Our Mission
Every Vote Counts (EVC) is a student-led, nonpartisan organization dedicated to increasing voter turnout and expanding voter access nationwide.
We build towards our vision of an engaged public by helping students, chapters and partners become year-round hubs of civic engagement on campus, and by activating our student network across three initiative areas: elections and voter engagement, civic education, and pro-voter advocacy and reform.
We help students either start a dedicated, institutionalized organization on campus, or work to support and amplify existing student-led efforts.
Why Every Vote Does Count
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President Trump won the 2016 presidential election by only 77,744 votes out of 136 million votes cast – less than the capacity of the Rose Bowl.
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In 2017, control of Virginia’s House of Delegates and the swing from Republican to Democratic control came down to a single vote in one race – and was eventually resolved by picking one candidate’s name out of a ceremonial bowl.
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In the 2000 presidential race between George W. Bush and Al Gore, Bush carried Florida by 537 votes out of 6 million cast in the state, giving him an Electoral College victory.
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The winner of Atlanta’s 2017 mayoral race eked out an 832-vote victory, or less than one percent of all 92,000 votes cast.
Voting rights are the cornerstone of our democracy, and voting the fundamental “operating system” of the American republic. But significant challenges to voting rights today threaten to hold back democracy on the electoral and legislative level.
More and more, we see election results with razor-thin margins: Democracy in action can mean that elections are decided by the equivalent of randomly tossing a coin or, in 2000, by a controversial Supreme Court decision.