The Top Overlooked Elections of 2023

While the media obsesses over the 2024 elections, MVF and our local partners have their sights set on November 7, 2023, when a host of consequential state and local elections take place around the country.

MVF partners are organizing in high gear to make sure youth, voters of color, and other marginalized voters have their voices heard on the issues that matter most to them.

Why Care?

Why should we care about voter engagement in local and state elections? Three reasons:

1. People’s lives. Simply put, state and local governments — and the resources they wield — can have a massive impact on issues like climate, healthcare, abortion rights, gun safety, education, LGBTQ rights, and more.
2. Voting rights. Through election administration, redistricting, and myriad laws around voter eligibility, registration, access, and more, states have enormous power over that fundamental right that safeguards all other rights.
3. Building grassroots power. By empowering voters around local issues that directly affect them, local organizations use non-federal elections as some of the crucial building blocks of power to grow their base of support, recruit volunteers, develop leaders, and build momentum for policy change.

As our partners at Ohio Organizing Collaborative put it: “Democracy is a 365-day endeavor.”

… Worth a Thousand Words

Our partners have shared so many photos of their voter registration efforts, we had trouble choosing… so we put together this slideshow:

Read on for the round-up.

Arizona: City and Municipal Elections

In Arizona, MVF partners including Arizona Coalition for Change, Tomorrow We Vote, Arizona Students’ Association, and Arizona Center for Empowerment are registering new youth voters in advance of the city and municipal elections.

Credit: Arizona Coalition for Change – Student voter registration drive for National Voter Registration Day, 9/19/23

Georgia: Building Power from the Ground Up

In Georgia, MVF partners including Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta, Georgia Muslim Voter Project, and New Georgia Project are registering voters for over 1,000 municipal elections this November. (New Georgia Project’s stats alone? Over 45,000 Georgians registered in 2023.)

Meanwhile, MVF partners are also keeping up the fight to stop “Cop City,” an anti-democratic, corporate-backed plan to cut down 80+ acres of forest and build a police facility in a majority-Black area of Atlanta.

Georgia Muslim Voter Project – Student voter registration drive for National Voter Registration Day, 9/19/23

Ohio: Abortion on the Ballot

In Ohio, MVF partners including Ohio Organizing Collaborative, Ohio Women’s Alliance, and Ohio Voice are registering voters and preparing to turn out the vote for a ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights in the constitution and permanently end a 22-week abortion ban.

Credit: Ohio Women’s Alliance

Pennsylvania: “The Next Big Abortion Battleground”

In Pennsylvania, MVF partners including Make the Road Pennsylvania are registering voters in advance of local, municipal, and state elections, including an open Supreme Court seat, which is being called “the next big abortion battleground” of 2023.

Make the Road Pennsylvania – Registering voters on National Voter Registration Day, 9/19/23

Virginia: “The Most Important Elections of 2023”

In Virginia, MVF partner New Virginia Majority Education Fund is already hard at work getting out the early vote for elections for all 140 state legislative seats, as well as local and municipal races.

New Virginia Majority Education Fund – Registering a voter