10ish Minutes for a Healthier Democracy

It’s springtime, when a young person’s fancy turns to thoughts of love and some of America’s fancy turns to thoughts of primaries.

Some is the hardest working word in that sentence.

Nearly 80% of folks who are eligible to vote in primaries don’t. Which gives the 20% who do vote fabulously outsized power. One indicator of a healthy democracy is voter turnout, and this indicator for primary elections is decidedly under the weather.

There are some structural factors at play that you and I might not be able to immediately remedy. But there are still some good steps we can take to help pump up turnout.

Step 1
Find out when your town’s primary election is.

Step 2
If it hasn’t happened yet, find out who your city/town clerk is. (It’s usually on the town website.) This is the person who administers elections.

Step 3
Give the clerk a friendly buzz and ask them how they’re publicizing the upcoming primary election.

Step 4
With a warm spirit, offer some suggestions about ways to raise awareness: social media posts on city/town channels; signs in public buildings like libraries, public high schools, city-run community centers and housing, the transfer station, and beyond.

Some towns have mobile electronic signboards that could display the election date/time; you could even suggest a high-visibility location where you know it would get a lot of eyeballs.

Step 5
Write up an email to send to folks you know in town with two-three key pieces of information:

• Dates: When/where early voting is and when/where Election Day voting is.
• Ballot: What’s on it!
• Optional! Invite folks to celebrate voting by texting you a photo with their "I VOTED" sticker. This isn’t an accountability measure; it’s just a chance to whoop and cheer on their civic participation.

I think of these emails as a friendly invitation to vote; I like to keep them short with lots of white space (easier for the eye to digest) and lots of enthusiasm.

I’m not a big fan of shaming or guilting folks into voting, or striking the fear of all that is holy in them. Most folks already have enough shame, guilt, and fear in their lives.

I am a big fan of getting folks psyched about voting. A few times a year, we get such a tangible way to make good on that core promise of American democracy: that we get a say in how we’re governed. As the founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence, that's government deriving its "just powers from the consent of the governed.”

So if one indicator of a healthy democracy is voter turnout, it’s pretty wonderful that with just a few minutes, we can play a hand in getting our democracy on the mend.