Looking forward on voting rights

Daria Dawson was raised in Florida by two educators. From a young age, they made sure she and her brother understood that voting was their voice — and their voice had power. 

“My parents were taking us with them when we were children to watch them vote,” Dawson, executive director of the progressive nonprofit America Votes, told The Hill. 

“My mom stood in line with me on her hip when she voted for Jimmy Carter against Ronald Reagan in 1980. It was instilled in me: It doesn't matter if it's the dogcatcher or the president of the United States, you always vote.”

That message not only stuck, but it also became the foundation of Dawson’s career. Today, her work with America Votes is focused on increasing voter turnout and creating a more diverse representation of government. 

But Dawson doesn’t consider herself a voting-rights advocate. Instead, she sees herself as someone who helps provide context around the power of voting. 

She works to educate Black voters especially. 

“Black voters are not encouraged to vote, are not taught history and the Civil Rights Movement and how people fought and died for them to vote,” she said. 

Dawson is outspoken about uplifting Black women and creating a political world that values voters and candidates of color. She speaks from the heart and has no issue offering corrections when needed — such as how to correctly pronounce her name. 

“It’s Dare-ia. As in, I dare you to mispronounce my name,” she’s fond of saying. 

Though she joined America Votes in 2020, Dawson’s time in politics spans two decades, including serving as the director of strategic engagement for then-Sen. Kamala Harris’s (D-Calif.) 2020 presidential campaign and as deputy national political director at the Service Employees International Union. 

Dawson also remembers casting her very first ballot in the 1998 Florida gubernatorial election between Jeb Bush and Kenneth “Buddy” McKay. 

Two years later, she was able to cast her ballot from her home state in the Al Gore vs. George Bush presidential battle. 

That election in particular, Dawson said, demonstrated why voting is so important, and it shined a light on why so many voters feel that if they’re not in a battleground state their vote doesn’t really count. 

“We have basically told this entire country that your vote doesn't matter unless you live in these seven states,” Dawson said. “That’s a problem, and we’ve got to do something about that. That's honestly what the next phase should be: letting everybody know that you have a voice, regardless of what part of this country you live in.”

Dawson is also passionate about ending voter suppression around the nation, particularly in a time when political divisions are high. 

“When people don't vote, the minority is able to stay in control,” Dawson said. “We are very much at the precipice in this country of becoming an apartheid nation because the minority is deciding what the majority of us do with our everyday lives, and that is by voter suppression.”

Voter suppression has become a major concern among Democrats around the country. 

Ahead of November’s election, the Brennan Center for Justice reported that at least nine states enacted 18 restrictive voting laws. 

Between Jan. 1 and Sept. 16, at least 30 states enacted 78 such laws, at least 63 of which were set to be in effect in 29 states this fall.  

“You are restricting access to the ballot in ways that are so close to the days of when people had to go into a county clerk's office and count the marble in a jar in order to vote, when people had to show evidence that their grandfather was a free man in order to have the right to vote,” Dawson said. “That is where we are heading.”

“But what kind of country would this be if everyone who was legally able to vote was actually allowed to vote and encouraged to vote?” she asked. 

Dawson was disappointed in this year’s voter turnout, despite all the work organizations like America Votes did. 

She said American Votes knocked on doors and made phone calls to more than 30 million voters. From September through October, the group said it engaged in more than 456 door-to-door conversations or interactions with Black women and 344 conversations with Black men.

“I think what's devastating is you have to be content with the fact that the American people made a choice, and that hurts, that it really was about for a lot of people, one or two issues,” she said.

Now, two weeks after the election, Dawson admits she is exhausted — but prepared to carry on with a mission for 2026 midterms. 

“I hear my dad's voice in my head saying, ‘one monkey don't stop no show,’” Dawson said. “The show must go on. We dust ourselves off and take the time to pull ourselves up, but eventually we will get off the ground and we will keep going and keep running this race.”