In California, 53% of the eligible voting age population turned out for the November 5, 1996 presidential election, two percentage points lower than 1992 and the continuation of a long term pattern of decreasing electoral participation. To combat this trend, many organizations and institutions have engaged in vigorous registration drives. With the help of the recently enacted Motor Voter Law (enabling potential voters to sign up at public agencies like the DMV), the number of registered Californians swelled to a record level of 15.7 million - fully 80% of the voting age population. However, only 65% of all registered voters chose to exercise their franchise - down from 75% in 1992.
In collaboration with twelve adult education and literacy partners around the state of California, the non-partisan Key to Community Voter Involvement Project used a peer-designed model of involvement to address barriers to voting and other forms of civic participation. Issues forums and voting workshops were conducted at each location in September and October, supplemented by non-partisan Easy Reader Voter Guides. The students at these twelve locations represent parts of the population with characteristics typically associated with non-voters, i.e.:
The results of the project are striking: while four out of five of the students at these locations ended up registered, similar to the state population, a remarkable 86% of those registered reported that they went on to vote. When the demographics of this adult student population are taken into account, the fact that two-thirds of the students who were eligible voted in the November 5th election indicates that they participated at a rate of at least double what Californians with similar demographics did in the state as a whole.
A 25-year old Hispanic woman in Sacramento said "I haven't really heard about how to vote. No one in my household has every really voted." She voted for the first time in the November 5th election "because of that little meeting at school," referring to the Key to Community workshop. Asked about what it was like to vote for the first time: "It was really simple. All this time I thought it was going to be something that was really hard."
The in-depth interviews demonstrated increased interest in both community involvement as well as voting among almost all participants. For example, an older woman who had originally said she "had to cut back" on community involvement because of high blood pressure attended an issues discussion and voting workshop. "I'm not the type to start a conversation and the workshop helped...I learned how to talk to people about things, how important neighborhood meetings are even if I just get a chance to meet neighbors and establish a relationship."
While some of the twelve partner adult education/literacy organizations offer citizenship education, only a few of the site coordinators reported much experience with voting or civic participation programs prior to their collaboration with the Key to Community project. Therefore, these results appear directly related to the introduction of the Key to Community program, as corroborated by site coordinators after the election. One reported that 80% of the participants in the Key to Community workshop registered to vote: "Ignorance kept them out of the voting process in the past but the word is definitely out that voting and getting involved is important." A teacher in Merced said: "One of my students got so excited that she went home and got her apathetic husband to vote. She and a couple of other students went on to attend other political events. There is no question that the Key to Community activities had a tremendous impact in getting them to act."
The students who participated in this study represent segments of the population that are ignored by most paid campaigns because they are unlikely voters. Many good government groups have had limited reach into these communities because traditional outreach activities and written materials are relatively ineffective tools for this audience. For many of the new citizens, language continues to be a barrier -- because the level of English required to pass the citizenship test is different than the language skills needed to discuss and decode complex policy issues and candidate statements. The news media has reported that many of the "underclass" are too busy focusing on survival to be interested in politics. A vicious cycle has been created such that the parts of the population least likely to get involved are also the least likely to receive targeted communications about why and how to get involved.
Instead of dismissing these adults as "hard-core" disenfranchised, this study suggests that lack of participation is related to lack of accessible information, lack of opportunities to interact with others on issues of concern and the need to develop a few basic skills and confidence for participation. The results of the research suggest that the Key to Community program and partnerships provided opportunities for "safe" dialogue, hands-on practice and user-friendly non-partisan information.
While the level of electoral and civic participation was related in part to each individual's personality and lifestage, almost all showed a keen interest in expressing themselves and connecting with others. Many of the participants specifically cited aspects of the Key to Community program and associated adult education activities as the stimulus that led to a change in their behavior. One young woman who had not registered before said, "I didn't know where to go get the information. If you didn't have that class about voting, I probably wouldn't have gone (to the polls)." An older woman who had already been voting regularly said "the program [at school] got me thinking about the community...it made me want to get more involved."
Background
The Kettering Foundation sponsored this study of the Key to Community Voter Involvement Project, with the goal of examining what impact issues forums have on voting behavior and other forms of civic involvement. Key to Community uses issues forums as the first step in a three-part program to cover the "why, how and what" of voting and other forms of civic participation. With initial development sponsored by the California State Library for use in library-based literacy programs, the State Literacy Resource Center of California has assisted in expanding Key to Community to public adult schools, community colleges and other adult education facilities across the state. The shared objective of the project and its partners is to increase access to and familiarity with voting process and other forms of community participation among segments of the population who are often excluded from more conventional civic communications because of their education level or cultural background.
The development of the Key to Community project was inspired by studies like A View from Main Street (Kettering Foundation, 1991) which indicated a large untapped desire among the public to become more involved. The goal of this project has been to create practical tools for voter and civic education practitioners that would convert this hypothesis into a reality in the field. A distinctive aspect of the Key to Community Project is that it has been designed by adult learners for their peers. After testing various activities to help address both attitudinal and information-related barriers to voting and other forms of participation, a team of adult reading students chose issues forums followed by an interactive voting workshop and the Easy Reader Voter Guide as the combination that they believed would stimulate involvement among their peers. The complete model with more detail on each component is illustrated in Exhibit I.
This adult learner team also created the name for the project, rejecting the original "Voter Education for Adult Learners" because they believed the word 'voter' would communicate "not for me" to non-voters, and the word 'education' was not a positive one for many people who had unsuccessful experiences in school. Instead, they wanted to provide their peers with tools to explore all types of community involvement -- hence 'Key to Community'. In addition to the How to Vote curriculum which was the focus of this election year study, the Key to Community program has a complementary curriculum and activities about How to be Heard and Make a Difference which also uses issues forums as the catalyst for action.
Methodology/Partners
A pilot conducted during the 1994 election indicated that the Key to Community model of issues forums, peer-led voting workshop and user-friendly voter guide led to increased interest in political participation among most of the participating learners. This study was intended to determine if the findings from the pilot in the San Francisco Bay Area would hold up across the state of California and in a broader range of adult education settings with more diverse students.
The Key to Community model was originally designed by and for ABE (adult basic education) learners who were born in the United States and had incomplete and/or negative experiences with the public education system that left them with limited reading skills as adults. In this study, several of the participating adult education facilities have a high proportion of ESL (English as a Second Language) students. The twelve partners invited to participate include library-based literacy programs, public adult schools, a community college and a youth service and training organization (the California Conservation Corps). A complete list of locations and the number of attendees is provided in Exhibit II.
In total 400 adult students (with some staff and tutors) participated in an issues forum and/or voting workshop. Pre-forum questionnaires were completed by 273 participants before the issue forum, on location at the school or literacy program. For comparison, an additional 167 questionnaires were collected from adult learners who did not attend a forum or workshop. Post-election telephone interviews were conducted by a contract field service, with 251 completed.
Reflecting the student/client profile of the partner programs, this study includes people who are younger than the general population and a high proportion of ethnic minorities, especially Hispanics and Asians. However, these characteristics are consistent with the demographics of those who tend to be most highly represented among non-voters in the state of California. Some non-citizens participated in the program as well. They were included in this study because their level of community involvement was still often very high despite their lack of citizenship.
Overview of Field Activity
In preparation for the November 5, 1996 presidential election, twelve partner locations around California conducted issues forums and voting workshops in September and October and distributed the Easy Reader Voter Guide. In some instances, sites decided to conduct more issues forums depending on their program and goals and/or the level of interest of their adult learners. The locations selected a forum topic from the following National Issues Forums (NIF) books: Education: What Should Our Children Get Out of School?, Pocket Book Pressures, Kids Who Commit Crimes and The Troubled American Family. To accommodate varying reading levels among the participants, a distilled version of the NIF discussion guide was prepared at about a sixth grade reading level. Most of the forums were led by adult learners trained in moderating skills at the regional NIF Public Policy Institute at UC Davis.
In the Key to Community voting workshop, participants engaged in an interactive discussion of why/why not to vote, learned the basics of the voting process (presented in a variety of formats) and reviewed information on the political parties, candidates and ballot measures in order to make informed voting decisions. All activities (including a humorous skit about voting) and handouts were designed, directed and presented by adult learners. The Easy Reader Voter Guide was handed out and discussed at the workshop - and was also distributed to most of the students at each location. Designed and edited by adult learners, the guide provided information about the political parties, statements and photos from each of the of the Presidential candidates, a distilled description of California ballot measures, voting tips and a glossary in sixteen color-coded pages.
Some sites chose to conduct their forum and their workshop as two separate events with the forum and the workshop on different days or evenings, usually about a week apart. Others decided to conduct a combination forum and workshop as a single event on the same day. Site coordinators selected a format based on their plans for recruiting participants as well as scheduling and travel considerations.
All twelve partners reported successful Key to Community events independent of the format or issue forum topic used. However, turnout varied by the type of location and whether the Key to Community activities were part of a required class, offered for class credit or a completely optional extra-curricular activity. Other factors such as transportation and daycare contributed to particularly low attendance at three locations (Solano, Red Bluff and Berkeley). Nonetheless, all site coordinators reported a high level of energy and enthusiasm from most of the participants who did attend. One coordinator summed up her strategy as "start small and get quality...everyone who participated really got something out of it."
Important Note
The findings in this study need to be considered in the context of the limitations of its sources. The qualitative data are based on a small sample of learners and site coordinators. Similarly, the quantitative data is based on a limited sample that reflects the results of recruiting for participants by each of the twelve local partners and does not represent the population as a whole. Natural sampling limitations are exacerbated by this process of local recruiting. Hence, the findings of this study may yield valuable insights and hypotheses but cannot be assumed to project to the population at large.