PEEP’s mission is to strengthen democratic norms and voting rights in the United States.
Voter suppression and threats to our democratic process are increasingly prevalent in the United States. The Political and Election Empowerment Project (PEEP) supports nonprofit organizations in California and across the nation fighting for voting rights and democracy reform. We focus our efforts on historically marginalized and oppressed populations, recognizing that structural racism is inherent in the systems of American democracy. Only when all citizens have equal and easy access to the polls will politicians represent community interests and the government represent the people. Over the years, PEEP students have worked towards this goal with Campaign Legal Center, Demos, and the Asian Law Caucus. Our projects have included strengthening electoral language-access, supporting redistricting efforts to better represent Asian American communities, impacting campaign finance laws, researching potential policy reforms for the voting process, and fighting for judicial election reform.
For the third year, PEEP will be working with the National Redistricting Foundation (NRF). Last year, PEEP students researched redistricting laws and legal precedents. This fall, PEEP students will write up and present the results of this research to NRF attorneys to inform their pro-voting rights litigation strategy. We’ll conduct additional legal research and policy work in the spring
Supervision: PEEP students engage in legal work under the supervision of attorneys at the National Redistricting Foundation.
Time Commitment: We estimate PEEP participant’s time commitment to be 2 hours per week. Historically, we’ve held biweekly research meetings with members and supervising attorneys, sometimes in the evening and sometimes at lunch – this will likely continue this year but depends on scheduling.
For more information, please contact the student leaders at peep@berkeley.edu.