The Jack Brooks Foundation is pleased to announce the three winners who were capable of helping to stir the most innovative ideas on increasing voter turnout. Thank you to all of the participants and to everyone who made this challenge a success.

1st Place ($7,500) Vamos a Votar | Vote Week - Laura A. Miniel, Texas
Vote Week is a controlled study to promote and measure first-time voting among Hispanic teens. The two components consist of:
1) Registration drives at high school campuses in order to answer questions and register first-time voters, and
2) Providing transportation to voting polls on school buses during early voting. To measure and quantify results, the project is structured as a controlled experimental study.

2nd Place ($5,000) Providing Solutions to Voting Barriers - Spread The Vote Team, Florida
Disenfranchised voters are often barred from voting by state restrictive voter ID laws. Spread The Vote helps individuals obtain the identification necessary to qualify for jobs, housing, health care, and voting. Additionally, the organization helps clients register to vote and provides practical, educational, and easy-to-understand voter guides and information. Broadening voter participation, Spread The Vote works local community programs and partner organizations, including homeless shelters, day centers, family services organizations, and reentry programs, in several states.

3rd Place ($2,500) The Central Texas Civic Engagement Alliance - Cole Wilson, Texas
The Central Texas Civic Engagement Alliance would create a network of organizations, institutions, and clubs across Central Texas with the intent of increasing voter registration, education, and participation on campuses throughout the region. The approach would model the University of Texas-based Civic Engagement Alliance led by the nationally acclaimed student organization, TX Votes (housed within the Annette Strauss Institute).

The cornerstone of a democracy is the right of its citizens to vote in elections. While the 2020 presidential election had the highest voter participation in more than a century, the United States still remains well behind other peer countries in the developed world when it comes to voter turnout. When elections have poor voter turnout, the results no longer reflect the needs and wants of the general public.

The 2021 Help America Vote Challenge sought non-partisan ideas from US citizens for how to improve voter participation. We called on creative minds across the nation to submit solutions to increase voter turnout and ensure more Americans exercise their constitutional right to vote. Find out more about the three most compelling ideas that were selected in late April 2021, which now share in a $15,000 prize purse.