Working with our local and statewide partners, we have used our research and advocacy strengths to win significant policy changes. These changes have strengthened North Carolina’s democracy and put voters more in control of elections.

 

 

During 2010, Democracy NC's accomplishments included:

• Youth Voter Registration: Our staff helped the State Board of Elections develop procedures, resources, and a “best practices” guide for implementing a new state law aimed at increasing youth voter registration.We also spearheaded the adoption of the law, which (1) requires county boards of elections and boards of education to collaborate and conduct annual voter registration drives in all high schools; (2) allows teenagers as young as 16 to pre-register to vote; and (3) promotes more civics education in high schools. In addition to our work with the government agencies, we worked with the NC Civics Education Consortium to develop and distribute a curriculum module that supports pre-registration activity during Civics classes. In 2010, the first year of the law’s implementation, nearly 40,000 16 and 17 year olds pre-registered to vote and three other states to date have already used NC's law as a model.
• Census Education and Outreach: To ensure that North Carolina communities receive their fair share of government money and political representations, Democracy NC undertook a major educational effort about the importance of completing the Census form. We primarily focused on youth, African Americans and Latino audiences – part of the “hard to count” population. We conducted five regional trainings, recruited dozens of volunteers for neighborhood outreach projects, coordinated a successful statewide “Count All Souls” program that involved more than 300 churches, and distributed nearly 1 million informational cards in English and Spanish to food banks, unemployment offices, community centers, schools, housing complexes, and stores catering to our target audience. Our Census outreach project helped NC tie for first place as the state that increased its mail-back response rate the most, from 2000 to 2010 – from 66% to 74%.
• Public campaign financing: We were successful in having committees in the state Senate and House pass bills that would expand the public financing program to cover more executive branch offices before the bills stalled. We continued to develop a network of campaign donors concerned with the unsustainable money demands in elections. Our Campaign Donors for Campaign Reform wrote op-eds, met with lawmakers, and educated their peers about the value of a public financing alternative. Largely because of their activism, Democracy NC succeeded in gaining more Congressional Reps from North Carolina to sign on as sponsors for the federal Fair Elections Now Act signed on than any other Southern state.
• Citizens United Response: In the wake of the Supreme Court’s January 2010 ruling that allows increased election activity by corporations and unions, Democracy NC organized a series of educational meetings and successfully advocated for changes in state law to require greater disclosure from groups involved in “independent” electioneering activities. Conservative lawmakers opposed these basic additions to campaign disclosure laws, but thankfully our transparency demands prevailed – and as a result, the media immediately learned a few months later when Art Pope’s business and other big donors began pouring money into the 2010 general elections.
• Democracy Summer: Ten students from seven colleges participated in the eleventh year of our innovative organizing and civics training program for youth. They worked under the supervision of full-time organizers in five teams in Winston-Salem, Fayetteville, Greenville, Charlotte and Durham. The students spoke to 21 groups about voting rights and campaign reform; collected 1,500 endorsements cards for election reform; generated 22 media features; completed two research projects about youth civic engagement; met with 102 civic leaders to build more relationships for Democracy NC; and phoned 5,000 voters to mobilize their support for reform.
• 2010 Election:  Working with our five metro coalitions, as well as dozens of community leaders in other counties, we implemented a variety of Get Out The Vote activities that resulted in contacting 450,000 voters. We coordinated a “Souls to the Polls” project with more than 300 churches, successfully led efforts to open more Early Voting polling sites in many counties, distributed 300,000 pieces of literature with the theme of “Do It Again in 2010,” called 23,000 occasional voters, and mailed postcards to 20,000 newly registered voters whose applications were incomplete urging them to provide the missing information. We did many other things in local areas. For example, a college project in Mecklenburg County organized a collaborative of student leaders and administrators from six colleges, created a joint PSA (“Can You Hear Us Now?”), held a candidate’s forum, registered young voters, used Facebook extensively, and held a march of students to their polling location on Election Day.
• Research: During 2010, we produced studies on the changing demographics of NC’s voters since 2000, the success of the judicial public financing program, problems with special interest donations in Council of State races, and the influence of campaign money on environmental and health care policies. Our investigative work of campaign violations led to convictions, new regulations and new laws making violations involving over $10,000 a felony and increasing disclosure of giving by political appointees.

 

During 2009, Democracy NC's activities included:

• Civic engagement: We conducted nearly 100 voter registration/GOTV trainings for groups ranging from the Girl Scouts to the Association of Apartment Owners; produced or helped with voter guides; printed and distributed flyers with early voting and same day registration info; organized candidate forums; organized phone banking of newly registered voters; gave rides to the polls; and held numerous GOTV trainings. We also helped local coalitions implement nonpartisan voter education and “get out the vote” efforts in Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Fayetteville, Greensboro, and Greenville.
  

• Electoral Reform: We successfully advocated for Youth Pre-Registration legislation that allows 16- and 17 year olds to pre-register to vote as part of the high school civics curriculum in preparation for the day they come of voting age. We also undertook an 11-month campaign to expand the availability of Early Voting sites, statewide and in 35 targeted counties and spearheaded a successful effort to extend the Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) pilot program for local governments for three years and helped design the guidelines and standards for using IRV.
• Voter Education: We educated groups and citizens on Voter-Owned Elections, Youth Pre-Registration and the Census; sponsored forums and educated voters about Chapel Hill’s new “Voter Owned” public financing program; and maintained a website featuring the Who, What, How, When and Where of voting and voting rights in NC.
• Voter Rights: We worked in conjunction with partners inside and outside the educational system to pave the way for implementation of the Youth Pre-Registration law and participated in a coalition focusing on the voting rights of misdemeanants and former felons. We also assisted the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in successfully defending two dozen students from Elizabeth City State University whose registrations were challenged by two losing candidates and signed on to an amicus brief to challenge the burdensome requirements faced by new political parties to have their candidates appear on the NC ballot. On Election Day, we monitored suspicious election-related activity, filed complaints when warranted, fielded hundreds of hot-line calls on a toll-free line, and worked with multiple national voter protection groups.
• Grassroots organizing: We expanded our base in our local coalition areas as well as statewide and led the development of voter registration/GOTV coalitions in Guilford, Mecklenburg, Pitt, and Cumberland counties while supporting other GOTV efforts by partners in Winston-Salem, Durham, Wake and eight Sandhills region counties. We also met Democracy Advocates, community leaders and elected officials to gain support for election reform and voting rights. Over 120 advocates from all over NC joined us for the largest-ever Voter-Owned Elections Lobby Day in Raleigh, where Advocates, interns and our staff met with over 50 legislators to discuss pending legislation.
• Ethics: We documented how the NC Democratic Party was used as a conduit for earmarked contributions to the Mike Easley Committee. Our efforts prompted further investigation by the State Board of Elections and payment of penalties by the party. We also provided the State Board of Elections with exhibits and testimony during its 5-day hearing to examine evidence regarding for NC Governor Mike Easley’s misuse of gifts and campaign funds. In addiiton, we worked with our partners at the Coalition for Lobbying & Government Reform to prevent the weakening of ethics and lobbying laws in North Carolina and on a new ethics bill.
• Public campaign financing advocacy: We promoted participation in NC’s Council of State public financing program and educated people on how to support the judicial program. We also led the charge to get NC members of Congress to become co-sponsors of FENA, which would create a public financing option for candidates for Congress, then advocated across the state for support of FENA. We continued work that advanced bills for expanding Council of State and local public financing in the 2010 session and helped local officials create, refine and implement the successful Chapel Hill public financing pilot.

• Original research: We released reports showing the link between a corrupt campaign finance system and skewed public policies involving health care, energy and taxes. We also completed research projects that focused on campaign contributions from political appointees and developed maps of youth-service organizations in five NC counties to help us implement the new Pre-Registration law for 16-17 olds in NC. Other research products analyzed such democracy-related topics as county-level (and in some cases, precinct-level) voter registration and voter turnout before and after the election; use of Early Voting and Same-Day Registration by race, gender, and age; and much more.
• Leadership development: In addition to our numerous GOTV trainings, we teamed up with NC WARN and a coalition of environmental groups to develop a citizen training related to Duke Energy’s request for a substantial rate increase and conducted training in three cities for citizens interested in attending public hearings on the rate request and trained a diverse group of 10 young organizers through our life-changing, skills-building Democracy Summer program.