In case your Instagram feed looked anything like mine in 2022, there have been vacation photos, breaking celeb news from The Shade Room, The Real Housewives drama, news clips and eerily on-trend targeted ads. But I also saw memes about voting rights, videos of Liza Koshy breaking down the progress we’ve made to combat climate change, latest voters getting registered and pictures of volunteers and future voters having Parties on the Polls. And that’s exactly how we prefer it at When We All Vote. We don’t consider that voting is a one-time transaction — it’s an extended term investment we make each day, not every two or 4 years, in constructing the communities, cities, states and country where we are able to all thrive.
Through the 2022 midterm election cycle, When We All Vote continued our work to merge culture with grassroots organizing to coach, register, mobilize and organize voters by meeting them where they’re and talking to them in ways in which they understand. The result? We reached greater than 45 million voters this election cycle alone and our work contributed to record-breaking early voting turnout and the second-highest youth turnout rate for a midterm election up to now 30 years.
And one yr ago today, we convened 30 voting organizations within the fight for voting rights through a full page ad within the Latest York Times where we pledged to: recruit and train at the least 100,000 volunteers throughout 2022 to register and end up voters of their communities; register greater than one million latest voters across the country; recruit 1000’s of lawyers to guard voters within the states where the liberty to vote is threatened; and more. I’m proud that as a collective we registered two million voters, engaged 100,000 volunteers, recruited nearly 4,000 lawyers who volunteered greater than 45,000 hours of free legal services and more.
We aren’t latest to this. In 2020, When We All Vote ran a strong, multifaceted campaign and reached greater than 100 million people to coach them concerning the voting process and get them registered and able to vote. Our efforts resulted in 512,000 people starting or completing the voter registration process. Our work this cycle builds on that success. Here’s how we did it:
The definition of democracy is “government by the people” or “rule of the bulk.” When We All Vote is on a mission to bring the people often neglected of our democracy in, and we do this through popular culture and the leading brands, artists and athletes they reply to. In 2022, we partnered with nearly 200 celebrities, athletes and influencers to coach their audiences about voting, and we recruited five latest celebrity Co-Chairs: H.E.R., Becky G, Stephen Curry, Jennifer Lopez and Bretman Rock to hitch our founder, Michelle Obama, and existing Co-Chairs, including Chris Paul, Liza Koshy, Lin Manuel Miranda, Shonda Rhimes, Rita Wilson and more. When We All Vote also engaged over 100 media, entertainment, fashion and company partners and 14 pro sports teams and leagues to infuse voting into cultural moments like awards shows, pro sports games and music festivals.
These partnerships to drive voter registration and engagement included a sweepstakes competition to satisfy Co-Chair Becky G on the Latin GRAMMYs, a voting ad that played throughout the NBA finals in stadiums and on national television, and an appearance from Michelle Obama on the season premiere of Black-ish featuring a storyline about When We All Vote.
Also in June, we convened the first-ever Culture of Democracy Summit, online and in-person on the Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles. The aim of this bi-annual summit is to bring a cross section of industry leaders together from corporate, civics, tech, entertainment and beyond to debate the role all of us play in strengthening and protecting our democracy. The Summit included a keynote address from Michelle Obama, 85+ speakers including Chris Paul, Selena Gomez, Kerry Washington, former Attorney General Eric Holder, Magic Johnson, Doc Rivers, David Hogg and more, and reached 1,000+ in-person attendees, garnering 179,000 live streams, 205 million impressions and 73,000 engagements on social media. Throughout the weekend, we hosted special events for civic organizers and a series of conversations on topics starting from environmental and criminal justice to voter suppression and interesting Gen Z. At the tip of the event, the audience left with clear calls to motion on how they’ll shape the culture of democracy.
In terms of reaching young people, we all know that these communities increasingly live online. 86% of Americans say they get their news online, and 44% of Gen Z report never receiving news and knowledge from traditional sources.
In 2022, When We All Vote reached voters in authentic, creative and interesting ways to extend each awareness and motion across the midterms. Our content focused on three core areas to empower current and future voters: educating voters on the problems and positions that were on the ballot, why their vote counts and the constant changes in voting rules and regulations; informing voters about election deadlines, rules and their voting rights; and mobilizing voters to take motion through storytelling memes and videos that allow our audience to see how voting plays a job of their on a regular basis lives. Our “This Week at When We All Vote” video series is a major example of how we used video content to interrupt down the problems for our audience and show them how one can take motion in an accessible way.
Through our partnerships with celebrities, cultural leaders, influencers and content creators, we reached hundreds of thousands of users well beyond our own audiences. Through creative collaborations with accounts like @feminist and @Upworthy we earned greater than 800,000 impressions, reaching previously untapped audiences in non-partisan online spaces. We also expanded our partnership with 18 celebrities on the SMS platform Community, which allowed us to advertise voter registration on someone’s 18th birthday. Finally, Vote Lab, our research program, conducted a field experiment for Instagram micro-influencers to review their input on voter engagement, allowing us to higher understand the role that influencers of all sizes can play in driving voter registration.
Moreover, within the leadup to the first and general elections, our team sent segmented email and SMS reminders to voters in all 15 of our focus states, including critical battlegrounds like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Reminders included dates and deadlines for registering to vote, voting early and voting by mail, along with Election Day reminders. These segmented emails and SMS messages ultimately reached an audience of nearly 3 million voters, empowering them with the knowledge they needed to make their voices heard within the midterms.
Finally, our team continued to give attention to organizing on the bottom and empowering volunteers to be trusted messengers in their very own communities. We hosted 20 virtual rallies and trainings that reached nearly 10,000 volunteers who took motion throughout the midterms and helped nearly 90,000 people register or check their voter registration. We also recruited and arranged greater than 200 My School Votes clubs in high schools across the country.
In March, Co-Chairs Michelle Obama and Chris Paul launched the VOTE LOUD HBCU Squad Challenge to empower students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to take a number one role in voter registration, education and mobilization efforts on their campuses.
Within the lead-up to Election Day, we saw our organizing efforts repay. When We All Vote built upon our strong track record of hosting early voting celebrations which have been proven to extend voter turnout. Through our Party on the Polls program, we worked with local partners, volunteer leaders and HBCU voting squads to rejoice voting with greater than 215 free events at or near polling locations with music, food and fun. When We All Vote provided grant funding to greater than 90 organizations to assist power these celebrations.
Waiting for 2023 and beyond
While we saw record-breaking turnout in 2020 and high midterm turnout in 2022, our work is removed from done. An estimated 127 million people, greater than half of the voting-eligible population, didn’t vote in 2022 and we’re already seeing states move to proceed to limit voting rights as we head into the 2024 presidential election. But we all know that When We All Vote’s combination of culture change and grassroots organizing is working, and it has the ability to bring much more lifelong voters into the fold. As we glance to 2023, 2024 and beyond, our team will continually be considering of latest ways to achieve voters through culture, online and of their communities and we look ahead to you being on that journey with us. Democracy will not be a spectator sport. All of us need to be on the sphere.