We live in eventful times. The past few years have been replete with once-in-a-lifetime events, including the many impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, historic natural disasters and a variety of galvanizing political issues in between. While reactions to these events run the gamut, their impacts have been widespread in our digitally connected world, contributing to increased engagement throughout and between communities nationwide.
Not only did more Houstonians come out to vote in 2020, many Houston-based civic and social justice organizations worked to support our residents. After all, civic engagement is more than just voting — it’s volunteering, communicating with elected officials, donating to causes and even having difficult conversations with friends and loved ones.
Engaged communities help one another, cultivate trust among residents and ensure all voices are heard. Not only can positive engagement result in the betterment of one’s community, it can also improve feelings of connectedness and reduce individual loneliness. Houston may be turning out to the polls, but how do we fare in other areas of civic engagement, and how do we compare to the rest of the nation? Let’s take a closer look.
How and when Houston votes
Voter registration rates are high and rising in the three-county region with Fort Bend (95%), Montgomery (93%) and Harris (89%) counties all significantly ahead of the state (72%) and national rates (73%). With each Houston-area county’s registration rate almost 20 percentage points higher than the national rate, it’s easy to think that Houston is especially engaged, but registering to vote is only the first step toward electoral participation.
Voter participation among those who have registered in the region, is still far behind the national rate, despite significant upticks in the three counties during the 2020 election.
Fort Bend County has the highest turnout rate among those who registered at 74%, yet is still almost 18 percentage points behind the national average of 92%. Although registration rates and turnout rates were both notably high for the 2020 election, the disparity between turnout among those registered in the region and the nation was not.
If the voting-age population is consistently registering to vote, what could stop them from casting a ballot? Some argue that a lack of competitive races in the more visible governmental offices dissuades Texans from casting a ballot. In the 2018 primaries, 83% of voters did not cast a ballot, and one of Texas’ U.S. Senate seats — in a state with an estimated population of 28 million residents in 2018 — was secured with fewer than 775,000 votes.
Research suggests that offering early voting is a viable way to increase voter turnout, but the Houston region’s voters already vote early. While early voting has recently become more popular all over the nation, voters in the Houston area choose early voting at a rate higher than the national average. More than half of the votes were cast during the early voting period for every election in the past 12 years in the three-county region, with early votes representing 88% of all votes in 2020.
Research has shown that Americans are more likely to vote if they know and understand the process, if the rules and regulations are easy to navigate and if they believe their vote “matters.” According to the Cost of Voting Index (COVI), Texas has not kept pace with many common reforms to voting processes like absentee voting and online voter registration, making it one of the most difficult states in the nation for a resident to cast a ballot. Texas was 50th on the 2020 COVI but has since risen to 46th, mostly on the strength of a full 13-day early voting period.
Charitable giving and volunteering
Public charities don’t just help those in need through acts of service and donations, they also give residents a platform for contributing to and engaging with causes that matter to them. The Houston region has a robust nonprofit sector (over 15,660 nonprofit public charities in 2020), and although many charitable organizations serve the region, the number of charities per 10,000 residents is lower in Greater Houston than in the state and nation.
Nonprofit organizations operate largely on individual philanthropy, and Houstonians are no strangers to charitable donations. Charitable donations are an important component of engagement; when people feel engaged in their communities, they are more likely to contribute to its improvement. Nearly half of Greater Houston residents claimed to have donated at least $25 to charitable organizations in 2019, which puts Houston somewhere in the middle of other major metros with a higher percentage of residents donating $25 or more a month than in New York City and Los Angeles, but less than in Austin, Atlanta and Chicago.
Much like having a significant nonprofit network, a community with a strong contingency of volunteers is likely to stay supported and engaged. Residents of the nine-county Houston Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) volunteer less frequently than others at the state and the national level. About 30% of people who volunteer across the state and the nation do so less than once a month, compared with 38% of volunteers in the Houston MSA. In keeping with national trends, volunteer rates in Harris County fell 14 percentage points (54% to 40%) from 2020 to 2021, likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Civic and social engagement
In addition to financial contributions made through charities, residents also provide direct service in their communities as members of civic organizations. Membership in civic and social organizations (which include non-profits, charities and advocacy groups) is another way to engage with a community and increase social connectedness. Social connectedness is the experience of belonging within a social relationship or network, not just within personal relationships, but within professional and community networks and beyond. Similar to the region’s large nonprofit network, Houston’s coalition of civic social organizations lags significantly behind the state and nation in the number of organizations per 100,000 residents.
In 2019, the three-county region had 3.2 civic social membership organizations per 100,000 residents. Texas, in comparison, had 5.2 per 100,000, and the U.S. 7.8 per. While it doesn’t nullify the stark contrast in access to these organizations, the number of organizations in the region has been rising, while those in the state and nation have been falling.
Actions may speak louder than words, but communicating with elected officials past election day is an important component of the democratic process. Unfortunately, it’s one many Houston-area residents don’t take advantage of.
In 2019, 6.5% of residents in the Houston MSA reported contacting their public officials at least once per year. Though marginally higher than the state rate of 6.4%, the Houston MSA does lag behind the national average of 9.3%. Although reaching out to elected officials does not always translate into legislative action, elected officials who do not hear from their constituents are deprived of the opportunity to understand how their policy ideas may affect our communities.
Why being engaged matters
Active participation in one’s community promotes deeper connections between residents and is the first step in creating a region that provides everyone the opportunity to reach their full potential. But without important information about the region’s different communities, we lack the full picture of what our residents are facing. The U.S. Census recently reported that they likely missed more than a half-million Texans during the 2020 count, representing an immense amount of people that were left unaccounted for, and therefore not advocated for.
Census data is used to shape infrastructure and policy at every level of government. A study found that the 2010 Census was used to direct $101.6 billion toward federally funded programs at state and local governments, businesses, nonprofits, hospitals and households. Census data determines the number of funds allocated to everything from creating opportunities for jobseekers to deciding how relief funds will be distributed in the event of a disaster.
The issue of undercounting on the Census is an issue of underrepresentation, as the groups who are considered hard to count, and therefore the most likely to be systematically undercounted, include people of color, immigrants, refugees and people experiencing homelessness.
Houston is engaged, but more work remains
Comprehensive civic engagement requires not just individual, but organizational effort and attention. Having more Houston-area voices heard in our elections and other civic processes helps ensure that our region can achieve its full potential, and hearing from a more diverse set of perspectives ensures that more diverse needs are met.
Not all elections are nationally publicized, but they are all important. Though the 2022 midterms have some highly watched races on the ballot, it will be just as important that residents vote in subsequent, less visible elections. After all, our region is more than just its mayor and governor — it’s our judges, council members, school boards, sanitation leaders, local ordinances and so much more. Whether this year’s election is your first or your 51st, we encourage you to check what’s on the ballot and engage thoughtfully. Every vote, volunteer hour and voice matters — don’t let yours go unheard.