a t this week's Round Table, Kris,Ava, Madeline, Kenisha, and I spoke with Joy Malonza, founder of The Down Ballot. The Down Ballot seeks to help voters more easily, seamlessly, and intimately engage with the electoral processes that determine their state representatives. Joy’s political values were forged when she moved to the U.S. at age 9. There was lots of talk about politics in her family and lots of frustrations about the broken systems they experienced. She initially planned to work in economic development but became disillusioned—and a socialist :) George Floyd’s murder and the subsequent protests were the catalysts that sparked her recognition of the need for something like The Down Ballot to provide information for activists to become engaged voters. Protests aren’t going to bring us universal health care; it’s only ultimately going to happen in the legislative chambers. Joy recognized how much language around voting is opaque and off-putting which, combined with broad based voter suppression efforts, keeps communities she cares about disenfranchised. She went through tons of data on who votes and doesn’t vote. Spoiler alert: older white people vote, and landlords raising rents always vote. Voting at the local level is POWER. Others are showing up so if you don’t, you cede power. Meanwhile, a lot of people don’t know why midterms matter–so The Down Ballot needs to educate them. Joy has been experimenting with several different depths and displays of content, landing on providing brief interviews with candidates, calling out sneaky language, and more. She’s now going super hard with outreach to try to double their 40,000 followers because the midterms are sooo important. A lot of seats are being vacated and could lead to a change in party power. Joy emphasizes that there are many ways to be an activist; she chooses to focus on the legislative and hopes you will too. Thank you for listening!
