Library Ballot Initiatives in 2020

Throughout the last 7 years, EveryLibrary has maintained national data on library ballot initiatives. This year is no different but we’d love to ask for your help.

If you know of a library on the ballot in 2020, please add it to our list here.

Unfortunately, national level politics is overshadowing many of the small library campaigns across the country. Typically, we see somewhere around 75 local library ballot initiatives in November and we help support between 25-40 of them with direct funding, consulting, tools, and data. This year it looks like very few libraries are going to the voters this November and we're already supporting a number of them. But we need your help to find more!

That’s why we’re asking you to let us know if you know of a library that is going to the voters on November 3rd or has gone to the voters sometime in 2020. Simply add them to our spreadsheet here.

We make these databases of library elections publicly available through our partnership with Library Journal.

These local library elections are so critical because nearly 90% of all library funding comes from the will of local voters and local politicians. That’s why our primary role is to help support libraries on the ballot. In fact, we’re able to return over $1,600 in stable library funding for every dollar that we raise by supporting library ballot initiatives with your donations. That means that if you’d like to help us secure almost $20,000 in library funding then you can simply start a $1 per month donation here and we’ll even send you something nice.  

Don’t forget, every election day we host a watch party on twitter to track and report library ballot initiatives as the results come in. You can join along by following us on twitter and using the #votelibraries and #librarywatchparty hashtags.