MAKING OUR VOICES COUNT! discussion guide: Learn more
SPECIAL CHAPTER: National Voting Resource Guide
Welcome to our MAKING OUR VOICES COUNT! discussion guide resources page for Chapter 1. You can use these links to further the conversation about the topics covered in this chapter. If you don't have a discussion guide, visit our shop to purchase one. You'll find context on each chapter with discussion questions and so much more! This discussion guide can be used in so many different ways. If you have an organization whose mission goes hand in hand with one or all of our chapters, you can take the whole film or just the corresponding chapter, screen it for your members and use the guide to lead a discussion. Or you could hold a community screening of the entire feature film with a guided conversation after the viewing. You could invite someone from the film to your school, organization, church, etc. (we'll be happy to connect you!) to speak about the film, lessons from the guide, and so much more! Email us at info@aubinpictures.com for more info.
National Perspective:
A significant portion of the voting population in America do not vote. In the 2016 presidential election, 55.7% of the U.S. voting-age population cast ballots, the lowest in a presidential election since 1996.[1] Further, among the 35 highly developed democratic states of the Organization Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United States placed 28th in voter participation.[2] While civic engagement and good citizenry encompasses more than voting, voting is an essential part of healthy and thriving democracy. However, as we learned in Power for the People, if the system has failed and ignored you repeatedly because you are poor and/or Black, the argument that voting is essential sometimes rings unconvincing. Pick up your copy of the discussion guide to learn more.
Resources On Voter Mobilization:
- Read Brookings Institute's Why Voter Mobilization Matters?
- Read through The Atlantic’s Why Non-Voters Matter
- Read Scholars Strategy Network’s How to increase voter participation in low-turnout communities: Research brief
- Read through George Washington University’s Young Voter Strategies, a compilation of the most recent research on traditional & innovative voter turnout techniques.
- Read through The Washington Post’s How to mobilize reluctant voters
Helpful Voter Guides:
- Visit Can I Vote?, a nonpartisan web site was created by state election officials to help eligible voters figure out how and where to go vote.
- Visit FairVote, a nonpartisan champion of electoral reforms that give voters greater choice, a stronger voice, and a representative democracy that works for all Americans.
- Visit VOTE411.org, a "one-stop-shop" for election related information. It provides nonpartisan information to the public with both general and state-specific information.
- Visit Rock the Vote, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to building the political power of young people. Visit Indivisible and read the Practical Guide For Resisting The Trump Agenda.
- Visit Movement Voter Project (MVP), a service that provides tools for activists and donors to connect with hundreds of grassroots and national movement-building and voter engagement groups across the United States.