Our Homes, Our Votes Updates – July 15, 2024

Now Available: National Voter Registration Day Community Partner Grants!

National Voter Registration Day (NVRD) is a national, nonpartisan civic holiday dedicated to promoting voter registration opportunities and celebrating our democracy. Each year, NVRD provides mini-grants (between $500 and $1,500) for community partners to carry out nonpartisan voter registration activities on NVRD, which falls on September 17, 2024.

To qualify, you must become an NVRD community partner. Event grants are available to all nonprofits, higher education institutions, and grassroots organizations that are NVRD community partners. Applications are due on Thursday, July 18. Further information about the grant opportunity can be found here and the application can be found here. Click here to become an NVRD community partner.

New Research Illustrates Impact of Health Care-Based Voter Registration on Voter Participation

In a new paper published in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), “Increasing Voter Participation Through Health Care-Based Voter Registration,” Katherine McCabe, Yinlu Zhu, Simar S. Bajaj et al. demonstrate that healthcare-based voter registration mobilization can reach people from groups with low turnout rates. Voter engagement in healthcare settings is a way to reach voters of color and young voters who are less likely to be contacted by political campaigns. Individuals contacted by VOT-ER, a nonpartisan organization that promotes civic engagement in healthcare settings and a member of the Our Homes, Our Votes affiliates network, saw an increase in turnout rate 7.7 percentage points higher than the voter turnout rate increase among the general population in the 2020 elections.

Read the complete paper here.

The Ballot Verification Process, Simplified by the Voting Rights Lab

Voting Rights Lab (VRL) is a nonpartisan policy and research organization that fights for free and fair elections. VRL tracks election-related legislation and current laws in all 50 states and DC with the State Voting Rights Tracker.

A new resource from VRL, “Ballot Verification: The First Step Toward Securing Free and Fair Elections,” walks through the ballot verification process for mail-in and in-person ballots, including provisional ballots. By simplifying the ballot verification process, the resource aims to enable voters to go into the next election season confident that their ballot has been cast and will be counted, no matter how they decide to vote.

Read the resource here.

Vote Early Day Releases Multimedia Toolkit

Vote Early Day (October 29, 2024) is a nonpartisan civic holiday that encourages eligible voters to vote early, rather than voting on Election Day. Voting early allows voters more opportunity to navigate any complications to casting their ballot. Early voting laws differ from state to state, so consult TurboVote’s Early Voting information or your state’s election office to understand your early voting opportunities. These options may include going to an early voting site, mailing in a ballot, or dropping off a ballot at a dropbox. The Vote Early Day toolkit includes email templates, social media posts and graphics, phone banking and texting scripts, webinars, office hours, and even a Spotify playlist to encourage and celebrate early voting.

You can access the toolkit here and sign up to become a Civic Holidays partner here.

Order Bilingual Our Homes, Our Votes Swag on Shopify!

Celebrate voter participation with new Our Homes, Our Votes swag! Visit Shopify for an expanded collection of Our Homes, Our Votes apparel, accessories, stickers, buttons, and more. The collection includes brand-new TurboVote magnets, which direct voters to NLIHC’s online voter registration and information platform. All swag is available in both English and Spanish. Check it out at: https://nlihc.myshopify.com/

For bulk orders, please reach out to [email protected].