GIVING THE PEOPLE A VOICE STRENGTHENING DEMOCRACY

WE PUSHED BACK ON PARTISAN GERRYMANDERING.

Since its launch five years ago, Draw the Lines PA (DTL), our citizen mapping initiative, has brought unprecedented transparency and citizen engagement to the hugely important process of redistricting. A total of 7,211 citizen mappers spent more than 25,000 hours of their own time drawing maps. In part because of our work, the congressional map selected in 2022 was far better on objective metrics than what was produced in 2011, and the state legislative maps saw major improvements as well.

DTL’S FUNDERS: William Penn Foundation, Heinz Endowments, Hillman Family Foundations, Posner Foundation, Pottstown Area Health & Wellness Foundation, Independence Foundation, Grable Foundation, and the Benedum Foundation

EVENTS AND CLASS VISITS: 340 (IN 40

“I thought the Committee of Seventy and the methodology used here was really commendable … Congratulations to all those involved in a really transparent process.”

SCHOOLS INVOLVED: 155

MAPPERS REGISTERED: 7200+

COMPETITION ENTRIES: 1500+ PEOPLE REACHED: 12,300+ MAPS WORKED ON: 10,000+

PRIZE MONEY AWARDED: $135,000

Draw the Lines educational resources are still online www.drawthelinespa.org

We led the charge to open up primary elections in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania’s closed primary elections have shut out more than one million voters from important elections every year. That’s why, this year, we launched Ballot PA to repeal closed primaries. Our efforts have resulted in increased momentum and support for enfranchising independent voters, particularly military veterans.

Our team testified at public hearings the State Senate held in April and the State House in August about the need to give Pennsylvania’s 1.1 million independent voters the chance to participate in primary elections.

THANK YOU TO COALITION PARTNERS: Veterans for Political Innovation, RISE Veterans, PUMP, Common Cause PA, Business for America, League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, Independent Pennsylvanians, PhillySetGo, Open Primaries, Center for Advocacy for the Rights and Interests of Elders

FUNDERS: Heinz Endowments, Hillman Family Foundations, Unite America, and individual donors.

Scan to watch the video here

We put residents first in drawing local political lines.

For decades, the process Philadelphia City Council used to redraw its 10 districts was notoriously opaque and without real opportunities for residents to participate. During the 2021 councilmanic redistricting, Seventy led an engagement campaign to inform communities about the issue, collect input, and press Council to hold an open process. The effort was successful in limiting the number of communities split by district lines and convincing City Council to count prisoners in their home districts for the purposes of map-drawing, a first in city history to address “prison gerrymandering.” The endeavor also resulted in Councilman Derek Green introducing a redistricting reform proposal to put the drawing of district boundaries formally into the hands of residents.

We pressed Congress to Reform the Electoral Count Act

Seventy’s President and CEO Al Schmidt spoke with members of Congress to sound the alarm on threats to democracy and pinpoint vulnerabilities in state and federal election law. Advocacy by Seventy and other good-government and voting rights organizations, including Issue One, R Street Institute, and the Brennan Center for Justice, led to the bipartisan Electoral Count Act, which modernizes the process for counting Electoral College votes and added safeguards against manipulation and subversion of the democratic process.

We expanded language access for voters.

Seventy partnered with community leaders and Philadelphia election officials in developing a plan to expand voter resources in six new languages beyond Spanish and Chinese, which are covered under the federal Voting Rights Act. Election guides, voter applications and polling place signage are now offered in Russian, Vietnamese, Khmer, Arabic, Haitian-Creole, and Portuguese, providing critical information in the primary language for thousands of city voters. Collaboration with City Commissioner Seth Bluestein on the initiative will also lead to the creation of a new Language Access Advisory Committee as a formal group to advise and support city officials in continuing to improve the experience of limited-English-proficient voters.