Above (left to right): Chris Nichols (CapRadio), Tere Flores (Sacramento ACT), Mindy Romero (USC Price School of Public Policy), and Dr. Christopher Towler (Sacramento State, Director of the Black Voter Project) at How Can California Overcome Its Voter Disillusionment? at the Sacramento Public Library Galleria, October 3, 2024. Photo credit: California Humanities.
As we approach Election Day, we encourage everyone to get out and vote! This important day where we exercise our civic engagement was the subject of a public program California Humanities hosted last month, How Can California Overcome Its Voter Disillusionment? Taking place October 3, 2024 and kicking off Arts and Humanities Month, our dynamic panelists discussed the state’s election history and shared concrete steps for how these insights can improve voter participation here in California and across the country; a topic as complex as the beautiful ceiling at the Sacramento Public Library Galleria is high.
Partners on this program included the James B. McClatchy Foundation, which focuses on education and promoting active civic participation in our democracy, and Capital Public Radio, both with an important regional presence in the Sacramento and Central Valley areas. Our panelists were a diverse group from across education and advocacy spaces: Tere Flores Onofre (Sacramento ACT), Mindy Romero (USC Price School of Public Policy), and Dr. Christopher Towler (Sacramento State, Director of the Black Voter Project), and moderator Chris Nichols (CapRadio).
**Takeaways to Share**
—To help turn out the vote, ask your family and friends: “What is your voting plan?” Low propensity voters and high turnout voters have been shown to respond to this simple nudge.
—Play the long game. Voter bases widen when we talk year-round with friends, family and constituents about our shared civic life. Take wisdom from Australia—a county with one of the highest voter turnouts globally—and bring food. Their “sausage sizzle” at the polls makes voting a social and communal experience.
—Nonpartisan approaches keep discourse civil. Bring everyone together by focusing on schools, libraries, roads, and other common needs for the public good.
—Improvement *is* possible. California’s universal mail in ballot option in 2020 shrunk the gap in turnout between overrepresented and underrepresented groups grow smaller; primarily for young people. And experiments like DMV registration have greatly increased the number of registered voters; while multilingual ballots have increased informed participation.
(Source: “Equity in Voter Turnout after Pandemic Election Policy Changes”, co-authored by Mindy Romero)
Below are scenes from this special gathering:
“Don’t necessarily get caught up in the national rhetoric, it can be so polarizing and turn people off to [message on importance of voting], and we can then lose so much engagement around the other things that are on the ballot that impact people’s every day lives in many ways that people don’t even realize. Remind folks of what’s at stake: our libraries, our schools. No one else is really talking about our school boards. There are all these other ways that local politics make a difference for people.”
Tere Flores
“We look at 2020, there were 6 million eligible [California] voters that didn’t vote, and that sounds like a depressing number but it is also a lot of opportunity. I think just reminding yourselves, every day, that it is NOT simple to vote for so many people.”
Mindy Romero
“A lot of progress that has been made is under attack right now. There are a lot of policies and groups out there that are wanting to remove rights, restrict freedoms, and take our country backwards. So voting can also be thought of as a defensive action, and when put in that framework you don’t always have to make the case that “hey this politician is going to deliver us something,” it’s more “you deserve the right to protect what you’ve earned or what your group has earned over years, over generations.” That can be another element to help people understand the power of voting, and that it has been a cumulative power that has come over time and not just something that just happened, especially for our underrepresented communities.”
Christopher Towler
“Reach out to a young person, to your kids (if they’re adult voters), reach out to your neighbors, reach out to your students, so that anyone that is within your environment that is young, you can help create a habit of voting and make the case for voting. Meeting young people where they’re at is so important, and connecting [voting] to all the other things they care about. You have to acknowledge their skepticism in the system.”
Mindy Romero
Please find a recording of the program below. Thank you to the team at Studio 611 for providing this and AV support at our event!
Thank you to The James B. McClatchy Foundation Central Valley Democracy Fund for their generous support of this program, and to Capitol Public Radio for their media broadcast sponsorship. Thanks also to Lagunitas Brewing Company for their donation of locally brewed beers for the occasion.
