It’s All in the Details: Why Accessible Voting Materials Matter
The Center for Civic Design (CCD) aims to “make every interaction between government and citizens easy, effective, and pleasant.” They achieve this by bringing “civic design skills in research, usability, design, accessibility, and plain language to improve the voting experience, make elections easier to administer, and encourage participation in elections.” We recently spoke with Anna Haraseyko, Researcher & Designer at CCD to discuss why it matters smooth design barriers can strengthen democracy and help empower voters in asserting their rights.
In Part One of our 2020 Election Spotlight series, we connected with Sam Novey to discuss place-based voting, as well as how mobilizing the masses and building excitement contributes to a stronger, more inclusive voting culture. But another essential yet sometimes overlooked piece to this work is how barriers within voting materials may prevent voters from casting their ballot.
That’s where the Center for Civic Design (CCD) steps in — The CCD operates with the belief that “democracy is a design problem” and that one way to approach this issue is by “ensuring voter intent through design.” I recently connected with Anna Haraseyko, Researcher & Designer at CCD and new member at Impact Hub to discuss how greater attention to smoothing out these barriers can help empower voters in asserting their rights.
As an organization with remote workers spread over Maryland, New York, and Detroit, Anna says she loves taking what she’s learned about voting in Baltimore and seeing how that does or does not relate to other cities. And prior to COVID-19 and her joining in June 2020, the CCD team were working on modernizing voter registration and exploring ranked choice voting systems among other initiatives. But with the global pandemic, the team decided to refocus and scale their vote-by-mail projects.
Prior to COVID-19, 5 states were already using envelope templates developed by the CCD, including California, Michigan, and Virginia. Anticipating a surge in voting-by-mail, Anna led “Operation Envelope” which adapted the CCD’s envelope designs to the legal requirements of 21 more states. This project is ongoing and CCD hopes to expand their designs to 18 more states “to show how easy it is for states to use a well-designed envelope that minimizes voter error.”
For Anna, universally accessible design is all in the details. Although decisions like whether voters sign on a dotted line or in a box may sound insignificant, Anna says they play an important role in how voters cast their ballot. It could make all the difference with what empowers, discourages or even disenfranchises a voter.
In many ways, CCD’s work this year isn’t all that different from what they worked on before COVID-19. The principles of good civic design remain the same, and ensuring voter trust, access, and education has always been a priority. If anything, the growing need for education around the democratic process only emphasized the importance of their mission — It is increasingly important that people “understand the voting process to make good and informed decisions that align with their intent.”
On that note, Anna says the biggest lesson she’s learned during this time is that “there’s a huge variation in how voters understand how elections work.” The CCD team had been hearing that people were experiencing heightened anxiety about this year’s elections. Despite this stress, Anna is hopeful this energy can be transformed to contribute to a stronger society post-election.
“I want the anxiety in the election cycle to manifest as greater civic engagement with your government and civic processes. I hope that people are doing their research, and that everytime a headline comes out that is scary or frightening, that they have the ability to talk to people who know.”
And to end, Anna reminds me that we can use our vote for positive change beyond the presidential election. “I want people to know their power to change things and how the world is run. We can make changes at the local level too.”
Additional Resources:
- Check out the Center for Civic Design’s “Field Guides,” covering a range of topics including “how to design a voter guide” and “effective poll worker materials”: https://civicdesign.org/fieldguides/
- Check out the Center for Civic Design’s past projects: https://civicdesign.org/projects-2/
- If you’re interested in learning more about vote-by-mail technology, check out this great interview: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/tech-behind-mail-in-voting/
This story represents Part Two 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.
