CVF History

About the California Voter Foundation

Originally founded in 1989 by California Secretary of State March Fong Eu, the California Voter Foundation (CVF) was re-founded in 1994 by Kim Alexander, to advance the responsible use of technology to improve the democratic process. CVF is a non-partisan, non-profit 501(c)(3) supported by tax-deductible contributions from foundations and individuals.

The California Voter Foundation has worked to improve democracy through the responsible use of new technologies since its founding in 1994, providing Californians with nonpartisan election and government information on the Web, and raising awareness of emerging democracy and technology issues in California and beyond.

The scope of CVF's work has expanded over the years to include advancing transparency of money in politics through online campaign finance disclosure; developing innovative voter education resources; and promoting verification of voting technology through a voter-verified paper audit trail requirement for electronic voting systems and mandatory public audits of vote-counting software.

CVF is governed by an eight-member board of directors and guided by its mission statement and program goals. CVF has produced the nonpartisan California Online Voter Guide for every state election since 1994, providing a reliable resource for election information to California voters.

Awards & Honors

2008: National Association of Secretaries of State Award is presented to Kim Alexander by Secretary of State Debra Bowen, "for being a true believer in democracy and working tirelessly to make the system work better".
2004: Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award is presented to Kim Alexander, honoring her, along with Professors David Dill and Avi Rubin, for their pioneering work spearheading and nurturing a popular movement for integrity and transparency in modern elections.
2002: Webby Award nomination for the California Voter Foundation web site
2001: Harvard University, the American Association of Political Consultants and Politics Online name Kim Alexander as one of the "25 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics".
2000: Campaigns & Elections magazine names CVF web site among the "Best Sites of 2000"
1999: CVF web site wins the Webby Award in the Politics and Law category
1999: CVF web site nominated for the Computerworld Smithsonian Award
1997: CVF web site nominated for a Webby Award
1996: California Voter Foundation receives the James Madison Freedom of Information Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California chapter for promoting electronic access to public information.
1996: CVF's 1995 San Francisco Online Voter Guide and Campaign Finance Database named a semi-finalist for the National Information Infrastructure Award.

Timeline of Achievements

2014 -- CVF continues its support of disclosure bills, including SB 844 to require the Secretary of State to publish and maintain a list of top 10 donors for each side of each proposition. CVF collaborates with Future of California Elections partners to analyze and improve the vote-by-mail process and to monitor implementation of VoteCal, a new statewide voter registration in development and scheduled to be complete in 2016. CVF also continues working with other nonprofits to promote voter registration assistance through Covered California.
2013 -- CVF launches a study of California's vote-by-mail balloting (VBM) process to identify best practices and make recommendations for improving the process so that fewer VBM ballots go uncounted. The Pew Center on the States releases the Election Performance Index, which incorporates CVF's 2011 research into the availability of state voter lookup tools to help voters verify registration status and find their polling places. CVF joins with other nonprofits to urge Covered California, the state's health benefit exchange, to provide voter registration services as required under state and federal law. CVF also begins lobbying in the California State Capitol for the first time, supporting two bills, SB 27 and AB 400, to improve voter access to information about proposition donors. CVF publishes the policy brief Modernizing Voting Technology - a Look Back, a Look Ahead.
2012 -- CVF produces Primary and General election editions of the California Online Voter Guide and a new Proposition Song and music video. CVF joins with other voter education and voting rights groups and local election officials in the Future of California Elections, a collaborative to improve election administration and voter participation with support from the James Irvine Foundation. CVF expands its web site to include a county-by-county directory of voter lookup tools.
2011 -- The Pew Center on the States releases the report, Being Online Is Still Not Enough, produced in partnership with CVF and the Center for Governmental Studies. CVF updates its mission statement and adopts new program goals focused on modernizing voter registration, improving voter access to information about proposition donors, and assessing the California voting process to identify needed improvements. CVF President Kim Alexander is profiled in the Los Angeles Times. CVF creates a Voter Registration Status Lookup Tool Advisory Group to develop a strategy for implementing this lookup tool.
2010 -- CVF produces Primary and General election editions of the California Online Voter Guide, as well as a new Proposition Song and music video; CVF works in collaboration with the Pew Center on the States and the Center for Governmental Studies to conduct a state-by-state assessment of state election web sites and voter lookup tools.
2009 -- CVF produces an edition of the California Online Voter Guide for the May 2009 statewide special election; CVF launches a new feature on its web site provide resources about redistricting reform and implementation of Proposition 11, an initiative enacted by voters in 2008 to create a new California Citizens Redistricting Commission to draw legislative district lines in 2011.
2008 -- CVF produces three editions of the California Online Voter Guide for the two primary elections and presidential general election; CVF's web site usage statistics reach new heights, with 6.6 million page views throughout the year; voting security nationwide is increased, with 24 states following California's lead and enacting post-election verification requirements to check the accuracy of vote-counting software; CVF successfully urges the Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters to release vote counts in the wake of the "Double Bubble" fiasco, where thousands of independent voters' votes in the presidential contest went uncounted due to poor ballot design; the final edition of Grading State Disclosure is published, finding that 36 states improved their grades since the first assessment in 2003; California's voter registration card is redesigned following recommendations made by a Secretary of State Working Group that includes CVF president Kim Alexander. CVF publishes The California Voters' Experience analyzing the voting process from start to finish from the voter's perspective.
2007 -- CVF president Kim Alexander and CVF board member David Jefferson serve on the Secretary of State's Post-Election Audit Standards Working Group, which recommends that California's post-election audit requirements be strengthened to provide greater confidence in the accuracy of election results, particularly in close contests; the Secretary of State imposes new requirements as a condition for certification of voting systems, following a massive decertification of most uses of electronic voting in California; CVF releases the 2007 edition of the Grading State Disclosure study.
2006 -- California becomes the first state in the nation to replace or upgrade 40,0000 paperless touchscreen voting machines with paper ballot voting systems or voter-verified paper audit trail printers; CVF produces two editions of the California Online Voter Guide; CVF releases "The Proposition Song" as a YouTube video.
2005 -- CVF launches the Election House Parties project in collaboration with the Commonwealth Club's Voices of Reform project; CVF releases the California Voter Participation Survey Report, identifying the barriers and incentives for voting among infrequent and nonvoters in California following a survey of 2,000 Californians; Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signs landmark legislation requiring voter-verified paper audit trails be used to verify software vote counts; CVF releases the 2005 edition of the Grading State Disclosure study; CVF produces an edition of the California Online Voter Guide for the 2005 Statewide Special Election.
2004 -- CVF debuts its newly redesigned Web site at calvoter.org on the occasion of the organization's ten-year anniversary; the site has hundreds of thousands off visitors and several millions page views during the election year. The California Legislature unanimously approves and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signs into law a bill requiring electronic voting machines to produce a voter-verified paper audit trail; CVF helps organize the first convening of the nationwide Election Verification Network; CVF releases the landmark study, Voter Privacy in the Digital Age, funded by the Gerbode Foundation; another edition of Grading State Disclosure is released; CVF produces two editions of the California Online Voter Guide.
2003 -- CVF publishes the first edition of Grading State Disclosure, a comprehensive evaluation of campaign disclosure in the 50 states, produced by the Campaign Disclosure Project; CVF provides voters with information about California's historic Recall election; CVF President Kim Alexander and CVF board member David Jefferson serve on the Secretary of State's Ad Hoc Touch Screen Voting Task Force, crafting the minority task force view to require voter-verified paper trails for electronic voting machines; California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley endorses the paper trail requirement in November.
2002 -- CVF produces two editions of the California Online Voter Guide, produces a new Directory of California Voting Systems, and a new set of California political district maps; together with the Center for Governmental Studies and the UCLA School of Law, CVF launches the Campaign Disclosure Project a collaboration with the UCLA School of Law and Center for Governmental Studies with support from The Pew Charitable Trusts.
2001 -- CVF debuts the Archive of Campaign Promises, giving voters a tool to better track the performance of their elected officials; CVF adds the issue of voter privacy to its agenda.
2000 -- The California Online Voter Guide logs over 1.5 million page views over the year; CVF's "Proposition Song" gets national airtime; CVF provides election information online for all 50 states through the Web, White & Blue project, sponsored by the Markle Foundation.
1999 -- CVF produces the Digital Sunlight Awards, evaluating campaign finance disclosure efforts in the 50 U.S. states; CVF's web site wins the prestigious Webby Award; CVF president Kim Alexander and CVF board member David Jefferson serve on the California Internet Voting Task Force which finds that the Internet is not secure enough for transacting ballots, putting the brakes on Internet voting nationwide; CVF files an Amicus Curiae Letter of Support with the California Supreme Court in the Griset case, supporting California's law requiring the identification of campaign mass mailers.
1998 -- CVF builds an Internet database of statewide contributions and identifies the top ten contributors to California campaigns; calvoter.org logs a total of one million page views in 1998; CVF produces two editions of the California Online Voter Guide for the primary and general elections.
1997 -- CVF steers "digital sunlight" to success when the California legislature passes the Online Disclosure Act, a landmark bill requiring state campaigns to disclose contributions and expenditures on the Internet.
1996 -- CVF breaks new ground with "Late Contribution Watch", data-entering last-minute California campaign contributions and posting daily tallies on the Internet; CVF's Fall 1996 California Online Voter Guide logs 200,000 page views.
1995 -- CVF produces the world's first real-time, Internet campaign finance database for San Francisco's municipal election, demonstrating how mandatory electronic filing can improve campaign disclosure; CVF joins with the San Jose Mercury News and KNTV of San Jose to launch "Your Voices Count", a civic journalism project aimed to involve citizens in campaign finance reform issues.
1994 -- Kim Alexander re-founds the California Voter Foundation on February 1, 1994; CVF publishes the first edition of its California Online Voter Guide, which logs 36,000 page views over a five-week period.

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