Cultivating a More Inclusive Voting Culture
Baltimore Votes is a coalition committed to ensuring that all eligible voters in the region participate in every election. We recently caught up with Sam Novey, Director of Full Participation Programs at the National Conference on Citizenship (NCOC) to discuss what this election season means for fostering a stronger voting culture.
As a teenager growing up in Baltimore, Sam Novey worked on local campaigns and noticed that politicians only knocked on doors of households likely to vote based on the public list of registered voters — A form of redlining which ignores areas with less likely voters and that Sam saw as “a big problem.”
Subsequently, he has spent most of his career working to foster conditions for improved political engagement “to achieve greater and fuller voter participation in all elections nationwide.”
After spearheading the growth of the Partnerships program at Democracy Works in New York, Sam returned to his hometown and launched Baltimore Votes alongside its founding advisory board organizations in 2018.* Sam and Eean Logan, former Baltimore Corps Fellow, ramped operations and worked out of Impact Hub Baltimore from mid-2017 to early 2019.
Baltimore Votes is perhaps best known for their Party at the Polls program, in which community-based organizations plan celebrations to promote voter participation. And prior to COVID-19, the team were ramping up local partnerships and planning as scheduled.
But the rise of the global pandemic illuminated a new need: “There became a huge demand to communicate about the voting process that wasn’t there before.”
“I’ve been working on these issues for a long time, and I’ve never seen so many people interested in the voting process itself.”
Baltimore Votes immediately took a more proactive role in providing educational resources to the city. They created the Vote by Mail 101 series to support voters in the transition from voting in-person to by-mail as primary elections were delayed until June in Maryland. And Baltimore Votes heightened accountability efforts, working to ensure state electoral officials were properly addressing community questions and concerns.
For Sam, the most exciting development to come out of the pandemic is the reimagination of Party at the Polls to Party at the Mailbox, which Black Girls Vote spearheaded and formally launched in May 2020. The idea was to retain the same celebratory spirit while allowing people to participate from the comfort of their homes.
This pivot proved successful, with more than 3,000 Baltimore residents signing up to receive their boxes. Black Girls Vote worked alongside 60 other coalition partners in Baltimore alone to ensure maximum engagement. And now, they are sharing this model to other cities nationwide, including Philadelphia and Detroit.
An Innovation Hub for Inclusive Voting
Sam says the city is also proving to be a leader in advancing voter engagement across its campuses. During the 2018 midterm elections, the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) was honored with two awards for promoting voter participation. MICA alumna, Maddie Wolf was one of only ten students nationwide to receive the Honor Roll award for her leadership.
With an abundance of leaders working on civic engagement across multiple sectors and geographies, Sam says there is a “real opening for Baltimore to lead on inclusive voting culture and set up an innovation hub.” And he sees this year as only “the tip of the iceberg” for what can grow in the city.
When asked whether he had any concerns regarding this election season, Sam says he’s “feeling cautiously optimistic.”
“The hardest thing to do is build an environment where people want to vote, but people really want to vote right now.”
He also says that the pandemic has further magnified the importance of building trust in promoting voter engagement. “I think we saw this spring that when implementation doesn’t go well, it can really damage trust with the community and people’s relationship to the voting process.”
As Maryland shifted to voting by mail, tactics around voting engagement necessitated innovation. “And I think what we’re seeing in the pandemic is that groups with real relationships to local leaders and communities year-in-year-out are able to better adapt to these changing contexts.”
Building on this core belief, efforts like Party at the Mailbox seek to instead “mobilize around place versus candidate.” But what makes this place-based strategy more effective and resilient?
“The place is literally built into our brand. If we as Baltimore Votes can cultivate that sense of that identity and cultivate that year to year, it starts to add up in a way that campaigns don’t add up.”
On that note, Sam says he’s excited about Baltimore continuing to be a place where different stakeholders can work together. And that there seems to be a growing opening for people to collaborate around the question, “What could 21st century democracy look like in Maryland and Baltimore City?”
It’s a conversation that Sam believes people will be especially interested in.
Finally, Sam’s concluding message remains short yet consistent: “Vote and vote early. Tell your friends. And think about how you can be a resource for people in your community.”
Note: The Baltimore Votes advisory board is made up of individuals who have demonstrated a desire to build a better democracy in Baltimore, including No Boundaries Coalition of Central West Baltimore, Roots and Raices, Black Girls Vote, League of Women Voters, Baltimore City Chapter of the Links, and Out for Justice.
This story represents Part One of our “2020 Election Spotlight” series. This series collects stories on how Baltimore-based leaders and organizations are working to engage communities and promote full voting participation amid a pandemic and historical changes in the voting processes.
