Worried About the State of Democracy? Go Local.

We often write primarily for folks already working to protect and promote a thriving American democracy. But today, we’re writing for folks who want to get in on the act, but might not know where to start.

Lots of Americans have been concerned about the health of American democracy for years now. In the lead up to last year’s presidential election, well over 75% of likely democratic and republican voters named “democracy” as a very important issue. But those voters were often concerned about very different aspects of democracy.

Overall, Americans have been losing trust in their federal government for decades – dropping from nearly 80% trusting the federal government under Eisenhower and Kennedy “to do the right thing almost always or most of the time,” to around just 25% for Obama, Trump (45) and Biden. This is one of the issues that international experts on democracy point to when they raise alarms about democratic backsliding in the US.

The complexity of how to promote a thriving liberal democracy can feel overwhelming to experts and everyone else too: the rise in hate speech and hate crimes, the loneliness epidemic, congressional gridlock, worries about election integrity, polarization, mis- and dis-information, fragmented media, attacks on the rule of law, and money in politics are just a few of the elements that contribute to the fraying fabric of democracy. It’s difficult to imagine solving any one of these issues at the national level, let alone all of them.

But, that doesn’t mean American citizens are stuck waiting it out and hoping for the best. Instead, the folks working in cross-partisan spaces across the country say: go local!

For example, this could mean working locally on election integrity, structural reform, trust-building, civic assemblies, and local solutions journalism.

Local Trust and Election Integrity

For starters, polling about the state of democracy is terrible at the national level, but good at the local – county – level. Polls last year in the run up to the election showed that Pennsylvanians trust their county officials even when they don’t trust national tallies. This polling is backed up by local elections officials themselves. Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams noted at a national conference, that while conspiracy theorists point to grand overlords, the real people who run the election are “your neighbors… people that you literally know.”

Also, opportunities for cross-partisan election integrity work are scarce at the federal level these days, but not necessarily so at the state and local levels! An article from Just Security posted some pro-tips for states to protect local elections and election officials. They suggest:

Ensure funding, security, and protection of personal information
Create state-based threat task forces
Consider new actions to deter threats

Recent cuts to federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are going to make state responses even more important. What can you do? Call your state representatives to ask them to step up with funding and election resources. Also, be a poll worker! It’s fun and informative to see the election up close.

Innovative Voting Systems: Ranked Choice and Fusion Voting

Speaking of elections, wouldn’t it be great if our voting systems gave us better options than A versus B? Well, folks in the structural reform space have been advocating for a variety of voting reforms that might break the cycle of hyper-partisan politics. Ranked Choice Voting and Fusion Voting are two of the methods that can help break the “us v. them” cycle at the ballot box.

Fusion Voting is a practice where one candidate can be nominated by more than one party. Currently, this system can be found at work in New York and Connecticut.

Ranked Choice Voting is a practice where every voter gets to rank their choices in order of preference. If a voter’s top choice receives the smallest number of votes, their ballot now gets counted toward their second choice, and so on. Once a candidate receives a majority of votes, the election is called. This system is also called “instant run-off” voting.

Both systems encourage candidates to develop broad coalitions and avoid extreme positions. They also avoid the “spoiler” or “wasted vote” problems that crush third parties and keep us stuck with the two we’ve got.

In the November 2024 election, ranked choice voting was voted down at a lot of state level initiatives, but it is growing at the local level. The more folks that become familiar with it at the local level, the more likely it is to pass at state levels and to spread. What can you do? Get involved with organizations like Fair Vote which promotes ranked choice voting across the county.

Solutions Journalism: Fixing the News Media Problem

What about the fragmented, partisan, and clickbait media system that keeps us wrapped up in our own rage bubbles? There’s a movement in journalism to solve some of these issues too. First, as above, go local! And also, be solutions-oriented!

Local news is super important for upholding local democracy. Why? Because it keeps us connected to our actual neighbors, and the local issues we care about – if the local hospital is closing, when that construction is going to finally finish up, and whether the mayor got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. If we don’t know about these issues, we can’t work together as a community to solve them.

But local news also supports national democracy, because staying connected to real people in our real neighborhoods tends to reduce polarization.

This is all even more powerful when local news outlets use the tools of “solutions journalism.” That’s when news outlets focus on how folks are trying to solve problems instead of yelling about how terrible everything is.

For example, what if the paper covered how the neighborhood kids organized to advocate with the city for safe crosswalks through the construction near the school, instead of just channeling complaints that it isn’t done yet. That would be something you could get involved in, right? Right.

What can you do? First, become a paying subscriber to your local paper or outlet. Second, ask them if they are a solutions-oriented outlet and encourage them to become so if they aren’t already.

Getting Involved in Local Government and Policy Development

You can get involved in your local municipal government at the county or city levels to solve real, local problems with your actual neighbors. A few cities have implemented robust processes for involving citizens in policy development outside the ballot box. Here are a couple of examples:

Macon, Georgia revitalized their downtown and city outskirts by developing their plan by, with, and for local citizens. It’s been a real success. One of the keys was that the city and local funders gave grants to local folks to develop their own solutions! The outcome was a project that felt like the community owned it – not just the city.

In Montrose, Colorado, the issue wasn’t a lackluster downtown, it was a debilitating lack of accessible childcare. There, with the help of a funder, the city called a Citizen’s Assembly to help solve the issue. A citizen’s assembly is a bit like a jury – the municipality calls a random selection of citizens together to decide an issue, but in this case, it was how to solve a public challenge. Local leadership publicly committed to following through on the assembly’s recommendations.

What can you do? Get in touch with your city or county government about a local issue of general concern, and ask if they’d be willing to approach the problem with more citizen input than town halls. In fact, you could write an op-ed in your local paper (see above!) and invite your neighbors to join you in this call.

Making Change from Your Neighborhood

If you think your local government is unreachable, look around your own neighborhood and do something, with your neighbors, to make it better. You can host a block party, turn that empty lot into a community garden, or get a bunch of neighbors to paint over the graffiti in the park.

If you want to tag in to a project someone is already doing in your area, check out Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute. They have an incredible map of folks across the country doing things with and for their neighbors. You can find one near you, or add your own work to the map.

You can also join any of the hundreds of thousands of local nonprofits doing some specific good thing in your community. Find one. Serve a meal, volunteer to teach kids to read, pick up litter off the street, or literally do any small act you can do to serve and connect with a neighbor. I promise it matters to your neighbors and to democracy at large.

American democracy is not going to be fixed by politicians or judges, though they have their role. It’s not even going to be fixed by voting. That’s because the office of citizen is much bigger than the privilege of voting. To be a citizen is to participate actively in rebuilding trust, to work with others for the common good, and to work together to solve the complex problems that face us all (shoutout to Harry Boyte for this definition of citizen).

Finally, once you’ve chosen your thing – talk about it! Mention it on your social accounts (tag us to let us know we inspired you!), talk about it with your friends, and invite others to join you for the next time.