thank you for voting
How might we recognize, celebrate, and thank every voter who comes out to vote in the 2022 election?
I went to vote this weekend in the Maryland Primary. I took my ten month old son Gary with me to the early vote center at the League for People with Disabilities on Cold Spring Lane in Northeast Baltimore.
It was a hot day and various local candidates and volunteers were arrayed throughout the parking lot under tents to give out literature. A local marching band was practicing across the street from the early voting location. We bounced rhythmically under the waning afternoon sun as the bass drums echoed throughout the space.
I saw a few folks I knew in the parking lot and said hello before going into the early vote center. Once inside, I checked in with the poll workers, changed Gary’s diaper in the bathroom, and then voted my ballot. It was harder than I expected to fill in the bubbles completely with one hand while holding the baby in the other. I put my ballot in the optical scanner, picked up my “I Voted” sticker and Gary’s “future voter” sticker from a poll worker, took some selfies, and went home.
Another election in the books.
I felt comfortable in the polling place and appreciated as a voter last weekend! Some of things that made voting feel so good to me were available to all voters - the stickers and selfie station, the energetic but cordial electioneering in the parking lot, the friendly neighbors serving as poll workers. Others things that made it so fun for me - having a cute baby smiling at everyone, knowing some of the campaign volunteers personally - are idiosyncratic to my life at this moment.
In order to build a democracy that works for all Americans, we’re going to need to find more ways to give every voter this feeling. Every voter needs to feel seen and appreciated at the polls. Voters need to feel seen and appreciated even if it’s their first time voting or they just moved to a new city where they don’t know anyone. Voters need to feel seen and appreciated if they just had their rights restored or are differently abled and needs to use a ballot marking device or receive other assistance voting.
Everyone needs to feel seen and appreciated at the polls. How do we get there?
A new study from the Civic Responsibility Project and other academic partners - including the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement at University of Maryland - explored the impact of using stadiums as early voting locations in 2020.
The findings of what happened in 2020 are encouraging. The use of stadiums as polling places was perceived as non-partisan. Americans of all political persuasions both used stadiums to vote and express support for using stadiums for this purpose. Stadiums are also generally just good polling places and vote centers. They are centrally located with lots of parking. There is usually public transit access and capacity to handle lots of people. The teams benefitted too. Team staff often served as poll workers and greeters. Some teams even used branded swag to thank voters. The Carolina Panthers gave out Panthers branded face masks. Here in Baltimore voters could take home black and orange I Love Baltimore So I Vote posters from Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
I’m particularly excited about the possibilities for what the teams can do to thank and recognize voters. Stadiums are places we go to feel connected to other people in our community. Stadiums are places we go to feel swept away as we chant silly hometown team cheers together and experience the ups and downs of a game. The teams that own and occupy them are experts in cultivating community pride and culture. There are so many opportunities in that context to give voters an even more delightful and engaging voting experience that makes them feel welcome and appreciated.
I can’t wait to see what’s next for the stadium voting experience!
What if you don’t own a sports stadium? Thanking voters and making everyone feel appreciated isn’t just about big gestures and iconic polling sites. Voters can feel seen and appreciated in a different way when they are at neighborhood polling places. These are spaces that feel smaller and more intimate than a huge stadium. That intimacy can have advantages. A local musician can come out and play for voters outside a local library. An elementary school teacher can bring their class outside to draw welcoming messages for voters in sidewalk chalk on the street outside their school if it serves as a polling place the next day. An individual volunteer with a big poster that says “thank you for voting” can go out and just stand outside the polling place with a big smile. These local acts of appreciation for voters can matter just as much as something high profile.
The academic literature on parties at the polls should be tantalizing for anyone who wants to live in a nation with full voter participation in their lifetime. Studies conducted in 2006, 2016, and 2017 all replicated strong community turnout effects with very low cost programs. A large scale 2020 evaluation by Melissa Michelson of the Party at the Mailbox program led by Black Girls Vote in five cities to support at home voting festivals during the pandemic also showed strong results, especially for low propensity voters living in participating household.
But these results have not always replicated. A large 2018 evaluation of more than 50 parties yielded disappointing null results on Election Day, even as it found that parties at the polls at early voting sites had a significant effect. The Party at the Mailbox study from 2020 showed much stronger effects in some contexts than in others. There are no easy answers or silver bullets in this work. Good parties at the polls are one of the most effective strategies we have for including new voters. But it’s hard to tell the good parties apart from the others ahead of time. We don’t know exactly which types of leaders are best situated to host highly impactful parties. We haven’t designed the precise ladder of engagement and package of support that would unlock that potential. The literature and lived experience with these programs provides some important clues - I’ll be sure to write about them in an upcoming post.
What should we do to make it more likely that everyone feels included in our democracy and shows up to vote in every election? What actions or decisions that matter are entirely within the control of individuals and civil society organizations that don’t require anyone else’s permission or systemic change? What can both have an immediate impact in our communities and help us build power for a movement to change democratic systems to fully include every person?
Figuring out how to say “thank you for voting” to your neighbors in the most joyful and authentic and humble and beautiful way we can is a really good place to start. It works for global sports brands looking to give back. It works for local musicians looking for a way to share their art. It works for individuals looking to connect with people and community around them. Prompting local leaders to say “thank you for voting” to every voter encourages them to be truly inclusive in new and dynamic ways.
It can be hard to express our gratitude sometimes, especially to strangers. But it’s essential and necessary. The work of designing the tools and strategies to bring the love and gratitude we have in our hearts out into the open is urgent as another election approaches in November. Please reach out if you have any ideas or brainstorms about how say “thank you for voting!”