Who votes, and where? This question has long been the domain of pollsters, pundits, and politicians, but not so much for the arts. Despite claiming status as civic centers, social catalysts, and community living rooms, the arts have often been left out of broader discourse related to civic participation, activism, and the electoral process. While arts organizations and their supporters advocate for arts-centered and public funding interests, organizations such as museums, galleries, and arts centers have a far more local opportunity to show up for their communities: opening their doors as election polling locations. 

In an executive order issued in 2021 the Biden administration issued a call for all-of-government action among executive agencies to expand and promote voting rights. This included a call on the Institute of Museum and Library Services to distribute a “toolkit of resources and strategies that libraries, museums, and heritage and cultural institutions can use to promote civic engagement and participation in the voting process.” This action has helped expand access to civic education and election resources among museums, but participation need not stop at education. Following libraries, museums have increasingly begun to volunteer their spaces as polling places themselves, acting as a democratic vehicle for their communities and adding to the greater fabric of America’s election infrastructure. 

This expanded role is a natural fit. Polling locations often need to be able to accommodate large numbers of people, need to be ADA compliant, and are usually centrally located in a community. Museums often fulfill many of these requirements and more, on top of their built-in reputation as public forums and civic plazas for their communities. 

Museums stepping into these roles are capable of offering ample resources to better equip local democratic processes and prove to their communities that they are not unbreachable temples for the elite, but open platforms for the people.

The Donor-Voter: A Portrait

Voters and museum patrons may not often be thought of in the same line of thought but they are often the exact same people at different points in time. Museums and arts organizations engage through their missions a treasure trove of political participants. 

Studies have shown a “positive impact of non-political organizations, such as art, music, or charitable organizations, on political participation”, manifesting in greater voter turnout and political donation patterns. This evidence shows a shared orbit between the two spheres.  It follows then that museums and other arts facilities may be capable of provisioning more than just space for elections, but also networks of volunteers, poll workers, and even voters themselves.

Leaning on large institutional datasets often stored in navigable CRM software, museums possess immense power in their data and are essentially a conduit to many likely voters, often living in their same community. 

But why should museums engage in efforts outside of their mission or skillset?

From Double-Duty Giving to Rage-Giving

Museums may be able to leverage donor behavior during election years. Data from Blackbaud has shown that while political donations tend to spike closer to elections, they do not crowd out charitable giving. In contrast, donors who give to political causes during federal election years tend to increase all giving across sectors.

An extreme version of this is the phenomenon is called “rage-giving”: a measurable spike in donations made to causes closely aligned with the losing candidate who the donor supported.

This was noticed and coined in the wake of the 2016 election, initially considered as a “Trump-bump”. Subsequent research by the Chronicle of Philanthropy found that this pattern held in prior presidential-election years dating back to 2004, with an average bump in giving of 57.55% to nonprofits aligned opposite to the winning candidate’s ideology.  

While people vote and give for a variety of personal reasons, the data shows a correlation between the two, and it isn’t surprising given prior research on the affiliations between arts participation and political participation. People value having an impact, and whether that is achieved through casting a ballot, donating to a candidate, or donating time or money to a charity, it all shares a similar source. 

A significant pattern exists between political donors and charitable donors, with participation in one field often correlating with participation in the other; elections seem to incentivize giving across all sectors and may be highly complementary to arts participation given their overlapping demographics. 

Once understood as servicing compatible publics, the door is opened to even more direct tools that can support democracy: get-out-the-vote (GOTV) campaigns and voter-registration events.

Getting-Art-To-Vote (pun intended)

Voting is relatively straightforward - registering, for some, is often less so. 

This is where voter registration efforts come in; often held as events or festivities, these fairs are designed to be engaging ways to connect voters with registration information, often allowing them to register on-the-spot, if eligible. 

Research from the 2018 election studied the impact of early voting center festivals and election day festivals on voter turnout. Their findings conclude early voting center festivals were highly effective at raising voter turnout, witnessing a 3.5% increase. 

While election-day festivities appeared to have no impact, this was likely due to insufficient marketing of the event beforehand. 

This is where museums can come in. Given their built-in capabilities for marketing and events coordination, arts organizations have a built in capacity for event management and marketing to a demographic primed to vote. While likely needing to shut down operations on election day for polling, registration events and early voting festivals could be held much like a typical public program. Events like this, if blended with the art museums community engagement efforts, could bring voters from across the community into the galleries while also getting them into the voting booth.

Museums that have already begun this practice have offered free admissions for voters after casting their ballot on election day, demonstrating an elegant synthesis by opening up access to the democratic process and engagement with the arts.

While museums are well equipped for this type of advocacy, we must not forget that the artwork is more than just window dressing in all this. 

Artists have engaged in civil rights advocacy for generations and have recently begun supporting the electoral process through creative approaches to get-out-the-vote campaigns. Artist-led initiative planyourvote.org was created in response to Georgia’s ban on providing food or water bottles to voters during the 2020 election. The site provides support for the voter registration platform vote.org as well as registration resources, guides on absentee ballot requests, and a digital gallery of downloadable images created by participating artists for advocacy. 

Art for Change is another example of artists acting on the intersection of art and democracy. The organization curates online art exhibitions, using the sales as fundraisers for charities and social causes. In 2024, Arts for Change has partnered with Michelle Obama’s nonpartisan voter-advocacy organization When We All Vote to exhibit a range of works by diverse artists displaying themes from classic americana to more poignant and emotional works meant to convey “what’s at stake with each election – what exactly a person risks losing by choosing not to vote.”

In these ways, art and artists have found and amplified their voices in the electoral process - they know that art has always been a powerful mover of hearts and changer of minds. 

Advocacy efforts do not need to remain digital or grassroots either: Museums, sitting at a pivotal intersection between artists and the public, can serve as natural conduits for artistic advocacy campaigns. From election day polling to early voting and registration festivities, museums and arts organizations can use this position not just to connect voters to the polls, but artists to their community at physical and communal scale.

Location, Location, Location

It has been shown that museums are well-equipped to support the voting process by housing elections and elevating artists and community voices. The benefits don’t stop there. Museums, through the very act of supporting democracy, may lead to greater governmental support for the arts industry across the board. 

Studies have shown a consistently significant impact of polling location on voting behavior among citizens. For example, those voting in schools have been found to vote in favor of initiatives supporting school funding. Conversely those casting their ballot in churches and religious institutions were found to vote significantly less in favor of certain scientific ballot initiatives, particularly related to stem cell research funding. Surprisingly these findings persist even when controlling for voter predisposition and political leanings. 

It follows then that polling locations have more power than previously considered. Facing a national wave of polling place closures, issues of location equity and the increased need for well-equipped public facilities becomes evidently clear.  Museums are readily equipped to manage such a calling and provide a new setting for the fundamental democratic act beyond the typical library, school, or church. 

Now, when faced with ballot initiatives and budget concerns, it is the entire industry’s interest to strive for a more systematic impact. In this way, museums can evolve their role as vessels not just for material art, but for the governing of the arts as well.

Conclusion

Museums are critically primed to serve as hubs and support structures for their local communities of voters, artists, and policy advocates.  Their facilities are often well equipped to adapt to polling needs and their standard operations position them well in get-out-the-vote campaigns. The very act of hosting the ballot is seen to keep issues front-and-center in the minds of voters and community members. 

Organizations should not be hesitant to volunteer for one or more of these actions, as none of them are prohibited by 501(c)(3) laws on lobbying or partisanship, and many partnerships mentioned have relatively small barriers to action. Supporting democracy is non-partisan, and museums can engage even deeper if desired by hosting forums or information sessions so long as equal time is given to all participants.

The question for more museums need not be why, but why not?

If a museum or arts organization would like to offer their space, they should reach out to their local county elections board to begin a dialogue around the needs of the county and the opportunities and site-specific logistics for such a role.

For U.S. readers, you can register to vote and find information on your local polling place here.