Keep the Momentum Going: Building on the Success of SikhVOTE
By: Jaslin Kaur, SALDEF Senior Manager of Civic Engagement and Community Outreach
At SALDEF, we understand how vital the Sikh American voice is to shaping national and local policies. That’s why we spent the last year expanding our SikhVOTE initiative to boost voter turnout and educate voters about what’s on the ballot. As we approach a new administration, we reflect on our efforts this year and prepare ourselves to deliver the dignity our sangat deserves.
The SikhVOTE initiative is over a decade in the making and became the largest Sikh voter mobilization effort in the United States this year. However, milestones like this aren’t made by accident – they’re made on purpose by the staff, volunteers, and community members who wanted their voices heard at the ballot box. We made a plan to expand our presence in 18 states, touching every region of the country from Oak Creek, Wisconsin to Bessemer, Alabama.
Our staff and volunteers traveled to several states to conduct outreach in-person at local gurdware. We learned about an array of voter experiences across our sangat that helped us tailor our outreach. Some moved to Indianapolis years ago, but had never updated their voter registration to vote in their new state. Some have found community in Oak Creek, and were newly naturalized citizens who made a plan to vote for the first time in 2024. Others could not vote due to their citizenship status, but expressed an excitement about voting and a commitment to gathering their families to vote.
That’s part of the ethos of SikhVOTE – we do not vote for our individual interests. Rather, we vote because of the impacts of voting as a collective. When we participate in democracy and participate often, we build our civic engagement muscle and look for more ways to bring a decent quality of life to our communities and see ourselves in leadership. We shared that narrative with community members who expressed indifference about voting in a high-pressure election cycle. However, we noticed that education about how many races and propositions were on the ballot encouraged people to seek change in their local districts, too. In Wisconsin, someone asked if anyone Sikh was on the ballot. He remarked, “If not, someone Sikh should really represent this Sikh neighborhood.”
Our volunteers felt the real-time impact as well. In California, Harnoor and her mother tabled together at gurdware in San Jose and Fremont. She said she liked having a voice and a say in this year’s turnout – “I gained confidence speaking to my sangat in Punjabi. I felt proud that I could change people’s minds about voting.” In that sense, SikhVOTE made the case that political ads and mailers won’t turn out our community to the polls. We need to hear the message spoken and written in Punjabi, from people who care about us, and will spend the time to help answer our questions at the places where we gather such as the gurdwara. That investment on Sundays alone sparks a lifetime of civic engagement.
This year, SikhVOTE got creative and cultural, too. While our in-person outreach and face-to-face contact generated useful insights, we saw that phone banking and text banking in Punjabi was incredibly helpful, too. You may have received a text or call from us that opened with “Sat sri akal” or “Waheguru ji ka Khalsa, Waheguru ji ki Fateh.” This created an unusually high response rate in our texts, more engaging conversations over the phone, and overall, more commitments and pledges to vote in November.
Overall, in-language voter engagement has always been a winning strategy. And while we tabulate our metrics and assess our overall impact, it’s clear that there has been a dearth of Punjabi-language voter outreach, especially in Sikh American communities not represented by other Sikhs in government. It creates a damaging cycle in which elected representatives face a language or cultural barrier to Sikhs, so the Sikh community doesn’t vote, and therefore Sikhs are not seen as a strong electorate. We need to invest in specific outreach initiatives like SikhVOTE if we want to see significant changes in voter behavior and patterns in our sangat.
At SALDEF, we have a lot to celebrate regarding our SikhVOTE work and a lot to build upon. If you voted this year, thank you! If you didn’t, it’s never too late to begin those conversations with your family and friends. It’s also never too late to consider attending your local PTA, school board, or city council meetings. The best time for Sikh Americans to get civically engaged in their communities was years ago. The second best time is now.