Hannah Walker

ExpandingEngagement

Made possible by support from @arnoldventures.bsky.social @publicagenda.bsky.social & @ispsyale.bsky.social

The #ExpandingEngagementLab is stoked to build on this to learn how engage other chronic non-voters!

expandingengagement.org 9/9

Register To Vote: Find out all you need to know about protecting your vote for the 2024 election — Grassroots Leadership Have questions about voter registration deadlines, requesting absentee or mail-in ballots, or how to vote in-person during early voting or on Election Day?

This work was completed in partnership with #GrassrootsLeadership who were integral to making the project happen and who carry on the work -- to that end, the public facing report sets out lessons learned for both academics and organizers 8/9

www.grassrootsleadership.org/vote

But mailers are expensive & impractical & are we even reaching the pop of interest? Does this strategy work if we go straight to justice impacted people themselves?

YES: An on-the-ground relational organizing experiment is encouraging (but v challenging to study, see the paper for details) 7/9

Can we find the active social ties, send them a mailer asking them to register their loved one, and would they do it?

YES! Even people who are not already active organizers can be prompted to get their loved ones to register: 6/9

Would mobilization by loved ones even work if the person in question doesn't value voting?

YES! Qualitative evidence suggests that social ties have lots of tools available to them to engage even skeptical voters 5/9

Are there even any such ties?

YES! Mapping relationships across admin records suggests many system impacted people are connected to others who are active voters... 4/9

So we thought, let's see if we can find them, contact them, enlist their help in mobilizing their people, and test how well it works! (we're ambitious like that 😉)

But would it even work? System impacted people are often surrounded by other non-voters who have high skepticism of the state... 3/9

The working paper & public report synthesize lessons learned from a suite of 2024 projects.

We ask: How can system impacted people be (re)incorporated into electoral politics?

We argue: The politically active loved ones of system impacted people are powerful mobilizers in their communities! 2/9

Registering Returning Citizens Via Social Ties — ExpandingEngagement

📢 WORKING PAPER ALERT 📢

"Bridges to the Ballot: How Loved Ones Can Mobilize Voters with Criminal Records" w/ @arielrwhite.bsky.social @allipatter.bsky.social & #TylerLudwig

expandingengagement.org/projects/reg... 1/9

Punchline: diversity matters! in the simulation, diversity on the bench reduces sentence length for Black defendants

get ‘em Nick!!

He uses and innovative chat experiment to assess whether having diverse colleagues changes the decision making of dominant group members

Another great talk, this time from Nick Ottone @nottone.bsky.social at @priec.bsky.social on the impact of group based diversity on downstream sentencing decisions

(He’s on the market!! Look out, he’s on the way up!!)

She has maps! Keep your eye on her, she’s just getting started #hookem

they do this in an effort to revitalize their communities,
but their interests are out of step with long term residents

Drawing on an array of admin data that allows her to isolate household effects, she finds that gentrifiers move into their new neighborhoods and vote more in local elections

Another great presentation from UT grad @averrilli.bsky.social on her project “Moving in and Mobilizing” about gentrifier behavior in their new neighborhoods @priec.bsky.social

She is a rising star and on the market!

great pol psych work from one of our best, look out for her this job market season!!!

and increases sympathy for more conservative voters in the group while decreasing it for marginalized outgroups…

She finds that being high on respectability politics depresses participation…

Off to a great start at #CUBoulderPRIEC @priec.bsky.social! UT grad @mirandasullivan.bsky.social presenting her excellent work on the impact of respectability politics among Latines… she finds…

(She’s on the market! Keep your eye on this rising star 🌟#hookem)

Good morning everybody! Time for my favorite conference on the planet #BoulderPRIEC @priec.bsky.social (aside from J&IJ obvi 😉)

Faculty, advocacy groups fear Texas A&M firing threatens academic freedom The firing happened over two years after Texas A&M stressed its support for academic freedom and amid a changing higher education landscape.

www.texastribune.org/2025/09/15/t...

#evergreen

Yellow school bus on a Chicago city street

Three political scientists about to board a school bus on a Chicago city street

Cover of the program for the 2025 Civic Power convening of The Sentencing Project. Cover is an illustration of Chicago’s skyline.

I’ve not been on a school bus in years. And I’d never been on one w @melissamichelson.bsky.social & @hlw.bsky.social until tonight! Thank you @sentencingproject.bsky.social for an evening of fellowship & clips of the film “And Water Brings Tomorrow” (ashleyhunt.info/andwaterbrin...)

Favorite quote from the morning plenary: “Collective resistance is political kryptonite” #CivicPower2025 @hlw.bsky.social @sentencingproject.bsky.social

And now we have a tag for our excellent coauthor @SamRothEA!! Great working with you, Sam!

Contributing to the  lit on where to place moderators in an experiment (shoutouts 🧵), @tabithabonilla.bsky.social, Genni and I consider whether items measuring prejudice are subject to unique considerations. Does asking these questions pre-treatment affect the experiment? @psrm.bsky.social

ExpandingEngagement

Still lots left to learn -- check out our ongoing work at the Expanding Engagement Lab, where we use social science research to improve participation among marginalized groups in American politics!

expandingengagement.org

Against a more traditional informational mailer. Our trusted messenger approach increased new and updated registrations by 45% relative to the uncontacted control group, an effect which is statistically distinguishable from an impersonal approach

We tested a trusted-messenger approach w/ a letter written by a formerly incarcerated person sharing their story and encouraging people to vote