2023
Impact
Report
Letter from the CEO
In 2023, our team supported 3,389 elections – more than double our 2022 total. Throughout the year, voters participated in the democratic process by voting for school boards, state and local offices, and ballot measures that directly impacted their neighborhoods, towns, and communities.
In addition to supporting more elections, we grew and innovated at Democracy Works. We launched our expanded and improved Elections API to help developers build their own voter engagement tools, and upgraded TurboVote to help more voters access all the vital election information they need to cast a ballot. We dove into the world of generative artificial intelligence and developed expertise in that space. These investments have begun to pay off in 2024 via partnerships with TikTok to power its election center and with Anthropic to assist with election-related queries asked to its AI chatbot, Claude.
As busy as the year was, we also took time to look forward: we developed a strategic plan that will guide Democracy Works through 2027. We engaged hundreds of partners, elections officials, funders, and competitors to inform the organizational direction to take us through the next three years. We will focus on increasing voter participation, staying at the forefront of technological development, and improving the online voter engagement experience by collaborating across the tech and elections landscapes.
The rules around voting have changed since the last presidential election. In 2023 alone, there were more than 2,000 election-related bills introduced in state legislatures across the country. There were 73 new democracy-related lawsuits filed across 31 states, and 146 court orders that impacted voters across 34 states, all on top of redistricting which has affected every American since the 2020 Census.
Twenty-nine million Americans live under different voter ID laws now than in 2020, and as a result, 55% of people living in states with photo ID requirements do not realize they need identification in order to cast a ballot. Thanks to our relationships with state elections offices, we are able to stay on top of every change, big or small, and communicate those changes to voters.
Where voters turn for information has evolved; fortunately, so has our reach. Our friends at the Bipartisan Policy Center, States United Democracy Center, and the Integrity Institute administered a joint survey, showing that nearly half of Americans turn to social media and online search for information on how to register, how to vote, and to learn how elections are run. These sites, apps, and groups that people trust rely on Democracy Works and our officially sourced data to get voters the information they need to get out and vote this year.
Together, let's elevate voter participation in 2024.
Voter Impact
At the heart of everything Democracy Works does is the voter. Every new partnership Democracy Works launches, every new feature we ship, and every piece of voter guidance collected and distributed is done to help make voting easier and more accessible for all American voters.
In 2023, that meant we covered more than 3,000 elections. More than three-quarters of these elections covered populations of less than 100,000 people. Our work helps people vote in the school board, municipal, and county elections that are often overlooked on the national stage, but are typically the best way for citizens to shape their communities.
Innovation
In 2023, Democracy Works dismantled the organizational silos that had our work broken out into disparate products. What was once a series of discrete data sets – each tied to a specific product/audience – is now a cohesive data lake. We are now able to fully integrate data collected through our much-improved TurboVote tool and the Voting Information Project (VIP).
By deploying our tech teams to ensure that all of this guidance is distributed in formats and tools that are easy for our broad range of partners to integrate into their experiences, we ensure that voters have access to the information they need to successfully cast their ballot. In 2023, this translated to 21.4 million election notifications sent in service of 3,389 elections.
Democracy Works supports organizations nationwide through our updated Elections API, which was fully launched in January 2024. The new API features several key enhancements, including expanded data, youth pre-registration instructions, and the ability to search for upcoming elections for a specific address. It provides full voting guidance FAQ content that can be leveraged by developers creating generative AI or voter engagement experiences. Our rigorous research process and quality assurance system ensure our data is always accurate, comprehensive, and timely.
Meet the Team
For the first time since before the COVID-19 pandemic, Democracy Works held an in-person, all-staff summit in Brooklyn in September, allowing team members to connect through in-person meetings, communal meals, and bonding activities. Highlights of the week included the unveiling of the strategic plan, in-person “Lightning Talks,” a favorite of the team in which staff have 5-7 minutes to present on any topic of their choosing, a karaoke outing, and countless laughs.
A Glimpse of the Team
At Democracy Works, we aim to put together a team that resembles the US population. In most categories, our racial demographics align closely with that of the country. When compared to 2023 US Census numbers, Democracy Works staff has a slightly higher percentage of Asian employees and a slightly lower percentage of Black employees; all other demographics are within 5% of the country’s population. This diversity is also evident on the Senior Management Team, which is made up of more than 80% minorities. More than one-third of Democracy Works employees identify as LGBTQ+ – much higher than the general population, and just over a quarter of staff identify as a person with a disability – right in line with the national average.
Innovation Ohio Utilizes TurboVote in Ohio’s Aug. 8 Special Election
It can be difficult to turn out voters in “off-year elections”–presidential elections and midterms receive the majority of the hype and advertising dollars. But there are thousands of important elections every single year that significantly impact Americans. One example is the August 8, 2023 statewide election in Ohio regarding proposed State Constitutional Amendments, which drew more than three million voters to the polls, more than four times higher than the total who voted in the August 2022 primary. Innovation Ohio (IO) enlisted TurboVote to support its campaign to recruit Ohioans to register to vote and cast their ballots in this election.
The IO team created a new web page specifically for this campaign. This page incorporated a mix of action buttons linked to corresponding features on their TurboVote website.
Nick Tuell, IO’s senior communications specialist, shared, “TurboVote empowered us to provide quick need-to-know election information and the ability to recontact voters who engaged with the site. It helped us ensure every voter had the tools necessary to cast an informed ballot.”During IO’s campaign from May to August 2023, nearly half a million people visited IO’s Ohio Voter Guide site. Of these visitors, more than 75,000 then navigated from the Ohio Voter Guide site to IO’s TurboVote site to take key actions and prepare to vote.
“As a new voter ID state, TurboVote's tools were essential to educating voters of the new law and how to cast their ballot. Local candidates would benefit by utilizing TurboVotes turnout tools,” Tuell said.
Election Guides provide voters with the most important information they need to vote, including key actions based on deadlines to register and cast a ballot. Guides link to official government sources that provide voters access to important forms (e.g., Absentee Ballot Request Forms) and additional verified information. Each Election Guide includes an "Act Now" section clearly highlighting the most important things the voter needs to do to make their plan to vote in a specific election. These pages are published as soon as authoritative information is available for our researchers to review and shape into useful, actionable guidance in both English and Spanish.
Embeddable Voting Hubs allow partners to seamlessly integrate TurboVote election data into their own sites and campaigns. These customizable web pages let users stay on our partners’ websites longer, while still being able to access the crucial election information and voting guidance they need. By adding a Voting Hub to their existing web infrastructure, partners can leverage their brand to communicate the “why” of voting while TurboVote handles the “how.”
The evolution of TurboVote
Throughout 2023, we updated TurboVote with exciting new features to improve usability and help a wider audience of voters and partners. These include Election Guides, which provide voters they key information and actions needed to vote; Address Box, allowing users to search for elections by their address; Embeddable Voting Hubs, which allow partners to integrate TurboVote into their own websites, and Preregistration, which helps future voters age 15-17 register to vote as soon as they're eligible in their states. For more details on these changes, see the Innovation Spotlight boxes throughout the Impact Report.
Voting Information Project
VIP Partner Awards
Democracy Works announced the winner of the second biannual VIP Partner Awards, celebrating the hard work of election offices. State election offices lead the monumental task of facilitating elections, and Democracy Works partners with more than 40 state election offices and Washington, D.C. by helping them communicate with voters and combat the spread of mis-, dis-, and malinformation by publishing their voting location data. Through their participation in the Voting Information Project, these nonpartisan public servants increased access to election information for millions of voters.
To help account for the many ways our state partners go above and beyond, winners were selected in four categories: working with the VIP team to improve their data (Nevada); committing to geo-enabled elections (North Carolina); commitment to providing timely and consistent data (Oklahoma); and for utilizing the Voting Information Tool as a polling location lookup tool (Wyoming).
“Democracy only works because of the public employees who dedicate themselves to ensuring voters can make their voices heard,” said Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar. “Nevada runs some of the best elections in the country thanks to the integrity of the former Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, Deputy Secretary for Elections Mark Wlaschin and the entire elections staff. I'm proud their hard work is being recognized!”
Bolstering the Elections Data Platform
As an election approaches, Democracy Works works directly with election administrators to receive, review, and approve the most up-to-date information on where to vote. Once approved, the data is made available on the Google Civic Information API. This open format makes official election data available and accessible to all. Plus, you don’t have to know how to code to take advantage of the dataset, as the Voting Information Project (VIP) also offers a suite of free-to-use voting location lookup tools. VIP amplifies accurate election information across the internet by making polling places, early vote and ballot drop-off locations easily searchable online on a range of platforms.
Throughout 2023, we continued to modernize and scale the VIP data processing platform in partnership with Google to deliver voting locations and information from states faster, more efficiently and accurately. Further innovations focus on:
- Geo-Enabled Elections: Election officials are modernizing their election management systems by incorporating geospatial data, which allows officials to display voter addresses as pins on a map, draw precinct boundaries as shapes on the map, and automatically include all addresses within those shapes.
- Better Handling of Real Time Feed Changes: The dynamic nature of polling location information, spurred by factors such as natural disasters, threats of violence, and ADA compliance issues, necessitates an agile and real-time response to changes, ensuring that voters are furnished with accurate, updated information, which is crucial for fostering a trustworthy and smooth electoral process.
Civic Alliance
The Civic Alliance is America’s premier nonpartisan coalition of businesses united by our commitment to a thriving democracy. Co-founded by Democracy Works in 2020, the Civic Alliance stands together in support of fair and transparent elections, in which voting is safe and accessible.
In 2023, the Civic Alliance encompassed more than 1,300 member companies with more than 5.8 million employees. Seven virtual events were held for more than 1,800 attendees, including a five-part Civic Summer School series.
The Civic Alliance was also invited to participate in eight speaking engagements, including at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, American Democracy Summit, Democracy Funders Network, and more.
Preregistration helps future voters aged 15-17 register to vote as soon as they are eligible in their states (we previously notified teenagers to register only when they turned 18). Upon signing up with TurboVote, these users are informed whether they’re old enough to register to vote – which depends on their state – and receive notifications reminding them to register. Users can view our new Youth State Voting Guides, which link to official sources with detailed guidance to help future voters navigate the registration process for the first time. Registering as soon as possible helps ensure future voters don’t miss important deadlines and makes it easier for them to actually cast a ballot in their first election.
In Their Words
At Salesforce, civic engagement has been a priority for many years. It’s a way for us to engage employees and the communities in which they live and work. Based on insight from the Civic Alliance’s Corporate Civic Playbook, we know that civic engagement deepens employee purpose and engagement. And a functioning and healthy democracy depends on people who are eligible to show up at the polls and cast an informed ballot. At its most basic function, getting out the vote is crucially important to a business, because a healthy democracy provides the stability that businesses and the market demand. And that’s a priority for Salesforce.
