At the March 25 Democracy Network Exchange meeting, reform advocates confronting 2024 losses on ranked choice voting and other ballot measures pointed to a hard truth: insider language, weak grassroots investment, and abstract messaging are still undermining structural reform campaigns. 

For years, democracy reform advocates have argued that the public is hungry for changes like open primaries, ranked choice voting, independent redistricting, and a more responsive government. But at the Democracy Network Exchange’s meeting, one theme cut through everything else: Opposition from entrenched political interests aren’t the movement’s only problem.

There is also way too much “insider baseball” happening within the movement itself. This is a diagnosis presenters and participants repeatedly returned to as they looked back at the 2024 election cycle and statewide ranked choice voting and primary reform initiatives that failed in a number of states.

Democracy reform organizations too often rely on insider jargon, abstract appeals, and communication strategies that make sense to those deep in the weeds of reform, but do not connect with ordinary voters. In other words, the people trying to “save democracy” may still be struggling to speak the language of the public.

Check out a write up of the meeting from Eveline Dowling here.

The first presentation, delivered by communications strategist Brittany Stalsburg, put that problem front and center. She argued that “audience intimacy” – a research-based understanding of how target audiences think, speak, and decide – is not an optional approach to campaigni. It needs to be foundational. 

Without it, reformers risk building messages around what they wish voters cared about instead of what actually moves them. 

People deeply involved in the reform movement wake up thinking about election reform. They have spent years, even decades, studying the nuances of the systemic issues they are trying to fix and the technical aspects of the reforms they promote. But when trying to persuade voters, the messaging doesn’t reflect a critical reality:

Most voters do not wake up thinking about election reform.

Voters are thinking about cost of living, public safety, schools, housing, and whether government works for people like them. When reform campaigns fail to bridge that gap, opponents do it for them.

This all led to a conversation among participants about the effectiveness of plain, visceral messaging. Rob Richie and Stalsburg, in particular, talked about popular messaging from anti-gerrymandering campaigns, including the phrase “fox in charge of the hen house” to describe legislators drawing their own district lines. 

It works because it translates a structural problem into something immediate and intuitive. Voters do not need a graduate seminar in democratic theory to understand self-dealing.

Some Democracy Exchange Network participants expressed concerns about oversimplification. However, the larger concern is that reformers are so worried about precision in their messaging that they end up communicating in ways that are hollow, academic, and politically inert. 

The second presentation, from FairVote’s Suvarna Hulawale and Jeremy Rose, reinforced that conclusion with evidence from 2024’s ballot measure campaigns. Ranked choice voting and nonpartisan primaries hit a wall in multiple statewide contests, including Oregon, Colorado, Idaho, and Nevada. Nonpartisan all-voter and all-candidate primaries without RCV also failed in Arizona, Montana, and South Dakota. 

The notable exceptions were Alaska, which retained its Top Four primary system, and Washington, DC, where open primaries and ranked choice voting were approved by an overwhelming majority of voters.

FairVote’s recommendations were not centered on finding a better white paper or producing smarter elite validators. Instead, they emphasized old-fashioned political fundamentals: early grassroots organizing, meaningful field investment, trusted local leadership, and clear connections between reform proposals and local concerns. 

They also stressed the importance of working with election administrators early, rather than treating them as adversaries, so opponents have less room to exploit fears about implementation. 

That is a major takeaway for anyone covering or investing in democracy reform. The lesson from 2024 was not that voters “weren’t ready.” It was that reform campaigns cannot coast on the assumption that process changes sell themselves.

Look at DC. The campaign for open primaries and ranked choice voting conducted on-the-ground activity across the city, neighborhood validators, and voter engagement that reached every precinct. That is not the profile of a campaign that wins because a reform has elite consensus. It is the profile of a campaign that wins because it did the harder work of making reform feel local, personal, and relevant.

People don’t need more polls showing dissatisfaction with the political system. There are plenty of them. There is also no shortage of frustration with partisan gamesmanship, uncompetitive elections, and rules written by insiders for insiders. But dissatisfaction alone does not translate into support for reform. 

Voters need a concrete reason to care, a trusted messenger, and a clear sense of how a proposed change affects their own community.

The third presentation in the March 25 meeting, from National Civic League’s Rebecca Trout, shifted from messaging to infrastructure, highlighting the group’s Healthy Democracy Ecosystem Map. It is a national tool cataloging organizations across all 50 states working on democracy issues. 

On its face, that may seem like a more technical topic. But it fits the same larger story. If the democracy space is crowded, fragmented, and often opaque even to insiders, then it is hardly surprising that voters and local communities struggle to understand where they fit into it.

The map is intended to help practitioners find partners, funders identify strategic opportunities, and local leaders gain visibility. It offers ways to connect organizations to each other, and just as importantly, better ways to connect its goals to the people outside the network.

Survey feedback from Democracy Exchange Network participants found that the most politically relevant takeaway from the March meeting is a consensus emerging across the attendees: reformers need to meet people where they are.

This is, in effect, an acknowledgment that too much democracy reform work still begins from the priorities and assumptions of advocates rather than voters. In a political climate defined by distrust, polarization, and institutional fatigue, this creates an existential problem.

If democracy reform groups want to stop losing winnable fights, they may need to start with a humbler premise: voters do not owe reformers their attention just because the issue is important. Reformers have to earn it.

And until they do, many of the ideas they champion will remain stuck in the same trap they claim to oppose: a politics driven by insiders, for insiders, while everyone else tunes out.