Healthy Democracy Campaign’s 2024 High Impact Actions

Your ask can be as simple as asking your audience to order a Vot-ER badge or asking for a commitment to participate in specific civic engagement actions such as participating in a voter registration event. Your goal for this event is to register at least 20 voters! Chat with your HDC coach on the best ways to host a virtual event! Here are some examples from last year’s HDC:

Host a virtual voter registration event on Zoom using Vot-ER digital materials 

Host a virtual presentation on the importance of civic engagement in your community where you encourage participants to check their voter registration status

University of Miami hosted a virtual watch party for a movie about civic engagement and democracy with a discussion at the end

Teach your teammates and others involved in your HDC team how to use Vot-ER badges to help register voters! Host your own trainings before class begins, during grand rounds, or set up your own lunch n’ learns.
For more information about using Vot-ER badges, take a look at our Badge 101. We also encourage you to attend one our Vot-ER Basics trainings to gain some additional knowledge on badges.

Work with your faculty advisor / institution to develop a lesson or section of an existing course dedicated to examining the social determinants of health and the link between voting and health outcomes. Gain bonus points on top of the lesson by having students check their voter registration right there, on the spot using your team’s specific Vot-ER voter registration links. You might even be able to recruit more people to your team too!

While registering your peers to vote is essential to your HDC efforts, taking your voter registration ‘super powers’ out into the surrounding communities is a perfect way to ensure more voices are heard come Election day. Chat with your HDC coach on the best ways to partner with a community based org and use our email template to introduce your team! Here are some examples from last year’s HDC:

Saint Leo University partnered with Camelot Community Care, a non-profit charity helping families experiencing abusive situations, to hold a voter registration drive 

Healing The Vote partnered with their University hospital to host a table at their community health fair where they registered voters

UMiami partnered with American Medical Association and UMiami Law Center to host a panel on civic health and health justice where audience members checked their voter registration status

Bringing people together and energizing peers is the perfect way to make sure everyone knows how interconnected health and voting are. Your ask can be as simple as asking your audience to order a Vot-ER badge, check their voter registration status or commit to joining your team. Your goal for this event is to register at least 20 voters! Chat with your HDC coach on the best ways to host an in-person event! Here are some examples:

Hosting a tabling event at a school fair 

Presenting on Vot-ER and the HDC at a school assembly

Work with your school’s administration to give the entire student body time off to vote on Election Day. You can use our guide here to build out an exact plan for how to make this happen at your school. Access our FREE guide HERE.

You’ve ordered your Vot-ER voter registration badges, now you’re ready to use them! Your team’s badge holders will be having conversations with peers and patients, reminding them that health and voting are connected, and encouraging them to check their voter registration. While not every badge ‘scan’ will result in someone registering to vote, those initial ‘scans’ are the first part of the effort, so you definitely earn points there. For every 100 scans your team gets on your Vot-ER Badges, your team will earn HIA points! Click here to learn more about how to use your badge.

Chat with your HDC coach to get the cookout going! This action is meant to inspire community building efforts. At your team’s cookout or block party, your team will have a goal of registering as many community members to vote as possible. Your goal for this event is to register at least 20 voters!

Think you can get your university’s leadership to send all students and staff an email reminding them to check their voter registration using a Vot-ER link? Then absolutely go for it! Use our template to help make the ask. If you need help, add your Vot-ER coach for support. You can access a FREE customizable template for your email HERE!

Building a Vot-ER Chapter at your institution will cement your commitment to building lasting student civic engagement on campus. Your HDC team will be able to pass the torch to new students interested in building a healthier democracy in the upcoming years. Our guide to building a Vot-ER student chapter can be found HERE