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The mission of the Council of State Governments (CSG) is to "champion excellence in state governments to advance the common good." I work in the Center of Innovation (COI), which is the public policy research branch of CSG. My research team within COI is the Overseas Voting Initiative (OVI). OVI is a collaboration between CSG and the Department of Defense's Federal Voting Assistance Program to make voting for overseas military and U.S. citizens as simple and accessible as possible. We are grant-funded by the Department of Defense as well. Beyond making voting accessible for overseas voters, our mission is to ensure that states are enacting policies and practices that support overseas voters as much as possible. This involves in-depth research of voting laws, recommendations on removing archaic language from these laws, and helping to design a data format for the Election Administration and Voting Survey Section B.
CSG is member-driven, as we are comprised of hundreds of state leaders and legislators from across the United States. When we are applying for grants and pursuing new areas of research, we collaborate with our members to see what policy areas they are interested in exploring. We then serve the legislators in these new areas by doing research, analysis, and non-partisan policy recommendations. On a more macroscopic level, we serve all American citizens. The policy recommendations we make are to better the lives of the public, whether it be through new healthcare initiatives, amended election laws, or youth and education programs, to name a few.
Overall, CSG is an organization full of dedicated and high achieving individuals who I love working with. Every day, they encourage me, applaud the work I've already done, and take the time to teach me new skills. As a member of the OVI team, I've had the opportunity to do some exciting work on 2020 election demographics and the method of return for overseas ballots. In both areas, I'm gathering data that will be used to publish elections-related research at some point next year, I'm grateful for all the opportunities I've had thus far, and I'm excited to continue learning and growing in this internship position.
Laura Hinkle is a McConnell Scholar in the class of 2022. She is studying political science, philosophy, and history at the University of Louisville.