Youth advocacy groups kept voters safe and informed on Election Day

Lauren Hernandez

November 13, 2020 |

Cronkite News - Arizona PBS |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Arizona

Civic participation by youth advocacy groups registered tens of thousands of young voters and educated many more on election-related issues, including local and state ballot initiatives. Events held on zoom provided registration information and helped students connect with their peers, where they made pledges and plans to vote. Arizona PIRG Students New Voters Project educated 10,000 students this way, while CALPIRG Students' 500 volunteers registered 10,000 students, provided voter information to over 150,000 students, and made over 90,000 peer to peer Get Out the Vote contacts.

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Twitter Keeps Some Measures It Says Slowed Election Misinformation

Shannon Bond

November 12, 2020 |

KALW |

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Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States

To reduce the spread of disinformation, Twitter labeled about 300,000 tweets with warnings that they contained "disputed and potentially misleading" information about the election between October 27 and November 11. The tweets were from removed from recommendation algorithms, extra steps were needed to reply to or share a tweet, and almost 500 had an additional warning that users had to click past to read. Twitter says it saw a 29% reduction in quoting the tweets that had the warnings and, while several election related changes will end, users will still have to quote tweets rather than simply retweeting.

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In Brazil, Women Candidates Find Strength in Numbers

Isabela Dias

November 12, 2020 |

Yes! Magazine |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Brazil

Collective, or shared, candidacies, where groups of candidates to run for a single elected position in Brazil, has helped elevate women and other marginalized groups with progressive platforms to rise to power. From 2016 and 2018, 22 of the 98 groups that ran were elected. In 2020, 41% of the joint candidacies were led by women. A national bill to formalize collective candidacies has stalled since 2017, so one member of the group is formally elected, and is the one to cast votes and give formal speeches, while the others are hired as advisers but still are empowered to write and propose bills.

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City Limits made a voter guide for judicial elections — and readers loved it

Ben DeJarnette

November 12, 2020 |

Nieman Lab |

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Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

City Limits, a nonprofit newsroom in New York City that specializes in longer-form journalism, created a judicial election voter guide that received nearly 81,000 page views, more than six times that of the site’s other top-performing posts. The company also partnered with Gotham Gazette and WNYC to create an interactive voter guide that gives users a breakdown of election races in their area. The collaboration filled an information void for readers, expanded City Limits’ reach, and allowed it to benefit from the resources of the larger organizations, such as a tech team to build a custom embeddable widget.

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Grassroots Organizers Flipped Georgia Blue. Here's How They Did It.

Anoa Changa

November 12, 2020 |

Truthout |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Georgia

Civic engagement organizers have decreased the gap between Republicans and Democrats in Georgia over the past several elections by increasing voter participation and leveraging the shifting state demographics. Groups conduct outreach to previously disenfranchised voters, recruit new voters, and seek to empower civic participation among Black and Asian American communities in particular, which helped Joseph Biden win the state in 2020. Organizers prioritize in-language organizing from trusted sources and connecting with communities on issues that are relevant and important to them.

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How the Navajo Nation helped push Democrats ahead in Arizona

Rachel Ramirez

November 10, 2020 |

Vox |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Navajo Nation, United States, Arizona

Voter outreach campaigns effectively boosted turnout among Native voters. The Rural Utah Project left informational flyers inside plastic bags at people’s doors (a Covid-19 tactical adjustment), held drive-through voter registration events, ran hotlines to assist indigenous voters, and partnered with Google to create street addresses using latitude and longitude-based plus codes. Senate candidate Mark Kelly ran ads in the Diné language to reach Navajo Nation voters. Precinct data shows 60-90% of Arizona Navajo Nation voters chose Democrats, a rate that pushed Biden and Kelly to a slim victory.

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2020 was the first-ever presidential election where people cast votes via smartphone

Talib Visram

November 09, 2020 |

FastCompany |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Utah

2020 was the first presidential election where a limited group voted using a smartphone app created by Voatz, expanding access to people with disabilities, those in Covid-19 quarantine, and people out of state due to an emergency. Advocates say it is cost-effective and secure, though many disagree. Voters are biometrically identified and matched to legal records. Ballots are cast on mobile devices and stored on the blockchain until Election Day, when they are printed and counted with other mail-in ballots. Use is expected to increase in the future and pilots are planned in Brazil and other locations.

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Local high school students volunteer for national nonprofit to educate voters

Kathryn Goodwin

November 08, 2020 |

The Daily Tar Heel |

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Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States

MyVote organized over 300 student volunteers, mostly in high school, to research candidates and their policies so that voters could have a “one-stop-shop” platform to learn about policy platforms of candidates running in national and local elections. The group covered the policies of all candidates from North Carolina, Florida, and Pennsylvania and voters used the guides at the polls to educate themselves on the candidates and issues. Since many of the volunteers are not old enough to vote, carrying out the voter education research helped them get involved in ways that are useful to the democratic process.

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On Election Day, Facebook and Twitter Did Better by Making Their Products Worse

Kevin Roose

November 05, 2020 |

The New York Times |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States

Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites defended against election-related disinformation campaigns by quickly identifying and removing fake accounts and putting labels and warnings on posts that made false claims of voter fraud and premature claims of victory. Instead of frictionless usability, they slowed or shut down core parts of their products such as limiting political ads, tweaking recommendation algorithms, and/or preventing sharing and comments on questionable posts. Threats will continue in the weeks ahead, but the companies have prevented widespread disinformation campaigns so far.

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As last of Georgia ballots are counted, a look at how voter turnout hit record high

Carlisa N. Johnson

November 05, 2020 |

The GroundTruth Project |

Multi-Media |

Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, Georgia

A massive, though unofficial, multi-issue coalition made up of voter advocacy, legal, and other social justice groups, increased participation in Georgia’s elections. The groups conducted voter outreach year-round and ran ads, social media campaigns, and sent direct mail to educate voters about their rights and promote civic engagement. They also focused on systemic changes, such as pressuring the state to replace old voting machines and challenging “exact match” signature laws. Their work decreased voter suppression and the disenfranchisement of communities traditionally overlooked in the political process.

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