Fair Elections Center

Campus vote project (cvp): cvp works with universities, community colleges, faculty, students, and election officials to reduce barriers to student voting. The program enables campus leadership to institutionalize reforms that empower students with information on how to register and vote. College students face special challenges when attempting to register and vote in their college communities. These students lack information about voter registration rules and deadlines. Additionally, they sometimes lack acceptable forms of id for voter registration or voting purposes, lack transportation to the polls, face confusion about where to vote, or even face unsympathetic election officials. In recent years, a number of state legislatures around the country pursued laws that seek to limit access to the polls with particularly damaging effects for student voters. Cvp seeks to address these challenges by providing to school administrators current voting information that they can offer to their students during events like orientation and class registration. Cvp also develops best practices for colleges to disseminate information to all enrolled students through campus-wide communications during voter registration, early voting, and on election day. In 2022, cvp partnered with about 340 campuses that enrolled more than 4 million students in 41 states and the district of columbia. The project runs staffed programs in ten states (az, fl, ga, mi, nc, oh, pa, tx, va, wi) and established between 20 and 35 formal partnerships with schools in each of these states. Cvp also pays stipends to student "democracy fellows" to work with campus administrators, faculty and other student leaders to support non-partisan voter education efforts and provides them with leadership and election law training. In 2022, over 250 fellows completed the program in the spring and fall semesters. Cvp also expanded its hbcu legacy initiative, a program designed to specifically address barriers to student voting on historically black colleges and universities. Through this program, cvp partnered with 40 hbcus in cvp's ten staffed states as well as in al, md, and la and hired approximately 20 more democracy fellows.

Election reform policy: Fair Elections Center (fec) works on election reform policy in order to expand access to the ballot, support election administrators and to support underrepresented communities. Last year, the organization continued to support various underserved communities with updated voter guides and third-party registration drive guides for all 50 states. Fec also provided technical assistance and training to various communities of color and minority language and immigrant communities. The organization worked with advocacy organizations in more than a dozen states to analyze legislation and provide analysis of its impact on voting or on election administration. Fair Elections Center additionally collaborated with allies to shape the implementation of the biden administration's executive order on voting and voter registration through various federal agencies. Fec moreover engaged in election protection work in multiple states during the 2022 Elections

Litigation: Fair Elections Center's legal team focuses on cases where the organization leverages its expertise to reduce barriers to registration and voting that impact historically marginalized communities as well as other voters who have experienced restricted access to the ballot. These constituencies include students, the youth, the elderly, language minority and immigrant communities, and communities of color. Fair Elections Center's work also challenges registration laws that discriminate against naturalized citizens and administrative processes that unconstitutionally deny voting rights to former felons, 17-year-olds who will turn 18 by election day, and other historically disenfranchised groups. In 2022, Fair Elections Center pursued a lawsuit in Arizona that challenged two laws that inhibit the ability for naturalized citizens to register and remain registered voters. The organization continued representing the harriet tubman freedom fighters on a challenge to Florida's restrictions on third party voter registration in the 11th circuit court of appeals.furthermore, in Kentucky, the organization continued its case for voting rights restoration for individuals who completed their felony sentences but were not included in the governor's 2020 executive order. Fec also filed a new case in state court in Wisconsin to challenge the state's rejection of absentee ballots given defects or omissions in the witness address on a voter's certificate envelope. On behalf of the league of women voters, the organization additionally filed an amicus brief in the us supreme court case moore v. harper in 2022.

Poll worker recruitment: in 2018, Fair Elections Center created workelections to provide current, non-partisan information to election officials in order to facilitate poll worker recruitment, centralize information for jurisdictions, and to provide an easy and accessible way for jurisdictions to find information. In 2020, as hundreds of older, traditionally active poll workers withdrew because of the pandemic, Fair Elections Center expanded workelections to provide data that facilitated the recruitment of hundreds of thousands of poll workers. Workelections partnered with the us election assistance commission, who used the data from workelections to power their own recruitment effort. Additionally, Fair Elections Center co-founded power the polls, which other non-partisan organizations also sponsored. More than 710,000 individuals signed up through power the polls and workelections.com, one million individuals visited the workelections web portal, and 190,000 of them clicked on applications.workelections now contains poll worker requirement information and links to applications for over 5,000 jurisdictions in forty-seven states so voters and civic organizations, businesses, media companies and schools can promote poll worker information to their members and customers. The project encourages these groups to promote poll working to their employees, clients, and members in order to establish a more diverse group of poll workers across the country. Each year, workelections updates poll worker information in states with Elections by contacting officials and sending surveys to jurisdictions.

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