2022 Post Election Report
2022
Post Election Report
Letter from the Executive Director
In 2022, CASA carried out the essential work of making our communities heard. We did not shout through the megaphone–we handed it over to black, brown, working-class, and immigrant communities to raise their voices together. Our critical civic engagement work within our communities took us across two of our core states, Maryland and Pennsylvania, where we empowered the people to protect their democracy, got out the vote, and turned the unheard into the unignorable.
We dove into two key ballot initiative campaigns in two different parts of Maryland, the largest such campaigns in those jurisdictions’ history—returning local control of the Baltimore police department to Baltimore City residents and protecting Howard County’s Liberty Act, which prohibits collecting and sharing residents’ immigration information with federal immigration authorities. CASA’s nonpartisan goal was to make sure that our members and their communities knew about these often overlooked parts of the ballot and understand that it was up to them to put their own values into practice. Through the support of our communities and the investment of our allies, CASA was able to raise $2.3 million for the execution of these campaigns. More importantly, our communities spoke definitively: the Liberty Act will remain the law, and Baltimore City is going to operate and control its own police department for the first time in 162 years.
In Pennsylvania, CASA engaged in a robust nonpartisan election program to assist voters in registering to vote, casting their ballots by mail, and making their voting plan, all in preparation of one of the most critical elections in the nation. We fought hard to make sure nothing stands in the way of our communities becoming a critical and expressive voting bloc in the state, whose wishes all of those in power must respect. In particular, CASA is proud that our efforts led directly to a major language access victory in York and Lancaster Counties, with the result that thousands of Spanish-speaking voters enjoyed access to ballots printed in the language they understand the best–and we’re not talking about in a future election, but in this very election.
Lydia Walther-Rodriguez, CASA’s new Chief of Organizing, told me something during these campaigns: “From voting rights to abortion, from living wages to health care, and from public safety to education, the participation of this nation’s immigrants and communities of color has never been more paramount for American democracy,” she said. “The CASA organizations dutifully sought to convey that message to voters, and urged them to advocate for a brighter future by making their voices heard at the polls.”
I couldn’t agree more. The people in power have gone on too long pretending that the people in our communities don’t exist. But they do exist, and in CASA’s nonpartisan campaigns they made it plain what they want: to defend what’s right, and to change what’s wrong.
Our Campaign by the Numbers
Pennsyvania
voters reached through all modalities
ad impressions
new voters registered
Maryland
local referenda races won
voters reached in Baltimore through all modalities
voters reached in Howard County through all modalities

Results
Pennsylvania
Summary Statement
In Pennsylvania, CASA’s 25-person promoter team worked in the Latino and Afro-Latino communities of Dauphin, Lancaster, and York Counties. CASA reached 37,724 voters through a variety of modalities, including through door-to-door outreach, calls, texts, and through radio and online ads that resulted in more than 5,650,000 impressions. This final vote-by-mail and GOTV effort followed a voter registration program launched in the spring that registered 5,331 new voters. The Pennsylvania voter engagement program was nestled in a larger CASA campaign to ensure that voters had fair access to the ballot in the three counties going into the election, a push that included the filing of a historic language access lawsuit against York County settled just weeks before the election and resulting in access for voter to a Spanish/English bilingual ballot.

CASA’s nonpartisan electoral program implemented three main tactics as part of its strategy to get out the vote of Latinos in Pennsylvania. First, program staff targeted voters with messaging that focused on language access–as CASA knew from the primary election in May, access to voter materials in Spanish was limited. Its second focal point was voter identification, and ensuring that voters fully prepared when they went to vote. The third priority was sharing information about vote-by-mail and how voters could make sure their ballot was counted.
In March of this year, CASA had set the state for its civic engagement program with one of the deepest grassroots efforts in South Central PA history to ensure that the redistricting process would produce majority people of color districts. Together, CASA members produced a community map in Lancaster and York as an alternative to the commission maps. CASA members testified at the redistricting commission hearings. This deep work in local communities laid the stage for ongoing community engagement about the importance of political representation and voting.
voters reached
ad impressions
new voters

After the maps were set, CASA then turned its focus to ensuring adequate access to the polls. CASA surveyed 4,790 voters, discovering that 770, almost half of whom were born and educated in Puerto Rico, encountered language barriers when attempting to vote because of a lack of Spanish-language educational materials and oral assistance at the point of voting. Lancaster County immediately committed to significant improvements in linguistic access.
In York County, negotiations fell apart, and in mid-October, CASA’s allies LatinoJustice PRLDEF and Dechert LLP filed a complaint in federal district court on behalf of CASA and voters of Puerto Rican origin against the Board of Elections in York County, Pennsylvania, for their failure to provide Spanish-language materials and assistance as required by specific provisions of the Voting Rights Act impacting voters educated in Puerto Rico.
Weeks before Election Day, York County settled the lawsuit with the plaintiffs by agreeing to significantly improve Spanish language-access for voters through the distribution of bilingual ballots, sample ballots, and polling location instructions, Spanish-speaking interpretation at the Board of Elections and at the top-twenty Spanish-speaking polling places in the City of York, and instituting training on language access rights for all election judges.
Comms numbers
Radio
in ad buys on WLAN-AM Spanish Hits covering Lancaster and York County radio media markets
listeners reached
gross Impressions
Digital
spent on cross-device (i.e, equally tagetable on smartphones, laptops, and tablets) display ads viewable by internet users in York, Dauphin, and Lancaster Counties
total viewable minutes (this is the total time on screen–if a targeted viewer switch windows or tabs, the counter stops)
total clicks
total impressions
Howard County, MD
Summary Statement
In Howard County, CASA’s rallying cry for this election cycle was to vote yes on Question A–that is, to keep Howard County a safe and welcoming place for all immigrants. And that is what we achieved–with over 61% of voters casting a ballot to keep the Liberty Act in place.

The Liberty Act is a Howard County law that was passed 4-1 by the County Council and signed into law by County Executive Calvin Ball in December of 2020. Since then it has prohibited Howard County authorities from collecting and sharing immigration information about residents. Under the Maryland Constitution, voters can challenge the passage of legislation by putting it up for referendum though a “voter veto.” The effort to overturn this law was led by a minority of residents who met the minimal signature collection requirement to challenge the law’s civil rights and privacy protections.
In the effort to mobilize residents to vote for Question A, CASA’s team of twelve canvassers–largely immigrant youth, whose families were potentially impacted by repeal of the law–engaged more than 27,000 Howard County voters. The Yes on Question A campaign also created a robust relational organizing program that saw Howard County activists spend dozens of hours at the polls, send thousands of texts, and write hundreds of postcards, in addition to attending numerous events to encourage Howard County residents to keep Howard county safe for all.
Field numbers
Our campaign in Howard County utilized a powerful Relational Organizing program, where community members activated by CASA in turn activated their peers outside of CASA’s immediate reach.
Total Users/Volunteers
Total Contacts Imported by Users
Total Actions/Messages Shared
Comms numbers
Digital
spent on Facebook and Instagram ad buys
Facebook leads
viewers reached (FB 22,224, IG 12,848)
impressions (FB 69,969, IG 36,741)
Baltimore City, MD
Summary Statement
In Baltimore, city residents launched a historic effort to take back local authority over its own police department–which it has not had since 1860. Baltimore City is the only jurisdiction in Maryland, and one of only two cities in the US, that does not directly oversee its police department. The Mayor, and City Council do not have the authority to regulate or oversee the department at all, and therefore neither do the people. That authority has rested with the state’s legislature, the Maryland General Assembly, since Abraham Lincoln was alive. In the year 2022, this issue became the basis for the ballot’s “Question H.” The results were overwhelming–over 83% of Baltimore voters decided that from now on, their law enforcement will be accountable to them.

In 2021, Black and brown-led organizations , including CASA, successfully advocated for the passage of SB 786, which authorized the local control referendum. That victory represented the culmination of years of effort, including by the mothers of children who had been killed by the unaccountable police department. Earlier policing scandals, such as the murder of Freddie Gray, the criminal investigation of the BPD Gun Trace Task Force, and constitutional violations demonstrated by a major DOJ investigation, police reform advocates struggled to implement significant reforms because of the lack of municipal control over the department.
CASA worked in partnership with the Campaign for Justice, Safety & Jobs, a Baltimore based coalition of over 30 organizations fighting for police accountability, on the Committee for Local Control. This coalition engaged in a strong popular education and weekly community canvassing program to educate voters and get out the vote for Question H. CASA’s canvassing team of twenty-one Black and brown community members and youth, joined each Sunday by volunteer allies, engaged in a nine-week canvass program which focused field efforts in southeast, west, and south Baltimore. The team reached 39,456 voters. The canvass team distributed pledge cards, where voters could commit in writing that “I pledge to vote for Question H, Local Control.” The pledge cards took social media by storm and were shared every day of the campaign, along with the hashtag “#VoteForH.”

With the passage of this major referendum, Baltimore City will finally be operating its police department in the normal way for a municipality of its size, the first step towards justice for our communities.
Comms numbers
Our communications team decided to forgo a paid-advertising campaign on the Baltimore City referendum question, instead opting for an organic social media strategy in addition to the deployment of traditional printed literature, t-shirt, and signs, to build grassroots attention for the cause. Much of our organic social media work involved amplifying the daily updates of our partner, the Campaign for Justice, Safety, and Jobs, who are already well-established in the Baltimore community .
