Promoting Electoral Reform and Democratic Participation
Overview
The goal of this work is to eliminate barriers to democratic participation so that marginalized populations in the United States are represented fully.
The Challenge
In the United States, millions of people are routinely excluded from democratic participation through failures in the census, redistricting and elections processes.
Each decade, the census fails to accurately count communities of color, immigrants, low-income and other marginalized populations; an estimated 4.5 million people were missed in the 2000 Census. With census data used to both allocate public resources and draw legislative districts, the impact on these communities can be severe. Public funds and services may not be directed to communities that need them most, while flawed legislative districting can leave these communities underrepresented.
Furthermore, the elections system is neither designed nor administered to ensure every citizen's right to vote, often excluding society's most vulnerable members.
What We're Doing
We support efforts to eliminate barriers to democratic participation in the United States by ensuring that census, redistricting and elections systems are fair and inclusive. These efforts include increasing public understanding of the issues at stake; directly engaging excluded communities in reform efforts; and supporting groups that work to strengthen and enforce the law.
Learn more about how our strategies and approaches shape our grant making.
From the Newsroom
- Ford Foundation Encourages Grant Makers to Get Involved in 2010 Census A $15 million investment in census-related activities includes grassroots efforts to engage historically undercounted populations and communities
Regions
Team
What We're Following
- Take 10 Map: 2010 Census Participation Rates Census Bureau mapping tool tracks community mail-back rates to measure daily how neighborhood participation compares
- Nonprofits Count! Nonprofit Voter Engagement Network's online program offers state-specific data to mobilize local census-related activities
- Ya es Hora ¡Hagase Contar! Latino civic participation site dedicated to census includes thorough explanation of the form
- Census Hard to Count Maps Interactive map coordinated by Funders Census Initiative plots "hard-to-count" populations and real-time census-related tweets
- Beyond Parachute Politics Building Capacity Building Power initiative reports on civic engagement successes in historically disenfranchised communities
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