Empowering Voters

KFTC strives to create an authentic, participatory democracy. We register, educate, and mobilize voters to participate in elections, and we make a space to talk about issues. 

We want to make elected officials more responsive to all Kentuckians, not just politically powerful interests, and we want better candidates to run and get elected.

The current political process is deeply flawed. It's hard for the voices of low-income communities, youth, and people of color to be heard. And the voices of wealthy special interests are often elevated. The system isn't fair, but we work to structurally change it while participating in it. We elevate the decision-making power of those who have the least power now.  

Voter Registration

KFTC registers voters year-round at community events, but we also lead dedicated voter registration tabling events in low-income, youth, and people-of-color communities to prepare people to vote. Sometimes, we have hundreds of voter registration events in a year, culminating in large registration marathons leading up to the deadlines. Members in some chapters have gone as much as 81 hours straight registering voters 24 hours a day.

Voter Education

It often isn't easy to learn where candidates stand on important issues, so KFTC mails tens of thousands of voter guides to members and friends each year and maintains a powerful resource at www.KentuckyElection.org to enable voters the opportunity to cast a more informed vote on Election Day. We also host candidate forums and meet-and-greets and talk with candidates to inform them about issues we work on. 

Voter Mobilization

Registration and issue education aren't worth much unless we also mobilize people to vote on Election Day. We've called as many as 18,000 voters to get them out to the polls in a single election and have a robust campaign every election that includes door-to-door canvassing, mailings, phone banks, community events, email, social media, signs, rides to the polls, and even roving sound cars on Election Day to get our members and friends out to the polls.