Mission
The Future of California Elections (FoCE) Network is a nonpartisan network of election officials, reform advocates, civil rights organizations, and civic engagement groups collaborating to advance effective and inclusive election policies and practices.
Our Commitment to Inclusion
The Future of California Elections Network participants work to advance election policies and practices that ensure access to our democracy for all voters regardless of demographics, including race/ethnicity, disability, language, age, sexual orientation, gender and gender identity, socioeconomic status, geography, political preference, or religion. Furthermore, the Network holds itself accountable to ensuring full diversity, equity, and inclusion in its own structure and activities.
The Future of California Elections Network builds on the work of Future of California Elections, the nonprofit. FoCE the nonprofit worked from 2011 to 2020 to build collaboration between election officials and nonprofits with dual goals of modernizing elections and expanding participation.
FoCE held a space for thoughtful election policy discussions among a diversity of voices; was known for inclusive annual conferences and educational events; and was a trusted source for best practices and plain language voter education materials.
This Election Library, developed as the nonprofit closed at the end of 2020, holds the body of work developed by FoCE and its partners under its cross-sector collaboration model. It includes videos, reports, toolkits, sample documents and more. The archive is organized by the categories of FoCE’s work but the Search Bar allows for easy navigation to all resources.
We hope it serves election officials, nonprofits and other partners working in collaboration to strengthen our democracy.
Testimonials
“FoCE proved to be an extraordinary group that impacted California election policy, improved voter education, assisted elections officials in implementing new voter programs like same day registration, online voter registration and vote center election models, and identified ways to improve language and disability access for voters.”
“Because of the groundwork FoCE has laid, in having collaboration, having collaborative talks, and working together, we were able to succeed because of it.”
“I just want to second everyone’s gratitude & appreciation for FoCE. As a newer member of this space, I’ve learned so much from my FoCE colleagues. It’s been really inspiring to hear about the formation, growth, and victories of this group.”
“It has allowed us to educate the entire elections community on the needs of voters with disabilities.”
“Created an invaluable space for advocates and elections officials to discuss issues in detail.”
“It provided tangible examples and strategies to implement in my work.”
“FoCE was my introduction to the amazing network of California election champions, and helped me to better understand elections and voting rights from the perspective of elections officials.”
“FoCE has provided a great medium for sharing ideas and concerns, as well as being a valuable resource for new materials.”
“FOCE has been a great resource to my work – particularly when I was newer to this field, it was extremely helpful to learn from all of the experienced participants sharing their thoughts and challenges on the calls.”
“They really helped us this year (2020) in providing social media toolkits to educate and motivate voters.”
“Amazing network of diverse professionals who are committed to ensuring democracy is alive and well in California.”
“FOCE was part of the founding of the Center for Civic Design, so we were steeped in the collaborative way of working with officials and organizations from our first official project. I can’t even begin to say how important the relationships we made through FOCE are to how we think about our mission, and what we learned from all of our California election friends.”
“FOCE has been instrumental in bringing our organization together with others to amplify and expand our mission of supporting reliable and verifiably secure elections.”
“Provided very helpful information and conversations to relay to our Native American community during this past election. We also used the social media toolkit!”
“It has allowed us to educate the entire elections community on the needs of voters with disabilities.”
“This group delights in the difficulties of the democratic process and making it better.”
“FoCE has helped me in so many ways: improved voter experience, better voter education materials, more effective social media, and invaluable collaborations with other elections geeks! It has helped me be a more creative and responsive County Clerk and it has helped me improve our processes so voters have a better experience.”