SMART Elections is an innovative non-partisan project dedicated to transforming U.S. elections so they are secure, fair, accessible, well-administered, and publicly verifiable. Please support our work with a tax-deductible gift today!
We want the public to have full confidence in election results. Without meaningful election reform, the U.S. will continue to experience anger and mistrust of government, paralysis in solving our most critical problems, and even potentially more violence.
Our Solutions:
1. Communicating the problem - Problems with our elections have been festering for years, but are not well understood. Our popular non-partisan forums translate expert recommendations into easy-to-understand language. They have reached thousands of viewers, and we plan to scale up further.
Security, fairness and accessibility are all topics on our bi-weekly #ElectionProtection forum.
2. Collaborative organizing - SMART Elections is building bridges with groups across the political spectrum.
One success: Over 50 experts and good government groups signed onto a letter we launched against risky voting machines in New York. Working together, we have been able to prevent one of these risky voting machines from being certified in the state.
3. Public Oversight - We teach advocates best practices to protect and monitor elections.
One success: The Brooklyn Transparency Pilot Project compared the number of voters who signed in with the number of ballots scanned in a few select polling locations in Brooklyn. We found one location with almost 700 more ballots scanned than voters.We are following up on that information and expanding the program. After our report, the NYS Board of Elections Co-Chair reached out to us to collaborate on better poll watcher training. When the public gets involved in oversight of elections, we can improve them!
A report on how to stop backsliding democracies suggests, by "educating [people] ... about the practice of democracy ... [so] that people ... do not take democracy for granted."
SMART Elections is doing that critically important work. Please support us today with a generous contribution.
