Faith communities get educated on voter engagement

Webinar offers ideas on how to help people to exercise their right to vote

by Darla Carter | Presbyterian News Service

The Rev. Christina Cosby (Photo by Tammy Warren)

LOUISVILLE — Church World Service (CWS) held a webinar Thursday to pass along ways that congregations and faith-based organizations can help get out the vote during this pivotal election year.

The Rev. Christina Cosby of the Presbyterian Office of Public Witness (OPW) was a featured panelist during the event, “Faith Communities and Voter Engagement in the 2024 Election,” which was moderated by the Rev. Noel Andersen, CWS national field director, who explained the significance of the topic.

“This is such an important election year, and the civic engagement role that we play, getting people out to vote, is so critical, especially in terms of coming from our faith perspective, because voting is really an outward expression of hope and prayers that we hold for our cities, our counties, our states, our country,” he said. Throughout history, “equal access to the ballot box has not been easy,” so it’s been a key civil rights goal “that everyone can reach the ballot box who is eligible.”

True to the webinar’s description, it focused on ways “to conduct meaningful non-partisan 501(c)3 friendly voter education, voter registration and voter mobilization” as well as how people of faith can be allies to voters who are naturalized immigrants or refugees.

Along with Cosby, panelists offering suggestions included the Rev. Kendal McBroom, director of civil and human rights at the General Board of Church and Society (United Methodist Church), and the Rev. Dr. Leslie Copeland Tune, senior associate general secretary and director of advocacy for the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC).

The panelists touted resources, such as “Sacred Votes: A Guide to Election Participation, Justice and Social Transformation,” a toolkit from the General Board of Church and Society that stresses the importance of civic engagement, and “Prepare for the Polls,” OPW’s voter education series, which consists of social media videos on Instagram and elsewhere.

McBroom highlighted ideas such as pledging to be a 100% voting congregation and holding Watch Night services during the election season.

“Watch Night is typically a tradition that happens on New Year’s Eve, but it is a practice that churches are bringing into the election space,” McBroom said. “So, the night before early voting, churches are gathering to pray for the election, for the results but also for their own actions — that the Divine would lead them in such a way to make change, to impact change for the greater good and for the people of God.”

McBroom would go on to add, “I do pray that this conversation is both fruitful and it ignites a fire within us to essentially be the hands and feet of the Kingdom of God” in a way that is “rooted in the sacredness of this privilege and this right to transform our societies” through voting.

Cosby highlighted a PC(USA) voter education page, OPW’s “Faith, Democracy and Justice” webinar from March, as well as the ongoing video series created by summer fellows of PC(USA)’s advocacy offices.

“What it strives to do is for young adults to take issues and to speak about issues that matter to the church that our General Assembly has passed this past summer and in previous years and help our constituents to be informed about the policies and positions of the Church, how they impact our neighbors and our communities, and to keep those policies, positions and impacts top of mind and heart as they (voters) head to the polls this November,” she said.

Cosby also shared how her own background, including taking a leadership role at a homeless shelter and later interacting with PC(USA)’s partners as part of World Mission, points to the importance of being civically engaged.

At the shelter, “I got to spend many nights and enjoy many conversations with our homeless neighbors, many of whom had full-time, 9-to-5 jobs but couldn’t afford housing in the city or had to choose between housing and health care, and that really showed me, first-hand, the brokenness in our systems and that all things are not equal,” Cosby said.

With World Mission, “I really saw how our U.S. policy impacts our global partners in the PC(USA) and that our decisions that we make as voters and citizens in this country have an international impact that goes beyond our borders.”

Andersen noted that CWS, as a refugee resettlement organization, is focused on turning out naturalized refugees to vote despite barriers such as increased voter ID laws and difficulties obtaining interpretation and multi-language resources. To assist, CWS is doing videos on how to register to vote and find polling places, along with other resources, he said.

Also, “we’re connecting with mosques that we work with,” Andersen said. “We’re connecting with different immigrant communities and faith communities that we work with, and we’re reaching out to them. We’re saying, ‘How can we be allies? How can we get you the information that you need in the languages that you need? And also, how can we be accompanying people who might be discriminated against at the polling location and making sure that that’s not happening? As you all know, the faith presence of clergy, but also non-clergy, is really important at the polling spaces.”

The Rev. Dr. Leslie Copeland Tune

Copeland Tune highlighted the recent NCC Freedom Summer, a faith-based civic engagement campaign inspired by the 1964 Freedom Summer, which was an effort to register voters and integrate Mississippi’s segregated political system.

She also talked about the importance of helping people to overcome financial and transportation-related hurdles. “There are places where they are paying for Uber drivers and Lyft drivers to take people to the polls,” she said.

She also promoted National Voter Registration Day (Sept. 17) and noted that NCC will be doing a social media campaign “and asking our churches to share that information as well.”

People interested in getting information about becoming poll chaplains can go to www.turnoutsunday.com to learn more about it, Copeland Tune noted.

“I’ve done it before,” she said, adding, “You’re not pushing any candidate. You’re just kind of a witness there for people,” and if anything alarming happens, “you’re there as a presence to de-escalate” and bring calm.

The Office of Public Witness is one of the Compassion, Peace and Justice ministries of the Presbyterian Mission Agency.