Helping Every Voter Vote, At Scale
Bull City Votes – a scrappy, grassroots group of volunteers – has partnered with thousands and thousands of Durham, NC neighbors over the past 20 years to connect the dots between the issues they care about and voting, cast their ballots, and ensure their votes count.
Our one-person-at-a-time approach is effective because it is deliberate, and tailored to each voter. And our slow-and-steady work adds up to big results:
In 2024, Bull City Votes volunteers drove over 1,000 voters to the polls – the vast majority of whom would not have voted otherwise, often navigating multiple barriers to voting. We were with these determined folks when they crossed the finish line – in fact, we drove them there!
As context in this razor-thin election margin state: Bull City Votes drove significantly more voters to the polls than the margin of victory for a highly (highly) contested North Carolina Supreme Court race in 2024.
On Election Day 2024, we drove over 40 North Carolina Central University (NCCU) students, many of them first-time voters, back to their home counties when these students learned they could not vote in Durham. We drove a few of these young voters 300 miles round trip – a testament to their commitment to democracy!
Bull City Votes works very hard to minimize provisional balloting, and pride ourselves that our voters rarely have to cast a provisional ballot. When they do, we follow up to help them “cure” their ballot to until their vote is counted.
In 2024, we accomplished something unprecedented. Provisional balloting normally increases as turnout increases, especially in presidential election years. In collaboration with the Student Voting Rights Lab at Duke University and NCCU, we helped double the turnout at NCCU, while reducing the rate of provisional balloting there by 50%. That has never happened in Durham County since provisional ballots were first used in 2004.
Minimizing Provisional Ballots
We are committed to the opportunity to connect person-to-person with each neighbor we meet. This way of being has mutual benefits. And it has made us a trusted resource, especially among those who have reason to distrust traditional institutions. Doing a lot of place-based work, especially at the bus station and on campuses, means people know to expect us there and to send their friends and family there for support. We love connecting with people year after year!
Building Trust
Co-Creating a Robust, Inclusive Democracy
Outside of election season, we work on big-picture opportunities around preserving and expanding our precious and threatened voting rights. We are grateful to work within a broader context of many organizations doing incredible voting rights work.
