From protecting the 2022 midterm elections to empowering communities to engage with their elected officials, this was a banner year for We The Action’s democracy work. In all, 3,500 volunteer lawyers donated more than 45,000 hours to 36 organizations working to make the midterm elections safe, secure, and accessible for every voter.
For instance:
In 2018, We The Action partnered with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law to build the technology to support Election Protection — the largest nonpartisan voter protection campaign in the country. In 2022 alone, We The Action lawyers staffed 10,445 shifts on the 866-OUR-VOTE hotline and answered questions from nearly 40,000 voters.
Coordinated efforts to undermine election officials were all too common in the midterm elections, and 60 We The Action lawyers volunteered with the Election Official Legal Defense Network to help election officials navigate a deluge of open records requests and comply with open records laws while ensuring the elections continued to run smoothly.
With one in six election officials facing threats as they worked to ensure a safe and secure election, We The Action partnered with the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law to find lawyers to represent election officials. For instance, a We The Action volunteer represented an Iowa election official following harassment stemming from the 2020 elections.
With state voting laws changing across the country, 70 We The Action lawyers helped Rock the Vote turn complicated local voting laws into easy-to-understand voter guides to help empower young voters.
State laws vary greatly across the U.S. and can be difficult for small nonprofits to understand, so 200 We The Action lawyers worked with the Democracy Capacity Project to create 19 state guides to empower nonprofit organizations to design and run civic engagement, democracy support, and Get Out the Vote programs.
Given the complexity of state election laws, We The Action lawyers volunteered with When We All Vote to compile research on voter registration, ballot return policies, residency requirements, and more to inform voter outreach strategy for Civic Nation initiatives including When We All Vote, United State of Women, and All In Campus Democracy Challenge.
We The Action partnered with Common Cause to expand our on-the-ground voter protection efforts, recruiting lawyers to serve as poll monitors and workers, solve problems at polling locations in real time, and work on time sensitive litigation and/or petitions as needed. From the start of early voting through the Senate runoff elections, We The Action lawyers were on the ground in 16 states.
After the polls closed on Election Day in the extremely close Georgia Senate race, We The Action lawyers flocked to sign up with All Voting Is Local to observe the statewide risk-limiting audit to help verify the fairness and accuracy of the vote audit.
For the second election cycle in a row, We The Action lawyers helped the Fair Elections Center update and confirm poll worker recruitment information for thousands of election jurisdictions. This work supports the massive national Power the Polls recruitment effort, of which We The Action is a coalition partner.
Amid reports of voter intimidation during highly competitive Senate and gubernatorial elections, We The Action lawyers volunteered with the Arizona Democracy Resource Center to answer voter questions via a statewide hotline and serve as point people in specific counties to troubleshoot issues and escalate more serious concerns.
Spotlight on: Democracy Capacity Project
State laws vary considerably across the U.S., but they regulate much of the work that nonprofit organizations do to promote civic engagement and a healthy democracy, like running voter registration drives, assisting voters with applying for a vote by mail ballot, organizing GOTV programs, and much more. This labyrinth of local laws can often discourage a nonprofit from doing election-related work — or stop them from participating altogether.
That’s why 200 We The Action lawyers volunteered with the Democracy Capacity Project to produce free resources to empower nonprofits to design and run civic engagement, democracy support, and Get Out the Vote programs while complying with complex state laws and regulations governing those activities.
Katherine Mirrasou, a recently-barred lawyer from California, volunteered with the Democracy Capacity Project to help create these state-by-state guides. In all, 19 guides were released over the summer.
“Katherine brought such enthusiasm and a kind of ‘magic sauce’ to the work!” said Sue Zachman, Founder and Director of the Democracy Capacity Project. “She quickly became a leader in this project — helping us design both our volunteer data collection process and the content of the nonprofit-facing resource itself!”