Christine Chen delivering her closing remarks during Taste of Democracy 2022 | Screengrab from APIAVote video
WASHINGTON, DC — The Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) is launching an ambitious voter engagement and education campaign in 2024 following a record-breaking turnout in the 2020 elections.
Partnering with 60 organizations in 30 states, APIAVote aims to sustain and build upon growing civic participation in AAPI communities through a multi-layered strategy, including a multilingual direct mail campaign targeting 1.5 million AAPI households in critical states, targeted phone and text banking, digital ads, a voter protection hotline, a presidential town hall, and on-the-ground GOTV efforts, among other activities and initiatives.
“Asian Americans have been the fastest growing group of eligible voters in the U.S. over the past two decades, growing by 15 percent in the last four years alone, and Asian Americans have turned out in record numbers in every federal election since 2016,” said Christine Chen, Executive Director and Co-Founder of APIAVote. “This is all despite a historic lack of engagement by political campaigns and parties. In a year when voters across the board appear more disaffected and disillusioned than ever, our focus at APIAVote is to show that AAPI voters remain engaged in the democratic process and that political candidates and parties should never take them for granted.”
APIAVote plans to spend more than $5 million during the 2024 season, including $3 million in sub-grants to local partner organizations’ civic engagement programs, thanks to funding support from donors such as the Yield Fund, the Wallace H, Coulter Foundation, and Open Society Foundation.
Planned activities
Among the activities and initiatives APIAVote has planned during the 2024 election include:
- Operating a dedicated, multilingual AAPI voter protection hotline (888-API-VOTE)
- A multilingual voter education video series will cover voting rights and registration procedures tailored to AAPI voters across 30 states via several local partner organizations.
- Strategic multilingual digital ad campaigns to reinforce the importance of voting
- -A multilingual direct mail campaign targeting 1.5 million AAPI households in collaboration with partners in key states
- -Recruit and train student ambassadors from 50 college campuses nationwide to serve as APIAVote’s 2024 Youth Ambassadors and implement on-campus voter engagement programs
- -Recently released AAPI Voter State Fact Sheets, which offer insights into voter engagement indicators for all 50 states and the District of Columbia
- -Expanding APIAVote’s capacity to monitor and analyze disinformation trends as they pertain to voting rights, elections, democracy, anti-Asian hate, and harmful narratives about or originating from within the AAPI community
APIAVote will also convene a National AAPI Leadership Summit from July 11-12 and host its Presidential Town Hall in Philadelphia on July 13, providing a crucial forum for engagement. Timed to the Summit and Presidential Town Hall, APIAVote will also release its biannual Asian American Voter Survey—the oldest and longest-running pre-election survey that reveals key election issues that matter most to Asian American voters, including priority issues, political leanings, voting preferences, and favorability scores on candidates.
In addition, APIAVote said the Norman Y. Mineta Leadership Institute (NYMLI) would work with partners nationwide to host training to equip community organizers with the skills and knowledge to drive impactful voter engagement and education initiatives. Focusing mainly on nonprofit staff, community leaders, and volunteers, NYMLI is dedicated to engaging AAPI communities in successful electoral campaigns. The Institute hosts highly localized trainings to ensure that voting laws in each state are accounted for and to share best practices and strategies specific to each locale.
Empowering AAPI communities
With more than $5 million effort from APIAVote, it is just the latest in the leading AAPI civic and voter education nonprofit’s work to effectively engage the nearly 20 million Asian Americans across the United States who have been historically neglected and overlooked in mainstream political polling, campaign and party outreach efforts and other critical conversations in election coverage. APIAVote has cultivated and amplified the rapidly growing voter turnout and political participation of AAPI communities since 2007, investing in their capacity and infrastructure to mobilize voters. This investment, proactively training, and resourcing community leaders nationwide paid off in the 2020 election cycle and Census.
APIAVote Executive Director Christine Chen has been a champion for empowering AAPI communities from the start of her career. It has taken on organizing and leadership roles with organizations like the Organization of Chinese Americans (OCA) while offering expert consulting and guidance services through Strategic Alliances USA — a firm built on her broad and deep pool of relationships and skills in the AAPI community and government. Chen is the foremost expert on the AAPI community’s important role in today’s political landscape. She serves on the Kennedy Center Community Advisory Board and the Center for Asian American Media. She is also a member of the Election Assistance and Policy (EAP) Standing Committee at the American Political Science Association.
–With Ricky Rillera/PDM
