Jim Clark, founder of the Global Partnership for Civic Engagement and a longtime Democratic Party insider, said that early this year, on the cusp of the midterm elections, people reached out to him around a common theme.
“I was having so many people contact me about their anxiety about democracy and saying, ‘Jim, what do we do?’” he recalled.
It prompted him to start Democracy Dinners, a nonpartisan effort to recruit volunteers to urge their friends and family members to register to vote. He launched the program officially this week and said it aims to make voter registration drives, and get-out-the-vote efforts, more personalized. Instead of a stranger with a clipboard, Clark’s vision relies on people calling, texting and emailing their neighbors, friends and relatives.
