Arizona Citizens for the Arts Launches VOTEsmART Campaign

Arizona Citizens for the Arts has launched a campaign called VOTEsmART. It’s designed to help voters and candidates learn more about issues related to arts and culture.

Arizona Citizens for the Arts is a nonprofit organization founded 37 years ago to promote the importance of Arizona’s arts and culture sector.

The organization, headed by executive director Catherine “Rusty” Foley, engages with legislators, business and community leaders, and community members to help improve the quality of life in Arizona.

The organization announced the new initiative in a press release on July 25.

The VOTEsmART campaign has three key elements: highlighting arts and culture issues affected by upcoming elections, identifying the positions gubernatorial and legislative candidates hold on these issues, and providing basic voter information such as how to register and obtain an absentee ballot.

Arizona Citizens for the Arts has already sent issue surveys to candidates, asking their positions on several issues related to arts and culture. Responses from candidates who completed a survey are posted on a section of the organization’s website dedicated to VOTEsmART.

“The survey does not presume any right or wrong answers,” Foley says in the press release. Instead, it raises both candidate and voter awareness about the ways arts and culture affects Arizona communities and individuals.

Foley also notes that nonprofit arts and culture organizations create more than a half-billion dollars in economic benefit in Arizona each year. The state’s creative industries sector employs more than 90,000 people.

Arizona Citizens for the Arts will also use the VOTEsmART campaign to share information about how various business, civic, and community organizations view candidates and upcoming elections. And they’ll provide information about local elections, including ballot initiatives, plus contact information for Arizona policy makers.

The campaign is well-timed, given the fact that Arizonans will be voting on candidates for governor, as well as members of the Senate and House of Representatives, on Tuesday, November 6.

You’ll need to register by Monday, July 30, if you want to vote in the primary election that happens on Tuesday, August 28. The general election takes place on Tuesday, November 6, and that voter registration deadline is Tuesday, October 9.