Whats needed to bring the US voting system into the 21st century Tiana EppsJohnson
OK, I want to take a moment
to let each of you think to yourselves
about the last time
you sent or received a fax.
(Laughter)
Well, for me, it was this morning,
because one piece of my work
is making sure that everyone in the US
has the information that they need
to make decisions
about the candidates on their ballot.
And collecting that information
from the local government offices
responsible for maintaining it
means sending and receiving
a lot of faxes.
Voting is one of our most
fundamental rights.
It’s one of the most tangible ways
that each and every one of us
can shape our communities.
And as we enter this fourth
industrial revolution,
where technology is changing
everything around us,
you would think, with something
as important as the right to vote,
that we would have
the most modern, secure,
inclusive system that could exist …
But we don’t.
When we look at comparable democracies,
the US has one of the lowest
voter turnout rates in the world.
We have a system where even
the most persistent voters
come up against exhausting barriers.
A system where 20th-century technology –
like fax machines –
and outdated practices stand in the way
of full, vibrant participation.
In US presidential elections,
turnout hovers around 60 percent.
The numbers are even lower
for local elections.
That means that nearly 40 percent
of Americans aren’t voters.
That’s nearly 100 million people.
I believe in something
very straightforward:
that everyone should have the information
that they need to become a voter,
that the voting process
should be seamless and secure
and that every voter
should have information they trust
to make decisions
about the candidates on their ballot.
Because when more people vote,
together, we make better decisions
for our communities.
So I’ve spent the last
eight years on a mission
to push our democracy
into the 21st century.
Now, one of the most common approaches
to election modernization
is advocating for policy change,
and that’s an incredibly important
piece of the strategy
for building a system where millions
of more people become voters.
But I’ve taken a different approach.
I focused on a critical
yet largely untapped resource
for election modernization:
local election officials.
I work with thousands of local
election officials across the country
to build tools and skills
that they can use immediately
to transform the way
that they’re engaging today’s voters.
Folks like Kat and Marie.
Kat and Marie have worked together
for years in a windowless office
in the basement of the Mercer County
Courthouse in West Virginia.
Together, they have
a tremendous responsibility.
They’re local election officials serving
Mercer County’s 40,000 registered voters.
Local election officials
are the public servants
that do the day-to-day work
that makes our election system function.
When you fill out
a voter-registration form,
they’re the folks that process them
and add you to the rolls.
They’re the folks who buy the technology
that we use to cast and count ballots.
They recruit and train the volunteers
at your local polling place.
And they’re the official
nonpartisan source
for informing people
in their communities about how to vote.
And unlike other countries
where there’s some form
of centralized election authority,
in the US,
there are 7,897 different county
and municipal offices,
like Kat and Marie’s,
that each have an independent role
in administering elections.
Yes, that’s nearly 8,000
slightly different ways
that you might experience voting
based on where you happen to live.
When I was talking with Kat and Marie,
like so many election officials
that I talk with in rural towns
and in major cities alike,
they were deeply proud of getting
to help people in their communities,
but they were also worried.
All of the new tools that people
were using to get information –
the internet, social media –
they were difficult to figure out
how to use effectively.
And they felt like they weren’t fully
meeting the needs of Mercer County voters.
One thing that they really wished
that they had was a website
so they could create a hub
with information about
how to register in upcoming elections,
and a place to put election results.
See, at the time,
when voters had questions,
they had to either call
or visit their office,
which meant that Kat and Marie
were inevitably answering
the same questions over and over again,
which is both a superinefficient
use of their time,
but also created totally unnecessary
barriers for voters
when that information
could just live online.
And Mercer County wasn’t alone.
At the time, they were one
of 966 counties in the US
that had no voting information online.
I’ll let that sink in.
They were one of the nearly one-third
of counties in the US
that had no place online
to find official information
about how to vote.
To Kat and Marie, not having
and election website was unacceptable,
but they didn’t have very many options.
They didn’t have the budget
to hire a web developer,
they didn’t have the expertise
to build a site themselves,
so they went without.
And 40,000 voters
in Mercer County went without.
We’re in a moment where we have
an unprecedented opportunity
to transform civic engagement.
Technology is revolutionizing
science and industry.
It’s already transformed
how we connect with one another
and understand the world around us,
but our democratic institutions –
they’re being left behind.
The US is one of the few
major democracies in the world
that puts the onus of voter registration
on the individual voter,
rather than the government.
The rules that govern how to vote
vary from state to state,
and sometimes even county to county.
And we have ballots
that are pages and pages long.
This November, on my ballot,
there are literally over
100 different people and referenda
for me to make decisions about.
We have to be using
the best tools we can bring to bear
to help voters navigate this complexity,
and right now, we’re not.
One of the most common narratives
I hear in my work
is that people aren’t civically engaged
because they’re apathetic –
because they don’t care.
But as my brilliant friends
at the Center for Civic Design say,
if there is apathy,
it comes from the system,
not the voter.
We can change the system right now
by connecting local election officials
like Kat and Marie
with 21st-century tools
and the training that they need
to use them to better serve voters.
Tools and training to do things like
use social media for voter engagement,
or use data to staff
and equip polling places
so that we don’t see
hours-long lines at the polls,
or training on cybersecurity
best practices
so that we can ensure
that our voting systems are secure.
When we invest in this approach,
we see meaningful, lasting results.
Kat and Marie are online now.
Inspired by their experience,
we built a website template
using research-based
best practices in civic design,
and developed the training
so that Kat and Marie are able
to maintain their site themselves.
In less than a week,
they went from having never seen
the back end of a website
to building a resource
for Mercer County voters
that they have been independently
keeping up to date since 2014.
Today, the 40,000 voters in Mercer County
and over 100,000 voters
in counties across the country
have everything that they need
to become a voter
directly from their local
election official,
on a mobile-friendly,
easy-to-use, accessible website.
And we can even further scale the impact
when local election officials
are not only reaching out
through their own channels,
but they’re extending their reach
by working in partnership with others.
Efforts like the Ballot
Information Project
and the Voting Information Project
work with election officials nationwide
to create a centralized, standard database
of key voting information,
like what’s on your ballot
and where to vote.
That information powers tools built
by companies like Google and Facebook
to get information in the places
where people already are,
like their newsfeed and search.
In 2016, the Ballot Information Project
connected the public with information
about candidates and referenda
over 200 millions times,
helping between a third and a half
of every single person who cast a ballot.
And that model has been replicated
for elections around the world.
When we look at efforts
in other areas of government,
we can see the opportunity
when we listen to the public’s needs
and we meet them with modern tools.
I think about my friends at mRelief,
who have helped 260,000 families
unlock 42 million dollars in food benefits
by helping government agencies
transition away
from a 20-page, paper-based
application for food stamps
to a process that can happen
in 10 questions over text message
in fewer than three minutes.
That kind of transformation
is possible in voting.
It’s happening right now,
but there’s still so much work to do.
Now, if you have any technical
bone in your body,
I know what you’re thinking.
This is all solvable.
The technology that we need exists.
We collectively have the expertise.
You might even be thinking
about volunteering
at your local election office.
I love how solutions-oriented you are,
but to be clear,
the work that is needed
to modernize our election system
isn’t something that’s going to happen
using 20 percent time,
or through a hackathon,
or by doing a one-off technology project.
What we need is significant,
sustained, long-term investment.
Investment in technology
and investment in the skills
of local election officials
to run 21st-century elections,
because if we don’t
invest in the long game,
we risk finding ourselves
perpetually behind.
So if you’re ready to help millions,
if you’re ready to close the gap
between the system that we have
and the system that we deserve,
we need you.
Organizations that are doing
this work year-round need you.
Local election offices need you.
Come join us.
Thank you.
(Applause)