by Cayley DeLancey ’21
As the pandemic escalates, elections have fallen to the backburner in media coverage. However, a lack of progressive and strong environmental initiative in Washington remains a pressing concern. This is where the Environmental Voter Project comes in to keep environmentally-oriented voters engaged.
At the end of February this year, Maya Ron ’21 and I stepped into the role of Campus Coordinators for Mount Holyoke. Unfortunately, the college campus closed before we were able to begin arranging vote drives.
The Environmental Voter Project (EVP) was founded in 2015 by Nathaniel Stinnett, in an effort to “significantly increase voter demand for environmental leadership by identifying inactive environmentalists and then turning them into consistent activists and voters,” states the EVP website. Stinnett noticed that environmental issues continually ranked as a low priority for politicians, because while many American voters prioritize environmental issues, over 15 million voters were not showing up to the polls on Election Day.
The EVP is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that uses public voter information, data analytics and modeling tools to identify environmentalists who don’t vote. Volunteers text bank, phone bank and canvas identified non-voters to notify them about upcoming elections and ask them if they plan to vote. Voters can also sign the EVP Pledge to be a consistent voter and to always prioritize environmental issues. In 2018, EVP contacted over two million non-voting environmentalists, and added almost 60,000 environmental voters to the electorate.
As COVID-19 has changed the political landscape, EVP has worked to keep voters updated on election modifications.
“We are looking into the specifics about vote-by-mail and no excuse absentee options in all of the states we are active in,” said Shannon Seigal ’19, EVP’s Organizing Director and a Mount Holyoke alum. “For now we're really excited to talk to voters about vote-by-mail in Florida (which has over a million inconsistently voting environmentalists) and Colorado (which has an almost entirely vote-by-mail system already). There are also bills being proposed in Congress right now that would allow vote-by-mail across the whole country, so we're keeping a close eye on how that important legislation progresses.”
Seigal runs EVP’s Campus Coordinator internship program. Campus coordinators organize campus voter registration drives, campus campaigns to sign the Environmental Voter Pledge and EVP volunteer events, like phone banks and text banks. In addition, they work with other environmental and political groups on campus to plan events to help turn out the vote.
“What really drew me to EVP was that it’s a nonpartisan organization,” Ron said. “Party lines are so divisive even though there are politicians in both parties that may not align with their party stance. I liked that EVP was enabling people to look past that label and work towards common ground, which in my opinion is the best hope of enacting change.”
For the past two weeks, Ron and I have been participating in EVP’s text banks for Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania recently enacted a new Vote-By-Mail option so that people can vote without having to go to the polls, as the PA primary was just pushed back to June 2. I derive a lot of joy from feeling like I’m making a positive impact in turning out the vote when people respond to the texts I send saying that they’ve signed up for Vote-By-Mail and will help their friends and family enroll as well.
Seigal says that she hopes “the work we're doing now to help nonvoting environmentalists sign up for mail-in voting where available will make it easier for them to vote not only in the midst of COVID-19 but in all of their elections moving forward.”
On campus, Ron says she looks forward to collaborating with other groups on campus, such as Swing Left, and helping register people to vote. “I'm excited to table and just generally get the word out,” she said.