting after a felony conviction, and a number of other topics that could be of interest to certain subsets of your client population. The vote.gov site is the one that I recommend you use with clients because it's simple, quick and easy.

21:58 And they don't have to do a lot of sorting and thinking. Everything's right there. And it's really well laid out and easy to access all the information you might want. The one thing I will say though, is that even though it's simple and easy, there's a lot there. So I recommend that before you go to assist clients in using it, you go into the website yourself and play around with all the different parts, so that you have a clear understanding of what the user experience is like. And so you can help clients navigate even more quickly to the information that they want and need. So let's talk for a minute about IDs, because this is a huge issue also.

22:40 And again, In states where there are more restrictive activities going on, this is going to be particularly important. The voter registration form for your state will say what IDs are accepted for registration. Most states are perfectly happy with a driver's license or the last four digits of the social security number. There are a few exceptions to that, that will be immediately evident when you look at the state voter registration form. So again, get yourself a copy and familiarize yourself with it before you start talking to clients about any of this. If the client, and this is super important. If the client does not have one of the accepted forms of ID, but they are otherwise qualified to register.

23:22 The only issue is they don't have the ID. They can go ahead and complete the form. But they must check the box on the form indicating no ID. If they don't have the required ID and they leave that box blank, the form will be rejected as incomplete. So there's a way to say, hey, I don't have the ID you asked for, but I'm still registering. And then there will be some additional steps that they need to do. But they must check that box that says no ID. Otherwise anything left blank is deemed an incomplete form. This is why it's so important to make sure that clients have their questions answered. Because what people tend to do with forms where we don't know what the answer is, we just leave it blank and hope that that'll be okay.

24:08 It's not okay to leave stuff blank on a voter registration form. So it's important that clients understand that. If you're setting it up so they're going to go fill out the form themselves. There needs to be a way for them to get their questions answered. That either comes through you or another nonprofit in your community that is trusted, that is doing third-party registration and is involved at a higher level. Or ultimately the local elections office. But again, they can be hard to get ahold of. So you want to have some backstops for making sure clients have their questions clarified. Most states also require that a voter show ID at the polls. So you're going to want to get that information from your local election office also.

24:50 And share it with absolutely everyone you're registering. So that they know what to expect when they go to the polls. By definition, if they're registering for the first time they haven't voted, or at least they have never voted in your state. And so they may not even know that they're going to have to show up with ID at the polls. Even if they vote by mail, there's likely to be some sort of an ID requirement. When you're registering them is a great time to begin prepping them for the actual act of voting. And I'm going to devote another episode in a few weeks to how you can help with get out the vote efforts in addition. But a heads up is really good. You're already having the conversation about ID for registration. Go ahead and say, and by the way, when you go to vote, this is what you're going to need to have with you.

25:34 I've grouped your options for helping clients to register, to vote into three main categories. From the most basic level of support and assistance to the intermediate level. And then the advanced level where you go all in and you become a third party voter registration partner, which is an awesome thing to do. And if it makes sense in terms of how your service model is structured. That you see clients in person on a regular basis, it is ideal. Because it's highly effective in engaging clients in the idea of registering. And it results in the highest level of actual registrations being completed and being completed correctly. But anything you can do at whatever level you're comfortable, is important and so worth doing.

26:19 Because in the end, almost everything we do every day is about lifting up and empowering our clients to improve their lives and to thrive. And one of the most powerful ways they can do that is make sure that their voice is heard at the ballot box. And you have a super important part to play at whichever level you decide to dive in. Thanks for listening. And I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.