NLIHC’s Our Homes, Our Votes campaign is a nonpartisan initiative to boost voter turnout among low-income renters and elevate housing as an election issue. As the 2024 election season approaches, Our Homes, Our Votes will provide regular updates about the intersection of housing justice and nonpartisan civic engagement in Memo to Members & Partners. To learn more about Our Homes, Our Votes, visit www.ourhomes-ourvotes.org.
Register for the Our Homes, Our Votes: 2024 Webinar Series
A new Our Homes, Our Votes: 2024 biweekly webinar series will provide resources, guidance, and inspiration for organizations and individuals seeking to launch or strengthen their own nonpartisan voter and candidate engagement initiatives. The series will launch on Monday, April 15, at 2:30 pm ET, with a special kickoff webinar featuring Diane Yentel, president and CEO of NLIHC; Dr. Bambie Hayes-Brown, president and CEO of Georgia Advancing Communities Together; Courtney Cooperman, project manager of Our Homes, Our Votes; and a special message from Representative Nikema Williams (D-GA), lead sponsor of the “Unhoused VOTE Act.” Register for the webinar series here!
The Our Homes, Our Votes: 2024 kickoff webinar will provide an overview of the connection between housing justice and political participation, the effectiveness of nonpartisan voter engagement campaigns, and why housing and homelessness advocates should get involved in the 2024 election cycle. To preview the full series agenda, visit www.ourhomes-ourvotes.org/webinars-2024.
Become a National Voter Registration Day Community Partner!
National Voter Registration Day (NVRD) is a nonpartisan civic holiday that activates nonprofits, campuses, businesses, and other organizations to register voters in their communities. The holiday reaches tens of thousands of voters each year and has registered more than 5 million voters to date since its launch in 2012. NVRD will take place on Tuesday, September 17, 2024. Sign up to become an NVRD Community Partner to receive complimentary posters and stickers, digital assets, and updates about NVRD events and grant opportunities.
Community partners agree to stay nonpartisan in all promotion of the event and voter registration activities. Click here for the community partner signup form.
New Research from Nonprofit VOTE Demonstrates Impact of Nonpartisan Voter Engagement
Nonprofit VOTE, a nonpartisan organization that helps nonprofits integrate voter engagement into their ongoing activities and services, released the 2024 edition of its “Nonprofit Power: Building an Inclusive Democracy” report. The report found that voters who were engaged by nonprofits in the 2022 midterm elections saw a 10 percentage-point boost in voter turnout relative to comparable voters that were not engaged by nonprofits. For historically disenfranchised and underrepresented communities, that voter turnout boost is even greater.
Low-income voters earning between $20,000 and $30,000 saw the largest turnout boost of all demographic groups, with voter turnout rates 15 percentage points higher than rates for comparable low-income voters that were not engaged by nonprofits. People of color engaged by nonprofits saw a 12 percentage-point increase in voter turnout, and young people engaged by nonprofits saw a 14 percentage-point increase in voter turnout.
Nonprofits are well-positioned to reach voters that are most likely to be overlooked by political campaigns and underrepresented in the democratic process. Clients engaged by participating nonprofits were 2.5 times more likely to earn less than $20,000 compared to overall registered voters, 2.4 times more likely to be people of color, and 1.3 times more likely to be young voters between the ages of 18 and 24 years old.
The “Nonprofit Power” report analyzed the voter file records of approximately 7,000 voters reached through Nonprofit VOTE’s multistate field program in the 2022 midterm elections. Three NLIHC state partners (COHHIO, Virginia Housing Alliance, and Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania) served as regional anchor organizations in the multistate field program, which mobilized 120 nonprofits to collectively reach more than 60,000 voters across nine states.
Learn more about the Nonprofit Power report at: www.nonprofitvote.org/nonprofit-power-report/
Brennan Center for Justice Highlights Growing Racial Disparities in Voter Turnout
New research from the Brennan Center for Justice shows that the difference in voter turnout between white and non-white voters, known as the racial voter turnout gap, has grown consistently since 2012. In every region of the country, the racial turnout gap in the 2022 midterm election was larger than any midterm since at least 2006. White Americans voted at higher rates than non-white Americans in every state but Hawaii in the 2022 midterm elections. Racial turnout gaps exist within every income quartile and across all levels of education. The racial turnout gap is growing most quickly in regions affected by the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision Shelby County v. Holder, which rolled back key provisions of the “Voting Rights Act of 1965” and paved the way for voter suppression policies that disproportionately impact voters of color.
Shelby County dismantled Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which required states and localities with a history of racially discriminatory voting practices to receive federal preclearance before making any changes to their policies. In the decade since the Supreme Court suspended preclearance, states formerly covered under Section 5 have enacted dozens of laws that make voting more difficult. The Brennan Center’s report finds that the overall white-nonwhite turnout gap grew about four points larger in counties formerly covered by preclearance, and the white-Black turnout gap grew about five points large in these counties, than they would have grown if preclearance were still in effect.
To read the full report, visit: www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/growing-racial-disparities-voter-turnout-2008-2022