Voting it Forward

The theme of this season is “women uplifting women.” And one of the ways that women have power to uplift others is through the power of the vote. But many people don’t use that power. Why don’t people vote, and what can we do about it? NOW National President Christian F. Nunes sits down this week with Emily Wasserman, the senior director of Voter Contact at Vote Forward, to talk about what the research says about getting out the vote.

Links: 

NOW and Vote Forward

Why people don’t vote

Knight Foundation study on non-voters

Guest: Emily Wasserman is the Senior Director of Voter Contact at Vote Forward. She leads Vote Forward's data and research team, and is responsible for designing, executing, and assessing the organization's grassroots voter contact programs. She’s worked in educational technology at the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, and in social psychology and neuroscience at Boston College. She graduated from Pomona College with a B.A. in Cognitive Science and is based in San Luis Obispo, California.

Take Action NOW: Get out the vote with NOW and Vote Forward! https://votefwd.org/now 

Listen to new episodes of Feminism NOW released every other Wednesday. To find out more about the National Organization for Women, visit our website.

Creators and Guests

Host

Christian Nunes

BB

Producer

Bethany Brookshire

EW

Guest

Emily Wasserman

IB

Editor

Ismael Balderas-Wong

SC

Producer

Susanna Cassisa

What is Feminism NOW?

Passionate about modern feminist issues? Want to learn more about how today's political, academic, and cultural leaders strive for a future of universal equality and justice?

Join NOW President Christian F. Nunes in a new podcast dedicated to intersectional feminist discussions in American society with leaders in entertainment, sports, politics, and science. From conversations on constitutional equality, to economic justice and reproductive rights, listeners will find new ways to learn, engage, and get empowered.

Listen for new episodes released every other Wednesday.

Bethany Brookshire (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome to Feminism NOW, the podcast from the National Organization for Women. I'm senior producer Bethany Brookshire. Even if you did live under a rock, it would be impossible to ignore the fact that this year is an election year. And of course, with every election there are efforts to get out the vote. But in every election, between 35 and 60% of people who could vote, don't. Why not? And what could change their mind?

(00:33):
Today, NOW's National President Christian F. Nunes speaks with Emily Wasserman, the senior director of Voter Contact at Vote Forward to answer all the deepest voting questions. And while we're here, we would love to hear your thoughts. How are you promoting voting in your community? Contact us at feminismnow@N-O-W.O-R-G. And now let's get out the vote.

Christian F. Nunes (01:01):
Hello everyone. I'm Christian F. Nunes, the National President of the National Organization for Women. And of course you know that voting is important. We have talked about it a couple different episodes in our action. It's an issue that women have fought for and some have actually died for, but then elections come and then we have people who talk to us about their issues, but sometimes still don't turn up and vote. So we thought it would be really important if this podcast interview, we talk about the importance of voting and getting out the vote and what we can do about that.

(01:40):
I'm so excited to speak to you today, with Emily Wasserman, the senior director of Voter Contact at Vote Forward. Vote Forward is an organization that NOW is proud to partner with to get out the vote. Emily, thank you for joining us. It is so nice to have you on the show.

Emily Wasserman (01:58):
Thank you so much, Christian. It is wonderful to have NOW as a partner and we are just so appreciative of all of the efforts of all the letter writers who have already written over 7 million letters to date this year.

Christian F. Nunes (02:10):
It's 7 billion and let's not stop at that number because we have an important election right ahead of us.

Emily Wasserman (02:17):
Yes, you may have noticed that an important election is coming up. Over here at Vote Forward, we are writing millions of letters to voters. I'll be talking a little bit more about that and how you can get involved on this episode. But of course there are so many ways to get involved and just a few days left to do it, so we are full steam ahead.

Christian F. Nunes (02:35):
Wonderful. So I wanted us to talk about this a little bit because right now we know that this election has actually shown quite a bit of unprecedented things have occurred, right? And you've also heard us talk about why the presidential election is important, but also voting up and down the ballot is just as important and why we are talking about... We know there are different ballot and issues that are coming that impact their daily life and all these different things, but even telling everybody all of that, we know some people still turn up and don't vote.

(03:04):
As the director of Voter Contacts, why is that? Why is it that we know people are impacted but we're still not seeing them actually turn out and vote and help us in these parts that are really impacting their lives?

Emily Wasserman (03:19):
I am so glad that you're asking this question because I think that for those of us who vote regularly, it can seem kind of inconceivable. That if you are a person who shows up every time and you're paying attention and then you see that there are millions of people, and when we're saying millions of people we're talking tens of millions of people. The 2020 presidential cycle was as you may have heard, the highest voter turnout in a presidential election in a century. And that turnout rate was 62%. And I think if you are a regular voter, it's hard to understand why somebody would sit that one out. And there's a report that I really love from the Knight Foundation that dug into this question.

(04:05):
I love this report and I want to talk about it because there are really two points from that report that stand out to me. And they're both things that we think a lot about at Vote Forward. The first one is that folks who don't vote are often skeptical or even cynical about voting. They're skeptical about the process. They're more likely to say that it's rigged, that their votes don't count, and then they're also skeptical or cynical about the results. They're more likely to say that they don't think their votes matter or that they don't think politicians respond to people like them. Of course, if you think that, you're not going to vote because you think that it doesn't mean anything.

(04:44):
And then the second thing that really stood out to me from that report is that many non-voters say they don't feel informed. Frankly, in this country, we do not make voting an easy to understand process. So it's very understandable, but they also don't necessarily feel like they have the information they need to make good voting decisions, right? They're not hearing about the issues in a way that makes them feel like they're ready to cast a vote. And so they think, "I don't know enough, so maybe I just shouldn't vote." I think that that's unfortunate, but it also means that these are people who actually, they want to take voting seriously. They want to cast an informed ballot.

(05:22):
And when they know that they can't and they don't feel empowered to do that, then they won't. And so we think about both of these points at Vote Forward. We have this platform that connects grassroots volunteers to voters through personalized handwritten letters. And in the messaging in those letters, we try to address both of these points. We try to encourage people both to include messages that are going to make people feel hopeful and that their vote really does matter because it does. It just factually does. And then secondly, we try to give them more information. We try to give them links to the resources they need.

(05:57):
We try to help them feel like they can cast that informed vote so that they know how to vote, they know when the election is happening, they know who's on the ballot and they feel like they can show up and cast that vote.

Christian F. Nunes (06:11):
Emily, thank you for really pointing these two important parts what research says, because I think a lot of times we hear a little bit about people just need to have a voting plan or people need to feel engaged, but we don't really talk about what that really looks like. And the other part of it, I think, when I think about the important part you meant about people feeling informed to vote, how very important that is for a person to make a decision. And that's really any decision we make in life. We want to know from buying a car to purchasing a mattress, to choosing what school your child goes to.

(06:47):
You want to know all the information possible so that you feel like you're making the best decision. And I hate when I hear people are saying that they don't care, but it's not about not caring. It's about the fact that if a person sometimes doesn't feel informed, they don't feel ready to take that step. And what I want to ask then is that I love what you all are doing, is writing the personal cards. How do you also work with voters to make sure they are fully informed and aware When it comes to selection days?

Emily Wasserman (07:18):
We do that in a number of ways, but when you sign up to be a volunteer letter writer through Vote Forward, you get this letter template for each voter that you are writing to and you'll download that letter template and print it out. And right away there on that letter template, the printed text will contain some key information that the voter needs, like a reminder about where they're living and what the election date is. It will also include links and now spiffy and fresh this year, QR codes because we are now in the post-COVID era, and everybody loves scanning QR codes with their phones. And those links and codes will point to nonpartisan information online about the choices on their ballot.

(08:03):
So even before you as a letter writer do anything with that piece of paper, there's already information on it so that you don't have to write it all yourself. And then there is a space for your handwritten message. And this is where I think the relatability point that you mentioned, Christian, really does come into it because at Vote Forward, we really believe in that letter truly being authentic. Not just that it looks authentic, but it is authentic. So we do not give letter writers a script. We are not going to tell you what to say. We give guidance on how to craft a message that is going to be personal and authentic and resonate and be relatable to that voter, but we're not going to tell you what to write.

(08:45):
And so that means that when you do write that message and then you seal it up in your little handwritten envelope and send it to the voter ahead of the election, and they open it up. They go to their mailbox and they see, "Oh my gosh, this handwritten letter, what is this?" Of course you're curious, you have to open it up. What they're really seeing is authentic. It is relatable. They really are hearing from a fellow United States voter who genuinely does care about voting in this election. And I think that in a world where, especially in some of these swing states, swing districts, places that get a lot of attention, voters are just inundated with TV ads, flyers, all of this communication.

(09:30):
To receive that letter that genuinely is authentic and personal, that is where that relatability comes in. So it's both. It's like we're giving you the official information you need to make a good decision, and we're giving you ways to find out more and it's coming to you from a real person.

Christian F. Nunes (09:47):
And I think that's so important because we know that research also says that people tend to listen to other people like friends, coworkers, family members. Those are the people, the relatability, real people, the warm touch. That's what makes people actually motivated and connected to make a decision as well and help them make a decision. I want us to talk a little bit more about why really, truly is it important that people get out and vote. We hear it all the time, right? Emily, get out the vote, get out the vote.

Emily Wasserman (10:23):
I've heard it before.

Christian F. Nunes (10:25):
I'm sure you do right every day, but let's really talk about why is it truly important that people are really exercising their voice through their vote in the ballot box?

Emily Wasserman (10:38):
This is a great question because I think you're addressing even for those of us who know that voting is important, I think sometimes we treat it a little bit like going to the dentist, right? It's like everybody says you have to go to the dentist and you just do it because you know you're supposed to do it, but really is this doing anything? And then your teeth fall out, you think, "Wow, I really should have gone to the dentist all this time and I should have floss like they were always telling me. So it's one of those things where I think we can sort of lose track of what is coming out of this process until something catastrophic happens and then we go, "Oh no, a catastrophe has happened."

(11:18):
So I think it is worth coming back to not just this sense of there's these big things that happen and when you vote, you affect those things, but also just day to day, week to week at your local level, in your town, in your state, right? Something that is a big issue here and in many places, in my town is parking rates. People get really exercised about how much it costs to park in the parking garage, and the people who make those decisions are our county supervisors. Those people are elected. So even something really, really tiny and trivial like this that has a real impact on your daily life, that decision is being made by somebody who is elected as a result of your vote. It really, really does matter.

(12:09):
And then you can scale that all the way up to the laws that are passed on the state level, the laws that are passed on the federal level, the decisions that are being made about how to spend your tax dollars. All of that is being made by people who you elect. And so one example that I would love to bring up, of course, because the reproductive freedom is such an important topic in politics right now, and there are actually so many states that are putting this question now. Unfortunately due to the demise of Roe V. Wade, it is now on the ballot and being directly decided by voters. The upside of that is that we truly see the impact of your vote.

(12:46):
For example, last year we ran a letter writing campaign focused on Ohio's reproductive freedom ballot initiative in November. And because 2.2 million people in Ohio voted to protect the right to access abortion, people in Ohio now have that choice and it's very, very concrete and very personal. Somebody can walk into a doctor's office today in Columbus, Ohio and get the medical care that they need because people voted that way. So I don't know how else to make it any more personal and any more visceral than that.

Christian F. Nunes (13:25):
I think Ohio's a perfect example, because we also know what was happening in Ohio is they had a very extreme ban. And we all heard about the case of the very young child who was sexually abused and became pregnant and they were living in Ohio and when they went to seek, they could not when this ban was happening. But because of the voter turnout for this ballot initiative and things like that, to try to give those rights and the people showing up and turning out and showing their collective power of their vote is proof how you can change something. So now they have this right again, they have that right that is protected because of the people turning out for their vote.

Emily Wasserman (14:11):
Yes. Thank you so much for pointing that out. And I think it is important to highlight these individual stories because again, millions of people is a statistic, but when you think about that one person, that one child and the impact on their life, it suddenly becomes very real. And that just goes to show the power of an individual story and of seeing the people and not just the statistics. As much as I am a researcher at heart and I love statistics.

Christian F. Nunes (14:41):
I do too.

Emily Wasserman (14:42):
Right? We love numbers but we have to also then get back to that level of realizing that are real people behind those numbers.

Christian F. Nunes (14:52):
Absolutely. You cannot forget about the person behind the number.

Emily Wasserman (14:57):
Yes. Ohio, such a great example. I also want to point out that there are, I believe, 10 states this year that have reproductive freedom-related ballot initiatives that people will get to decide on. We are running letter writing campaigns in Florida and Missouri, which are two of those states. And you mentioned providing information to voters. For these ballot initiatives, our letters contain something extra, which is an excerpt of the text of these ballot initiatives and clear language that illustrates what a yes vote and a no vote means. And I think that this is so important here because often ballot initiatives are written in ways that are difficult to understand.

(15:38):
Voters get to the booth and they read it and they go, "What? What am I even voting on here?" And of course then they can't make an informed decision. But when you put it in clear terms, voting yes on this means your right to access abortion, contraception, IVF, reproductive care is preserved. A no vote means that a ban can go into effect. People are smart, they can understand these things if you put it in language that doesn't intentionally try to obfuscate it.

Christian F. Nunes (16:09):
Absolutely. Absolutely. So thank you for sharing that. This is Christian and this is our call to action. There's an election coming up and listeners, you probably have feelings about it. And you know the more we read or watch the news, the more helpless we can feel, but we do have one thing that we all can do. We can get out the vote. So this is your chance to do your part. Get out the vote. Research says the number one thing to get people to vote is a personal connection. You can make calls, you can send letters to potential voters, but what really works is to talk to your friends, talk to your family, and get them to vote. You can take action now. And now back to our interview.

(17:01):
So we are back with Emily Wasserman, the senior director of Voter Contact at Vote Forward. So we were just talking about the letters and how the letters make sure the language is written in the place that people can understand what those different things mean and especially the ballot measures that are coming out this year for reproductive freedom. As I was thinking about that, I was also thinking about what other things you would encourage of all the work you've done in your history to really make sure that we're talking to our family and friends and making sure that they are getting out and voting.

Emily Wasserman (17:40):
So glad you mentioned this because change starts at home. So if you know that you have friends or family members who might not turn out to vote, and even if you think they're going to turn out to vote, honestly, go talk to them about it. Make sure that they're really going to follow through and that they're not going to wake up on election day and say, "Oh, I'm kind of tired today. I don't really feel like going out." Because that can happen and it's still important to try and show up anyway. And the research shows that talking to real people in your life about voting really does increase voter turnout. This is actually the most powerful lever that you have to pull as an individual because those people know you, they trust you.

(18:25):
So if you go to your cousin, your friend, your mom, your partner, and you say, "Hey, this is when election day is, here's what's on the ballot. I really care about this thing." It's really, really different from even receiving a letter from a volunteer. That's kind of the next best thing in my opinion, is to receive something that is very heartfelt and personal, even if it's from a stranger or a canvasser that knocks on your door and talks to you face-to-face about the importance of voting. I think we often think of voting as this very individual act because when you do it, you are in a polling booth or you're in the privacy of your home now that we have lots and lots of mail-in voting.

(19:08):
But really we are of course embedded in relationship with other people and our social networks and our community. And a community can be like the people who shop at the same grocery store as you. It can be all sorts of different things, and that creates what I think of as a civic culture or a culture of voting. A brief digression here about Australia. Australia is a really interesting country to look at when it comes to voting because they have compulsory voting. They've had compulsory voting since 1925, which means that if you do not turn out to vote, you get a small fine. It's really kind of a nominal thing. You might think, "Wow, that's kind of extreme." But they've been doing it for almost a century and they're not the only country to do this.

(19:50):
Other countries do this as well. What happens when voting becomes compulsory in this way is that the country develops culture of voting, right? Everybody's doing it. Everybody talks about it, and everything in society is set up to support us doing this. So and Australia has as a result, extremely high turnout rates. Of course, we are not going to have compulsory voting in the United States anytime soon, but what that means is that we, as people here, we can do our part to create that culture of voting in our own lives. You can do it by talking to your friends and family members by getting out in the community. There are many volunteer groups. There are groups that write Vote Forward letters together.

(20:31):
So if you're thinking, "Hey, I don't want to just sit in my house and download these letters to voters and write them all by myself, I want to get together with a group of other people." And make that even more effective and even more joyful. You can do that. You can go out and knock doors. There are so many things you can do, and together we can create that culture of voting from the bottom up.

Christian F. Nunes (20:55):
Absolutely. This is a good example, but what I will say, I think that I have be honest about United States of America for a second.

Emily Wasserman (21:04):
Please.

Christian F. Nunes (21:05):
I think that we have a lot of other things to work on before we get to compulsory voting because-

Emily Wasserman (21:12):
It's the wishlist. It's the wishlist. Christian, I was very good this year.

Christian F. Nunes (21:17):
Because we need to get some universal childcare, some living wage, what else Australia has? Universal healthcare, some other things to make it easier for people to survive and thrive so they can take off time to go out and vote, but that's also why some people don't turn out. We were really talking about it, right?

(21:37):
When you can't afford to take off, especially speaking from a women's organization, and we talk about economic justice and we think about some of the voter suppression laws that are happening. Some people can't take off time in the middle of the day from work. Some jobs don't give them voting days off on their calendar of work. And so it makes it very hard. In some states you don't really have the option to do mail-in, right? Or you only have one polling location for, I don't know, 25 mile, not even that one county radius to some places.

Emily Wasserman (22:07):
200 miles if you're in Texas.

Christian F. Nunes (22:10):
Exactly. That they potentially made it difficult for certain marginalized communities to be able to exercise their voice. We think about that and we also have to look at that too as part of our role is to make sure that we are shifting our country in a place to make it progressive, make it a [inaudible 00:22:28] country for everybody so that we can get to places where we can hope that we have a culture of voting. But I think that's also part of the reasons why people feel like, "Well, they don't do anything that helps me because here I am trying to feed my child or trying to pay my rent and I've been earning the same minimum wage since 2007."

(22:50):
But this all goes into why voting matters too, because we can't ever get those people out who don't support those needs of ours if we don't get out and vote. So it's kind of like a double-edged sword. I do get that, but it's also so important to, if you have an opportunity to have a mail-in ballot that you request your mail-in ballot and use it to mail it in so that you don't have to worry about taking off work and that we are also educating people about their options to do early voting or mail-in ballots so that they can get their vote out there and their vote can be counted. Because right now we have too many people who are elected into office who are not looking out for the right to their constituents. So I just wanted to throw that out.

Emily Wasserman (23:35):
Yes, thank you. Just a little thing that I'll just throw out there, need for a livable country. I love it. And because you got real, let me get real for a second also.

Christian F. Nunes (23:46):
Please do.

Emily Wasserman (23:50):
That's all true. And I certainly don't want to give the impression either that you show up to vote and all of these things are instantly solved. We know that's not true, and I also don't want to give the impression that what we're trying to do here is go talk to people who are like, "I'm working three jobs to survive." And say, "Hey, why didn't you vote?"

(24:13):
We are not in the business of shaming people and it's not effective anyway, but to get real here for a second, one bit of research, a real world example of this is that when laws were passed in this country to fully enfranchise people of color, which happened way too late. Many, many years after the franchise was extended to everyone else, you can see the effect on funding in those communities for things that mattered. You could see actually where the dollars were going changed after those people gained the right to vote and to vote without intimidation.

Christian F. Nunes (24:48):
Thank you for naming that, Emily. That's so important that you said that. Wow. We are coming to the end of our time. So I have one last question for you. This season is season three and we're talking about uplifting women uplifting women, and Vote Forward. You all are doing amazing work. While we're talking about women uplifting women and the election being around the corner, what is a piece of advice that you would give to other feminists or women as this approaches and we're getting close?

Emily Wasserman (25:21):
I'm going to take it in a little bit of an unexpected direction. I just want to say that for feminists, I think it's important for us to remember that our work is not to suffer here. And I think it's important to mention this because often in politics, any sort of organizing work, any sort of activism, you hear metaphors of struggle, battles, wars, sacrifice, fighting, doing the work, laboring. All of that is very important and real. But sometimes I think it makes us think that we are supposed to be suffering and that maybe that somebody else has to suffer too. And I just want to say rest is part of our work and joy is part of our work. It's all connected.

(26:13):
And so I try to really remind myself of that, especially because when I look at our community of letter writers, they are mostly women. And this is maybe not surprising that when you look at who is out there doing the work, it's often women and they are so stressed. They are working really hard. They're putting their heart and soul into it, and there's the potential for the activism to become not a pleasurable experience, not a restful experience, but an experience that grinds us down. And we cannot create the world that we're seeking to create if we are all ground down in the process. You are allowed to take care of yourself.

(26:54):
You should do the work, whatever work you think is meaningful to do, do it, and then go take a nap and eat a snack, and it's okay. The world is not going to burn down because you took a nap and ate a snack. It's really easy to think that the more I'm suffering and the more I'm grinding, the better work I'm doing, and that's just not the case.

Christian F. Nunes (27:15):
I love that message because part of resistance is breaking, disrupting the old systems not being a part of it. It's disrupting those systems of oppressed for so long. So the goal should be to have that joy, to have that happiness, to have that grace, to have that rest and still thrive and still break those old systems. So thank you so much, Emily for sharing those quotes of message. We are out of time. This has been such a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much. Listeners, give Emily a wonderful virtual thank you for joining us today on Feminism NOW.

Bethany Brookshire (27:51):
Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast this week as we get out the vote. While you're spreading the word about voting to your friends, why not share this podcast too? Please like and subscribe to the show. You can also send us your thoughts and questions at feminismnow@N-O-W.O-R-G. Head to N-O-W.O-R-G to read up on NOW's core issues and our approach to advancing women's equality. Together we can make a difference. I'm Bethany Brookshire. Thanks for listening and we'll see you soon.