The Easiest Ways to Help Your Clients Register to Vote

You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast. In today's episode, I'm sharing the easiest ways to help your clients register to vote. 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. 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 the Nonprofit Power Podcast. I'm your host, Kath Patrick. I'm so glad you're here for today's episode because whether you realize it or not the elections are just around the corner. This is a moment of golden opportunity to help make sure that every one of our clients who's eligible to vote is registered and has the opportunity to have their vote counted. There's a lot of moving parts to that, and a lot of opportunities for us as nonprofit leaders to help our clients make sure their vote is counted. But today I'm focusing on one very critical technical detail, which is registration. The good news is there is a ton of voter enthusiasm this year. We're seeing it all over everywhere. There's been a whole series of special elections leading up to now. A lot of states have already held their primaries to decide who's gonna be running in the general election in November. And the turnout for those primaries has been off the charts. What that's telling us is what we already know, which is that people are unhappy with how things are, and they want to see some change. They pretty much wanna throw out anybody who's associated with 47, which is fine by me. But what I think is important to call out as a contextual thing in the environment right now is that, you know, sometimes when people are really unhappy and frustrated and PO'd with the politicians and all the stuff going on. Their response is to not vote. To stay home, say, "The heck with all of you. You all suck. I'm over all of you. Just go away." People know better, and we're seeing that in the turnout numbers in the primaries, and in the special elections, as I said. That's really exciting news because that means that people do want to participate. They do wanna make their voice heard. And they are really clear that the ballot box is one of the most critical places they can do that. Which is awesome because it means we don't have to spend a ton of time helping people understand why it's important to vote. They already know that. And what they want is to be able to vote and not have it be a hassle, to have it be safe, and to make sure that when they do vote, their vote is counted. So we're gonna focus on all those pieces between now and the November election. But the bottom line is you can't vote if you're not registered. And registration deadlines are coming up. We still have plenty of time, but quite a number of states have registration rules that say you have to have your registration submitted and approved at least a month before the election. Now, a lot of states allow you to get closer than that, but we don't wanna mess with that. We wanna make sure that everybody who wants to vote has their registration fully in order well ahead of the election. So that if there are any issues, any problems, they can be corrected before the election. Cause the last thing we want is for anybody to show up on election day or to go to vote early and find out that there's something funky with their registration and either they're not gonna be allowed to vote, or they're gonna be allowed to vote, but it's a provisional ballot. In this year in particular, with so much effort on the right to suppress the vote and interfere as much as possible, we don't want any of our clients having to deal with that. We wanna make sure their registration is squeaky clean and perfect well ahead of election day so that they have all the voting options available to them that are available in your state. And that varies, of course. Some states allow all different kinds of ways to vote. You can vote early by mail, ballot drop boxes, early in-person voting, all kinds of things. Other states are like, "Nope, you can't do any of that. You just gotta show up on election day." So it becomes really important for us to know all those rules too. We're gonna talk about that in future episodes, but I'm gonna give you a leg up on that today. My focus today is registration itself. Both new registrations and rechecking and fixing existing registrations. So here's the thing, lots of folks are not 100% sure whether they're registered. A lot of folks think they're registered, and they're not. A lot of folks maybe were registered in another state, and they moved since. Or maybe they registered in the state they're in, but they've changed addresses twice since the last time they voted. All of those are gonna require repair. We wanna be able to support clients in ways that are easy for us and for them to making sure that they are registered and that their registration is fully in order. The super awesome news is that there are a couple of really great online resources that are gonna streamline that beautifully for you. And I'll talk those through in just a minute. But first, let's just talk about what kind of registration is available. You may not realize it, but most states, in fact 42 out of the 50, have online registration. Now, they all have a deadline, and some of them are as early as a month or more prior to the election, so we have to be aware of that. But that's a really good number. Now there's a caveat to that, which is that typically online registration is only available to those who have a driver's license issued by that state or a state-issued ID. In most states, if you don't have one of those two forms of ID, you can't register online. You have to do it in person, using a paper registration form. Which is perfectly doable, and we can help with that too. But ideally, if online registration is an option in your state and for that particular client, that is absolutely the way to go. Easier and quicker for everybody, and you can check on the spot to make sure everything's in order. There are seven states that do not allow online registration. So if you live in Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Texas, or Wyoming, your state does not support online registration. It all has to be done via a paper form, either by mail or in person. Now, I know you can add. And we got 42 states that do allow online registration, and we got seven that don't. Hmm, that's only 49. What about the other one? Well, the other one is North Dakota, and they are the outlier. They simply don't have voter registration at all. You just show up to vote on Election Day with your ID in your hand. And if your ID's in order, you get to vote, and if it's not, you don't. Not a totally awesome setup, but that's how it works in North Dakota. I'm sure if that's where you live, you're already very familiar with that. But I wanted to make sure I called out everybody, so everybody knows where they stand in the registration universe. I know. You are busy. You do not have a lot of extra bandwidth. You do not have time to be doing a whole lot of extra work. So my goal is to make this entire process of assisting clients with voter registration as simple and easy for both of you as possible. Let's do online registration first, and then we'll talk about the rest. For online voter registration, there is one really outstanding online resource that will take you directly to the online voting registration link in your state, all from one place. And that's at rockthevote.org/online. I will put that link in the show notes for you so you can go directly to it. What's very cool is that when you go to that page, it's a list right there, alphabetically ordered, all the states that have online registration. It's a direct link right there to that state's online registration system. It will take you right to where you need to go to help a client do their registration. Now, there's obviously all kinds of stuff you could do with that link. You could make a QR code for it and share that with people in whatever ways you wish, that would allow them to easily access that right away. Obviously, how much you're able to assist folks in general with their registration is gonna depend on how much in-person time you spend with them. If your service model is such that you're interacting directly face-to-face with your clients, then that's a golden opportunity to just ask them a quick question, "Are you registered to vote?" If they say yes, great. Would you like to just double-check and make sure that it's all in order? If they say no, Would you like to do that now? We could just take two minutes right now and get you registered. Easy peasy." If you're helping people with online registration, it is super simple, and you don't need anything special to do that. If you live in one of those states that doesn't have online registration, or you wanna help folks who don't have the required ID for online registration. You're gonna need to get trained in your state on the protocols for running a voter registration drive. Even though I know you're probably not going out there with clipboards and canvassing and signing people up on the street. Voter registration drive actually basically is just a term of art for direct assistance involving paper registration. So if you're gonna do that, if you're gonna have paper registration forms in your offices, and you're gonna help people fill them out, then you need to go to a little training in your state about how to do that so that you are familiar with all the rules that govern it. It's usually not a big deal. There's one or two states where they kind of make it a big deal, but in most places it's really pretty simple. For example, I live in Virginia, and the training, in quotes, for that is they do run some in-person trainings and they run some virtual ones about once a month, and you can go to those if you want. But they also have a prerecorded training that you can go through at your leisure, and then basically when you're done, you affirm that you did it, and then you're done. So it's not overly burdensome at all. But it is a good idea because there are unique rules in each state around what voter registration helpers are allowed to do and what they're not. And it's really important that you know that handful of rules. A lot of it's super common sense. It's things like, you can't fill the form out for the person. They have to do that themselves. But you can sit there with them and explain what they need to do for each of the blanks if they have any questions. You just can't take the form out of their hand and write it out and say, "Here, just sign." That seems pretty reasonable, right? So most of these kinds of little rules are pretty common sense. They're not overly burdensome, and they're quick and easy to absorb. And most of them have something you can download, a quick list, a checklist, what have you. To go find out how to do that, you're gonna go to a different website. For the training and any other information and resources and support on how to do voter registration with clients where you've got to do a paper form, there is an outstanding resource for that as well. And that is nonprofitvote.org/voting-in-your-state. I will put that link in the show notes. You don't have to write that down. But nonprofitvote.org is great. It's an excellent resource, and basically you go to that link and they show you a big map of the United States. Just click on your state in that map, and it'll take you to this huge collection of information that you can selectively browse through. Let me just tell you what you're gonna find there, 'cause it's pretty amazing. It's pretty much everything you could possibly need. First of all, it will give you all the rules and instructions about what you need to do to be a voter registration helper. And they'll call it running a voter registration drive, but that's what they mean. And then on top of that, they're gonna give you all the information for your specific state how to register to vote online and in person. How to request an absentee ballot, cause some folks prefer to vote that way. Polling locations, all the voter ID requirements, both for registration and for when you show up to actually vote. And this is something I flagged this in an earlier episode, and I'll link that up in the show notes as well, 'cause it's worth going back if you didn't listen to that earlier. In episode 147 back in May, I talked about, why your clients are most likely to be harmed by attacks on voting rights and what to do about it. We know that in this particular year, there's a lot of very not good activities going on on the right to try to suppress the vote, intimidate voters. Try to, in any way they can, keep, frankly, the people we serve from voting. 'Cause that's who they're scared of. They're scared of marginalized and low-income people. They're not scared of the big rich dudes. They already know who the big rich dudes are gonna vote for, but they're scared about the bulk of the population that's really, really unhappy with them. And there's nobody who's more unhappy than the people we serve. So these guys really don't want them to vote, and they're doing a lot of stuff to try to interfere. The best defense against that is solid information and being able to walk your clients through exactly what the rules are and exactly what they need to do to make sure that they do get to vote and that their vote gets counted. We absolutely can do that, and I think it's such an important and empowering service that we can provide to help them take the power of voting, and have their voice in how this country's gonna be run. Let's get back to the nonprofitvote.org resource we were talking about. In addition to all the things I already mentioned, it's gonna give you the state registration form, the paper one. And there's two different ways to get that. A lot of states will allow you to download it. Other states will ask you to request paper copies, which is usually very easy to get. They will also give information on all the options and rules for early voting, vote by mail, all the other forms of voting that aren't in person on Election Day. And so they'll tell you what your options are, what the rules around that are, what the deadlines around that are, et cetera, and all of that will be state-specific. It's everything you need, basically, to help your clients become super well-informed around the voting process, as well as making sure that they have their registration locked in and 100% perfect, well before Election Day. That is an enormous service that we can provide if we don't do anything else. And that's all I'm focusing on today is just that, because now is the time. This episode will drop on August 7th. We definitely have all the rest of August, but a lot of people are gone and not paying attention. But certainly by the time September rolls around, people are gonna be starting to pay close attention, and the clock is ticking by then. So what I would say is that right now in August is a really great time to go inspect and explore those two links that I'm sharing with you. Get familiar, have a conversation with your team about how you want to approach this, how you wanna help your clients with their registration. And decide what all you're gonna do. Go ahead and do whatever training you would need if you're gonna help people with paper forms. Get yourselves ready so that when September 1 rolls around, you're set to go. And you can start engaging clients right away in September to help them make sure their registration is locked in. Now, the one caveat is, if you're in one of a handful of states that pushes their deadline for registration further out than a month from Election Day. Most everybody will have at least until basically October 1, let's be safe, to get their registration done. But some states are gonna have a little more of a cushion there, so it might be mid-September. If you discover that's you, I would get started right now on reaching out to clients. Because, you know, nothing ever happens right away. All this is a process and a conversation. You're not gonna reach everybody at once, so on and so forth. So start now. Even though it feels way too early, I promise you it's not. And then as soon as you have yourself coordinated and figured out, and you've got a couple QR codes and whatever else you're gonna do. And you've done your training if you're gonna go that route and help people with paper registrations as well, which is, I believe, very important because a lot of folks don't have the ID that's gonna allow them to register online. And for those folks, they're gonna be probably the ones who most need support and help getting their registration together. Once you've taken care of those things, you're ready to go. You've got everything you need all in one place. Two links. They're up in the show notes. Get your team together and get running, 'cause it's go time. All right? Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.