| Michigan Citizens Education Fund (MCEF) is a leader of efforts to increase civic and voter participation, especially among the traditionally under-represented constituencies who have a history of infrequent voting - people of color, single mothers, youth, the GLBT community members, and other disenfranchised individuals. MCEF conducts civic engagement work including:
Issue education: MCEF advances our agenda in the context of civic engagement. We mobilize voters by educating our members and the public.
Get Out the Vote: MCEF is committed to voters, especially those who traditionally do not vote regularly, by telling voters about why to vote, where to vote, and how to vote.
Ensuring that every vote counts: MCEF and its partners conduct voter educational and voter protection activities to ensure that every possible voter can vote, and that every vote is counted.
MCEF has a successful history of educating Michigan Citizen Action members, the public, and members of the legislature about issues that strengthen the social, economic and health security for all Michigan citizens. We conduct all of our programs in a non-partisan manner by educating citizens about the electoral process, and encouraging them to become involved in civic engagement activities and the voting process.
MCEF is inveterate coalition builder. In conjunction with our national affiliate, USAction Education Fund, we are part of the nation's largest network of statewide, multi-issue progressive coalitions. We have worked in collaboration with numerous organizations, big and small, to make common cause. We provide each of our issue coalitions with values-based messages that are linked to our common progressive beliefs, and we have a history of success.
Past Accomplishments
MCEF has been conducting successful civic engagement projects since 1996, when MCEF conducted its first Transit Voter Registration Project. The project, which was designed to register persons who use the public transit system as their primary means of transportation, was so successful that it became a model that was duplicated across the country for similar projects. MCEF's Transit Voter Registration Project has grown from one system (1) in 1996, to 16 systems in 2002, which has resulted in over 12,000 new registered voters with a history of 85% of the newly registered voters having voted in the next election, after they were registered.
Additional civic engagement accomplishments include:
2004 Election: Michigan Citizens Education Fund launched the Voter Education Project across Michigan in 2004. New voters were registered in Flint, Saginaw, Detroit, Pontiac, Grand Rapids, and Kalamazoo totaling over 65,000 new registered voters. Following the November 2004 election, election results showed that 87% of the newly registered voters, whom we registered, VOTED.
2004 Detroit: MCEF worked in over 200 precincts that resulted in a 15% voter increase for the same precincts as compared from 2000 data to 2004 data. In Flint, MCEF worked in 20 precincts (1/3 of the total precincts), which resulted in a 38% voter increased for the same precincts as compared from 2000 data to 2004 data. MCEF trained 8 interns in the areas of community organizing and civic engagement. These interns served as Field Organizers in both Detroit and Flint.
2005 Election: MCEF registered over 12,000 Michigan voters and made sure that they got to the polls to vote in November 2005.
2006 Election: MCEF registered over 10,000 Michigan voters and made sure that they got to the polls to vote last November, resulting in 83% of newly registered voters voting.
5000 Project: The "5000 Project" was initiated to increase the voter's voice by registering new voters, educating voters, and encouraging local voters to get out the vote on November 7, 2006. The "5000 Project" focused on seventeen (17) selected precincts in Kalamazoo County that have historically high levels of infrequent voters.
Using the last non-presidential election in 2002 as the baseline, the goal was to increase the voter turnout by 5000 in November 2006, for a total of 11,459 voters in 17 precincts. On November 7, 2006, Kalamazoo County produced a record-breaking turnout in the number of new and infrequent voters who cast their ballots on Election Day. |
