America Votes: Sara Schreiber
September 21st, 2023
“Rising turnout among young people – that really makes me hopeful.”
Sara Schreiber is the Executive Director of America Votes, the coordination hub of progressive communities. We discuss expanding access to voting, modernizing elections, and getting out the vote up and down the ballot. The last three election cycles saw a real surge of voters: 46 million people who did not vote in the 2016 election, voted in 2018 or 2020. Unprecedented numbers of voter engagement and pro voter policies have also been implemented since 2016.
New voters are young and diverse. More than half of them are 18 to 34; nearly half are people of color; and 56 percent of them are women. Although most of them think of themselves as independents, they are more progressive on the issues. They are in favor of abortion rights, gun violence prevention policies, and climate action. Democracy issues were also more salient in the election after the Dobbs decision. In the eighties, younger voters were not necessarily more progressive than older voters.
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Credits:
Host: Mila Atmos
Guest: Sara Schreiber
Executive Producer: Mila Atmos
Producer: Zack Travis
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Sara Schreiber Transcript
Mila Atmos: [00:00:04] Welcome to Future Hindsight, a podcast that takes big ideas about civic life and democracy and turns them into action items for you and me. I'm Mila Atmos.
Here on the podcast, we think a lot about how we can bring a multiracial democracy fully to life. And we've heard many times that it will take more participation from everyday folks all across the spectrum of civic life. One of them is, of course, voting. So today we want to explore what it takes to mobilize voters and to make it possible for more people to vote. And further, how increasing voter turnout impacts election outcomes.
Joining us to answer these questions is Sara Schreiber. She's the executive director of America Votes, which coordinates more than 400 partners to engage and mobilize voters for elections up and down the ballot across the country. America Votes is also leading comprehensive efforts to expand voters access to the ballot box.
Sara, welcome and thank you for joining us.
Sara Schreiber: [00:01:16] Thank you, Mila. Excited to be here.
Mila Atmos: [00:01:19] Your organization wants to empower more Americans to vote, especially young people and communities of color, which we know is crucial to making a multiracial democracy a reality. How does your work differ from other voter mobilization organizations?
Sara Schreiber: [00:01:37] Absolutely. Thanks so much for the question. Our mission is dedicated to the work of hundreds of allied groups, as you said. And some of the ways that we differ is that we have permanent operations and seasoned campaign staff in more than a dozen states, and we focus on every level of the ballot. This year alone, AV has played lead role in victories in Wisconsin, Supreme Court, New Hampshire, special elections and the recent victory to protect direct democracy in Ohio. And we do that in a year-round kind of sustained way. So all the while, while we're working on those elections and activating our partners to work in those elections, we're preparing and
doing early planning with our coalition partners for the White House and Congress and other elections in 2024. And we do this work with the broadest, most diverse coalition of partners, 80 of which are national organizations. But I think one thing that makes us really unique is we work with over 400 groups that are based in states. And so really kind of activating the power of state and national groups working together is part of our unique asset that we bring to the work that we do and to mobilizing voters.
Mila Atmos: [00:02:57] Let's dig a little bit deeper. How is the work different that you do at AV and your local partners? What is the work that they do, and what is it that you do, and how do you work together?
Sara Schreiber: [00:03:09] We were founded in 2004 to coordinate progressive groups that were stepping up to turn out voters and stepping up their involvement in electing candidates who reflect their values. So AV's role is really to coordinate and organize our partners through data research, best practices, tracking. And then our partners are the ones who are really executing the program, meaning they're out knocking doors, they're making phone calls, sending out their memberships, they're volunteers and talking to voters about the issues that their organizations represent and activate voters around. We are helping folks organize and coordinate these campaigns and help them make as efficient and impactful as possible.
Mila Atmos: [00:03:56] All right. So you come up with a strategy in conjunction with them and then they execute it, so to speak. Something like that?
Sara Schreiber: [00:04:03] Yeah.
Mila Atmos: [00:04:04] Okay. Excellent. So how do you identify the partners that you
work with? What's the criteria?
Sara Schreiber: [00:04:11] So we work with all types of partners, and the criteria is really that they want to have an impact on turning out voters and having an impact on elections. And so we ask that our partners attend our meetings and share data with us and are working towards the shared goals. And that's really the criteria is that they they are on board with the plan and ready to execute their piece of it. And those can be really small parts of the plan talking to just a small subset of voters or they can be really large
talking to voters all across the country with large membership bases. And you would think of organizations like Planned Parenthood who are our partners, and they have membership base all over the country or League of Conservation Voters. But then you might also have a group like the A. Philip Randolph Institute in North Carolina that connects with Black voters in the state. Or New Georgia project, who's working with young voters in Georgia and groups like that are who make up our partnerships.
Mila Atmos: [00:05:15] Thanks for naming your partners because that makes it all more tangible to the listener. So you mentioned that you were founded in 2004. What happened at that time? What precipitated the founding of America Votes and how do you gauge your progress since that time?
Sara Schreiber: [00:05:35] So in 2004, that was obviously the re-election of George W Bush, and there were a number of organizations that came together around a table at that time. It really was a table. Now we kind of used the word table as a euphemism for a coalition, but at that time, these partners and you're thinking of groups that many of your listeners probably know, like Emily's List and the Sierra Club and many of the labor unions that are working in elections like the service employees. And they came together to try to have a plan that was coordinated to defeat George W Bush. And they were thinking about how they activate the voters that we needed to turn out that year to do that and the coordination that it would take in order to figure out who should be talking to who, where, and when. So that's really the basis of the Foundation for America Votes. And despite not having success at the top of the ticket that year, those groups really found that working together made all of their work more powerful because they could segment subsets of voters, they could share plans, and figure out how to work together. So that's really been the underpinning mission for America Votes over the last 20 years. When you think about the changes over the last 20 years, which have been really significant, especially when we think about the post Trump era and between 2004 and 2018, we had some real low turnout years. Folks might remember 2008 was obviously a great example of voter engagement, but years like 2014 and 2016, to some extent those were lower voter engagement years. But really since 2016, the voter engagement has been hitting historic highs across 2018 and 2020 in particular, and even 2022 saw a very high voter engagement. And so as our work has grown over the past 20 years, I think one of the things that we have gotten better at, particularly in a high turnout environment. Is helping our partners identify the highest impact voters to
talk to. What we have seen over those past three election cycles is a real surge of voters. There are 46 million people who either skipped the 2016 election and then returned to vote in 2018 or 2020 or voted for the first time in 2018 or '20. And these new voters are young and they're diverse and more than half of them are 18 to 34 and nearly half are people of color, and more than 56% of them are women. Helping our partners really engage and activate the blue surge was critical to Democrats' success in 2020 and '22. And so our role has grown over the last several years in building kind of this really targeted voter engagement and helping our partners connect with the most high impact voters that we can turn out.
Mila Atmos: [00:08:55] Well, it sounds like you're turning over every stone to make sure people come out to vote who are eligible. But since you've been on the ground for the last two decades, how has the electorate changed in that time? And what does it say about the voters of tomorrow? I'm curious about how you think about voting in '24, '26, '28, you know, these cycles that are coming up and continuing to turn out more voters. But as you mentioned, they're young, they're people of color. What is the trend that you see? Or maybe it's not a trend; maybe it's a permanent demographic change.
Sara Schreiber: [00:09:31] I think the trend we are seeing here is that voters are becoming more and more diverse and more and more women are voting. And I think as we look to younger voters, they are becoming more progressive. They may not identify with the Democratic Party necessarily. And that is another trend that we're seeing that folks, you know, are more likely to think of themselves as independents. But when you look at the issues, they are more progressive. They are in favor of bodily autonomy and abortion rights. They would like to see gun violence prevention policies put in place. They are concerned about the climate, all issues that progressive candidates have solutions for, and want to do something about. When you look back even longer ago in the '80s, younger voters were not necessarily more skewing towards progressivism and progressive ideals. And I think now we are seeing that on a very consistent basis that these younger voters are agreeing with our policies. And one of the things that makes America Votes so powerful is that when our partners go and talk to voters and talk to them about turning out, they're talking about these issues that they really care about. We're not necessarily talking about a candidate first. We're talking about these issues which they are more likely to identify with, than a particular party. And so that's why our
work is more important than ever, is because we can have this issue-focused work that is represented by our partners and connecting with these younger voters.
Mila Atmos: [00:11:11] Hmm. Interesting. So you're saying that younger voters today are fundamentally different than younger voters of the '80s? They have a different kind of way of perceiving the world in terms of party selection or politician selection. But since you talked about issues, what is the number one animating issue that actually gets people off the couch and go to the polls?
Sara Schreiber: [00:11:41] I think there is no denying the power of the abortion issue right now. I don't think there's one issue that rules them all forever in eternity, you know, but I do think that it's undeniable right now that people saw what was at stake. And we have seen how salient this issue can be for all types of voters, not just women, men as well. And we have proof points of that, starting with the 2022 elections, obviously, that were post Dobbs. But the Wisconsin Supreme Court race is an undeniable example of that. And then when you have in Ohio a ballot initiative that is about limiting direct democracy, but it was framed around abortion, and you have unprecedented turnout. The last August election there had 8% of people turning out. We saw 34% turnout. And they beat that effort to restrict people's access to direct democracy with an abortion message. And we did it by 57%. And I think that we cannot discount how important that is right now.
Mila Atmos: [00:12:57] Let's drill down a bit on the nitty gritty. America Votes was instrumental in the Supreme Court election in Wisconsin. How did you achieve a double digit statewide victory there?
Sara Schreiber: [00:13:09] Thank you for the question. We never get tired of talking about the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. And I obviously want to start by saying that there was a large coalition driven by not only Justice Protasiewicz's campaign, but the Democratic Party, who ran an amazing campaign. But for America Votes' part, our coalition has been on the ground in Wisconsin since we started more than 20 years ago. We ran our largest ever spring voter mobilization push in Wisconsin and we did that by defining our target universe of voters, calculating the win number that we needed to hit, sharing that with our partners and creating a plan for them to mobilize these folks on the ground. And at the end of the day, our coalition was of more than 40
groups and we knocked 535,000 doors, made 678,000 phone calls and had 136,000 conversations with voters, which is a very large program for a spring election. It's a really, really great example of what progressive groups can do when we work and coordinate together our partners role in the work that they did to turn out voters organizing on campuses. We saw unprecedented turnout on some of these campuses where they were even overperforming how many voters turned out in the fall in the 2022 election. And that is a lot of work of groups working together and America Votes helping to direct, track, and execute that work.
Mila Atmos: [00:14:52] You talked about abortion rights and also this election in Wisconsin, which was very much about abortion rights, of course, as well. I wonder if we need another type of event like the Dobbs decision to ramp up even more voter participation, or do you think that the Dobbs decision really has such strong legs that even more voters can be turned out on this issue?
Sara Schreiber: [00:15:20] I think that there continues to be salience with the abortion issue because it continues to be a marquee issue for Republicans and their limiting of access and wanting to regulate women's bodies is showing no signs of stopping. It was a key topic during the last Republican debate, and they continue to push legislation that would limit that in states and federally. But I think that we really saw how that issue awakened people's consciousness to what it would be like to have their rights taken away, and that that was actually a possibility, that a right that was given to people in this country was rolled back after 50 years. And we did see more salience talking about democracy issues in the election after the Dobbs decision. Voters are smart and they were making those connections about what else could be at stake if this was a possibility. So I think while every day issues, whether or not people can meet their basic needs and how they're feeling about their own economic situation and things like that are going to continue to be very, very important. We have the opportunity now because people have seen what it's like when a right is rolled back. That it can happen. And we're not talking about these things in the abstract anymore, which we were for a number of years around choice, and it was hard to get people animated. And so I think this put into perspective other things like democracy in particular, that people care about.
Mila Atmos: [00:17:11] Mhm. Yeah, I think you said that really well. It's the fact that the right was taken away and it's so clear that that's possible that we have no choice but to engage because otherwise we might lose another right well beyond Dobbs, well beyond the one right, but looking at it in a big picture way. So in addition to helping candidates win, turning out voters, you actually also engage in legislative work to expand access such as early voting or automatic voter registration. So what's a project that you're particularly proud of?
Sara Schreiber: [00:17:48] You're right in that a big part of America Votes' work is advocating for the best election laws possible, and fighting against barriers to voting is a really critical part of what we do, and we dedicate resources at the state level. To advocate for giving voters as many options as possible to safely and securely cast a ballot. I think sometimes there's a perception that nothing positive is happening around voting because we hear a lot of bad news. But I like to tell our teams and other folks all the time it ain't all bad news. There's no question that threats to voting and continued attacks on access to the ballot happen, especially in southern states. We've seen a lot of that, but we've also seen unprecedented numbers of voter engagement and some really great pro-voter policies that have been implemented in many states. Some of these victories that I am really excited about in places like Nevada where you saw them adopt all mail balloting after the pandemic and same day registration, or the pro-vote initiative in Michigan, where they did wholesale kind of reform to their elections and did that through a vote of the people, where it made it easier for folks to vote early and a number of other changes. But one thing that I think is really exciting and is localized work is with some of our staff working with clerks across the state in Wisconsin, being able to bring back Sunday voting, which was possible to implement, but it hadn't been implemented for a number of elections. And so we were really excited to see that happen and giving people more options to vote on a day that they don't have to work. And also lessening the pressure on administrators of elections to have more days of voting makes it easier than just having one big day of voting or an early vote period that's short. So that's something I was really excited about, and it's a localized achievement.
Mila Atmos: [00:19:57] We're taking a short break to share about a podcast called Inherited and will continue with Sara when we come back.
Shaylyn Martos: [00:20:08] Hi there. I'm Shaylyn Martos and I host a podcast called Inherited from Wire Media and Critical Frequency. We're a critically acclaimed climate storytelling show made by, for, and about young people. At Inherited, we platform sound rich, immersive, and empathy forward stories. This season, our storytellers tackle a myriad of subjects, from Hurricane Maria to Indigenous climate resilience to Latinx folklore and more. Check us out at yr.media/Inherited or wherever you get your podcasts.
Mila Atmos: [00:20:43] And now let's return to my conversation with Sara Schreiber.
So I feel like I need to ask this question because I can see that mobilizing voters to turn out --people that are already registered or helping them register -- and clearly agree with you on the issues is a good thing. But if you're talking about automatic voter registration or making voting in general more accessible, that's really non-partisan, right? So does higher voter turnout really lead to different election outcomes?
Sara Schreiber: [00:21:15] When you look at the unprecedented results of some of the elections recently, they have been coupled with high turnout. When we think about 2022, there were a lot of pundits making a lot of assertions about the election and whether or not it was going to be, you know, a bloodbath for Democrats or how difficult it had been based on history. And I think in this high turnout era, what we saw was a completely unprecedented expansion of the United States Senate for values that are more reflective of the country. We saw closer margins than anyone expected in the House. You know, we weren't at the highs of the 2018 surge, where we saw a 40 seat swing in the House, but we were still seeing really high turnout. And I think a lot of the outcomes of the 2022 election are more reflective with a majority of people's views in this country on the issues that really matter.
Mila Atmos: [00:22:26] Yeah. Well said. So basically you're saying races become more competitive and it's a higher likelihood of rendering majoritarian views as a win at the ballot box?
Sara Schreiber: [00:22:37] Yeah.
Mila Atmos: [00:22:39] So one of the other things you do -- and I don't know if this is accurate -- I was around your website and it says you also work on modernizing elections. Is that the same as expanding the ballot box or is that different? And if it's different, like what is a gold standard for a modernized election system?
Sara Schreiber: [00:22:59] The work that we do around election administration is hand in hand with modernizing elections when clerks and administrators have the resources that they need to run elections using modern technology like electronic poll books or automatic voter registration and things like that. It makes conducting elections easier and therefore easier for the voter experience as well, and updating those things so that folks are able to access their ballot easier.
Mila Atmos: [00:23:35] Yeah, you're making it basically more efficient. If I got that right. Sara Schreiber: [00:23:39] Yeah. And more secure. Modern systems for executing
elections is more secure.
Mila Atmos: [00:23:46] Yes, that's maybe the most important part. Right. Because that gives us more confidence that the election is going to be true, you know, that we know that the result at the end of the day, when all the votes are tallied are accurate.
Sara Schreiber: [00:23:59] Correct.
Mila Atmos: [00:24:00] So America Votes works in about half of the states in the US. And I know that you work in varying levels. You have core affiliate and project states. So what's the difference between these and how do you decide what state to work in, at what level?
Sara Schreiber: [00:24:17] So this is one of the things that I really love about America Votes. And I think what's kept us strong and growing over the last 20 years, we have a wide map and we are able to invest year-round in our core states, but we're also able to focus on the most competitive states from year to year, which are typically the states where our partners are focusing the most of their work. And that includes some key affiliate states where we have an affiliation with an established coalition on the ground. So in the past that's been states like Maine and Montana and Arizona. But we play
heaviest in battleground states at the presidential Senate gubernatorial level, which has fluctuated some over the past cycles. For '24, that'll likely be Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. But as it pertains to our wider map, we also have established core operations in states that might not be seen as competitive right now or as battlegrounds right now. But we look where we can make a long term difference, like Colorado has two congressional districts that are going to be competitive in '24. And in Florida, we invested earlier in 2023 to help our partners run a field program that affected the outcome of the Jacksonville mayor's race. And wins like that are part of a really long term strategy to build back Florida and places like that over multiple cycles.
Mila Atmos: [00:25:57] Yeah, Florida is definitely going to take multiple cycles. So I know '24, of course, is looming ahead of us and we know that's going to be a big banner year. There's an election for president and there are a bunch of senators up. But what are you looking out for in '23, in the short term?
Sara Schreiber: [00:26:16] So we've obviously already had these Supreme Court election in Wisconsin, the ballot initiative in Ohio. And then in the fall, we will have some really important races. We have one coming up in mid September for State House in Pennsylvania, which will actually determine the balance of power in the state house. That is going to be a really important race, obviously. And then in the fall in Pennsylvania, there will be another state Supreme Court election. And while the balance of power won't be determined by that election, it will be really important to secure that seat for a pro-democracy candidate, obviously heading into the 2024 elections, but also into '25 when a number of folks will be up on the court again in Pennsylvania. There's obviously Virginia, which has their entire assembly and Senate up and their brand new districts, tight margins in both houses, very important to, at the very least, protecting a lever of power in the Senate, but hopefully gaining one in the General Assembly and at the very worst, staving off any kind of, you know, Republican trifecta there. And then again in Ohio, we're going to have a reproductive rights initiative on the ballot in November. And the August election was definitely a precursor to that. But we were only able to do that because we were organized and working together. We're going to have to do that again. It's very exciting. There were nearly 500,000 signatures delivered in support of the initiative in the fall, and so there's good grassroots
momentum, but it's going to take a lot to make sure that we protect reproductive rights in Ohio.
Mila Atmos: [00:28:09] So you have a full slate of things, full slate of things coming up before 2024 even begins. I feel like I have to ask you this kind of technical question, because, you know, most people think about Election Day happening in November, whether that's in congressional election years, every two years; or presidential elections, every four years. So we know now, of course, elections are happening all the time. So how do states decide when to hold elections? And it's really hard, I think, for an everyday person to keep track, like how do they come up with this and how can you as an everyday person make sure you're always abreast about the elections that are coming up in your area?
Sara Schreiber: [00:28:52] So it really is up to local states for many of these off general election elections. And we're supportive of changes like we've seen in some states recently. In New Mexico, they moved up all of the off year. So the off year elections would all be held in November as opposed to having school board in May and then the mayor's race at another time and then some other bond issue in November and trying to put those in one Election Day, which, you know, saves money, is more efficient and also easier for voters to understand, as you talked about. And so changes like that are important. And I think people in states can research via their own state secretary of state or county clerk. I also think that Vote.org is a great place to go to see if you're registered, sign up for your vote by mail. If you're not registered, get registered and those kind of things to keep track of what's happening in your state.
Mila Atmos: [00:29:59] Oh, good advice. So as an everyday person, what are two things I could be doing to help expand voter access?
Sara Schreiber: [00:30:09] I am hoping that your whole audience is registered to vote and is voting, but I would be remiss if I didn't say that that is the most important thing that you can do every year and voting in those off year elections that don't have a lot of turnout is really even more important. So making sure that people do that and as I said before, you can do a lot of that at Vote.org. You can go in and see if you're registered or not and sign up for vote by mail if it's available in your state. But one thing that I think is really powerful and so important in making sure that elections are executed in a safe
and secure way is by signing up to be a poll worker in your area. And that can be done through an organization called Power the Polls, which has a website at powerthepolls.org. Think about taking one day during the fall to sign up with your local administrator and help to execute elections. They are something that happen obviously every year, sometimes more than twice a year, and it's really important for people to be engaged and take that step to help execute them. And it's something everyone can do.
Mila Atmos: [00:31:24] Oh yeah, I like that. That's a great suggestion. So as we're rounding out our conversation today, looking into the future, what makes you hopeful?
Sara Schreiber: [00:31:34] So I have two thoughts around this and I love this question. Thank you for asking it. Some of the things that we've talked about today are what really make me hopeful. We continue to see some really big gains for Democrats and policies that are more reflective of the majority of Americans in this country. So the fact that we've had these exciting election outcomes really makes me hopeful because we have won in recent years and we can keep winning if we continue to engage our electorate and turn folks out. And then I have to say that rising turnout among young people, that really makes me hopeful. Since 2016, turnout among Millennials and Gen Z has risen significantly and it's really stayed high. In 2022, young voters turned out at higher levels than they did in 2018 in some states. So seeing people engaged in this rising influence of young people makes me optimistic about, you know, the support for these progressive policies and hoping that it will continue to increase as more young people enter the electorate.
Mila Atmos: [00:32:46] That is indeed very hopeful. Well, Sara, thank you very much for joining us on Future Hindsight. It was really a pleasure to have you on the show.
Sara Schreiber: [00:32:54] Thank you so much, Mila. I appreciate it.
Mila Atmos: [00:32:57] Sara Schreiber is the executive director of America Votes, which coordinates more than 400 partners to engage and mobilize voters for elections up and down the ballot across the country.
Next week on Future Hindsight, we're joined by Stephen Bright and James Kwak, the co-authors of The Fear of Too Much Justice: Race, Poverty, and the Persistence of Inequality in the Criminal Courts.
James Kwak: [00:33:26] The most fundamental problem when we talk about inequality and injustice in the criminal legal system is the widespread lack of capable defense attorneys for poor people. Because the right to a lawyer is the most important of all of your rights. First of all, if you're accused of a crime, you don't know what your rights are unless you have a good lawyer who can tell you what they are. And even if you have rights, for example, you have a right to a trial. Well, the right to a trial isn't worth very much if you don't have a lawyer who can actually conduct an investigation and uncover new facts that might show your innocence.
Mila Atmos: [00:33:58] That's next time on Future Hindsight.
Did you know we have a YouTube channel? Seriously, we do. And actually, quite a lot of people listen to the show there. If that's you: Hello! If not, you'll find punchy episode clips, full interviews and more. Subscribe at YouTube.com/FutureHindsight.
This episode was produced by Zack Travis and me. Until next time, stay engaged. The Democracy Group: [00:34:37] This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.