Parades, street theater, open-air debates and festivals were once part of America’s voting culture.
A grant awarded Tuesday will bring some of that “fun” back to the presidential voting process.
Akron is one of four pilot cities chosen to launch an initiative called “The Joy of Voting Project.” The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation awarded $125,000 to a Seattle-based group called Citizen University, which will partner with local groups to come up with community projects.
In each of the four cities — Akron, Miami, Philadelphia and Wichita, Kan. — five projects will be selected to get an average of $3,600. The experiments will serve as models of what a vibrant, participatory culture of voting could look like, event coordinators say.
The fun and enjoyment of voting has disappeared from the process, said Stephen Brooks, associate director of the University of Akron’s Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, the local partner for Citizen University. “It’s perceived by many as a chore or a duty as opposed to something you’re supposed to feel good about.”
The Joy Of Voting Project aims to help address a growing trend of lower voter turnout in local elections.
Voter turnout is always higher during presidential elections, said Brooks, though there is still a trend of lower turnout.
According to U.S. Census figures, voter turnout fell for two consecutive presidential elections from 64 percent in 2004 to 62 percent in 2012.
Voter turnout is even lower during off-year or spring election cycles, Brooks said.
Each participating city is in the process of building its team to generate ideas for proposals; Akron’s group will meet on April 28. Pilot projects could range from festivals to outdoor performances to interactive apps and hybrid experiments that fuse arts, technology and organizing, coordinators say.
Akron Knight Foundation Program Director Kyle Kutuchief said he pushed hard for Akron to be among the pilot cities for the events, which will most likely be in the days leading up to the presidential election in November. There also will be early voting events, since that is a growing element of voting.
“I told them Ohio, Ohio, Ohio. We pick presidents here. I think it’s a wonderful test,” Kutuchief said.
Kutuchief said he’d like to see events in Akron that are authentic to the community.
“Projects like these have the potential to create a culture where voting and, in turn, greater civic engagement is not just a responsibility but rather a deeply engrained, joyfully embraced right. It is what is means to be an American, what it means to belong to the communities we call home,” Benjamin de la Peña, Knight Foundation director of community and national strategy, said in a news release.
Events will be for all ages, but Ben Phillips, program manager for Citizen University, acknowledged that getting young people, or millennials, to the polls is important.
“It’s about everybody wanting to be a part of the voting,” he said.
Brooks said he’ll leave the creative ideas to the teams working on the events, but he envisions festivals and fun events as both a way to celebrate people who have just voted as well as getting people excited to go to the polls.
“We want to make it more exciting than the ‘I got the I Voted sticker,’ ” he said.
Betty Lin-Fisher can be reached at 330-996-3724 or blinfisher@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her @blinfisherABJ on Twitter or www.facebook.com/BettyLinFisherABJ and see all her stories at www.ohio.com/betty.