A Right to Vote Taskforce
In the spirit of an explicit, individual right to vote in the U.S. Constitution, municipalities have an opportunity to ensure free, fair, and accessible elections for all by creating a voting taskforce. A “Right to Vote Taskforce” evaluates how democracy is administered at the local level and makes recommendations on practical changes in laws, regulations, or practices that would improve voter participation and better uphold voting rights in a locality. Promote Our Vote supports these groups through research, legal analysis, and communications assistance.
Best Practices
Here are a list of some best practices for municipalities or organizations working to create an effective Right to Vote Taskforce:
Recommended Tasks
The Right to Vote Taskforce structure allows taskforce members to identify and address electoral issues that are specific to their own localities and their unique communities. This means there is great potential for new and innovative voting policies and practices to promote voting rights in communities, with an endless number of possible taskforce objectives and outcomes. As a starting point for their work, we recommend Right to Vote Taskforces consider the following tasks:
Best Practices
Here are a list of some best practices for municipalities or organizations working to create an effective Right to Vote Taskforce:
- Build a list of specific objectives for a taskforce to achieve. The most effective taskforces will have a specific product in mind at the beginning of their work, such as a report or official list of recommendations to the local governing body.
- Ensure that the taskforce is diverse and inclusive of every perspective. Taskforces best serve a community when a diverse and representative group of voices have a seat at the table. Segments of a community that are most impacted by the goals of the taskforce must be represented.
- Include local decision makers and election officials on the taskforce. This ensures that the taskforce’s recommendations are informed by the capacity of the locality to carry them out, and allows for consensus-building between the taskforce and election officials.
- Create a comprehensive and transparent application process to determine the composition of the taskforce. Applicants should fully understand the time-commitment required to participate in the taskforce, and be able to make a full commitment.
- Construct a timeline for completing goals with specific tasks and deadlines to measure progress toward completing and presenting their findings and final product (i.e. report, recommendations, etc.)
- Make meetings open and accessible to the general public for transparency’s sake and to make the taskforce an endeavor that builds and serves the community.
Recommended Tasks
The Right to Vote Taskforce structure allows taskforce members to identify and address electoral issues that are specific to their own localities and their unique communities. This means there is great potential for new and innovative voting policies and practices to promote voting rights in communities, with an endless number of possible taskforce objectives and outcomes. As a starting point for their work, we recommend Right to Vote Taskforces consider the following tasks:
- Review all local laws and practices that affect the right to vote and the power of voters to elect candidates of choice and hold representatives accountable
- Propose changes to uphold voting rights and increase voter participation
- Recommend languages appropriate to our community into which all written and recorded voter resources, including ballots, should be translated
- Promote greater awareness of our political process through civic education and high school programs on voter registration, and support voter education programs to increase citizenship knowledge and participation in the democratic process
- Develop plans and take action to promote early voting in municipal elections and make recommendations to the City Council on any policies or actions needed to strengthen existing early voting and absentee voting efforts
- Institute Election Day voter registration for municipal elections
- Create a voter registration program designed to register every eligible high school student who is at least 16 years old
- Review the potential of allowing those who are at least 16 years old to vote in city elections
- Identify other means by which suffrage might be expanded in our community, such as the increasingly common practice of allowing legal immigrants and citizens with felony convictions to vote in local elections
- Review state laws and recommend legislation for state representatives to introduce that would strengthen the right to vote throughout the state
- Partner with local election officials to jointly evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of city election practices and regulations after each election