While I’ve become convinced that there’s a great value in reminding voters of the need to vote, I still think they get inundated with robocalls and DNC calls and state party calls and statewide candidate calls and individual district candidate calls and city council candidate calls that there becomes a certain law of diminishing returns.
This is not at all true when you’re calling the family and friends who are in your cell phone. You know them, you know how to talk to them, you can cajole and persuade and yell at them to get to the polls. And the message will be received more strongly. Word of mouth is the greatest form of advertising you can deliver. While people will tune out many of the traditional phonebanking calls, when it comes from a friend or family member it has more weight.
So that’s it. You go right down the list in your address book, from A to Z, and ask your friends and family to vote, make sure that they’re registered, tell them how to get an absentee ballot if needed, tell them how to find out where their polling place is, and if they have a higher level of engagement, tell them how to volunteer, or tell them to do this cell phone calling project themselves. This will end up in a huge amount of registered voters being called. There are 85 numbers in my cell phone. If I don’t want to call someone in there for whatever reason, they ought not be in the address book in the first place. I don’t know if this is true of you, but I have certain friends of mine that don’t really know about my commitment to progressive politics. Well, it’s well past time everyone knows, well past time we all start speaking up in our communities. It’s up to us to come out of the shadows and make sure everyone in our sphere of influence gets to the polls.
THIS WORKS. I did it in 2004 and was successful in getting friends and family to vote. So much so that a couple, unsolicited, called me during this year’s primaries looking for answers on their polling place or how to get an absentee ballot. I started this year’s calling early, ensuring my friends and my parent’s friends in my birthplace of Pennsylvania were registered and had all the information they needed.
But with three weeks to go, now is the time. The Cell Phone Calling Project, if it reaches just 1/5 of all users on this site, can reach A MILLION PEOPLE or more. Those are significant numbers.
And you should be systematic and statistical about this. Type up a spreadsheet and fill it with the names of your cell phone. Check off those reached, and check off those who vote when you verify it. Tangibly seeing the results is key.
Here’s a political action that costs 0 dollars (especially if you call on free weekends) that could potentially reach as many targeted voters as the vaunted Republican 72-hour GOTV project. This is open-source, netroots, viral, gate-crashing activism. Let’s do it.
you don’t happen to have a social set consisting entirely of highly politically involved people for whom the question “Did you remember to vote” on Nov 7 would be like asking if they had remembered to get dressed that morning.
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“John, did you remember to vote?”
“Gosh, no, Diana, it slipped my mind that TODAY IS THE DAY I’VE BEEN WORKING 20 HOUR DAYS TOWARDS FOR THE LAST 4 MONTHS”
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(Likewise it is as hard trying to “convince” my friends to vote for Deval as convincing them to eat pie.)
…by all means, jes’ keep talking to one another. Over and over. Please.
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No need to bother with pesky Granny with just the land line.
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Just like a Republican to use a corner case to imply the general case is invalid. You should get your money back on that correspondence course on rhetoric you took…
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P.S. Here in the future, many of the numbers in our cell phone lists are landlines… amazing how that works, no?
Think back to a time before free minutes. Before 5 telephones in your 4 room apartment (including cell phones). A time when people talked with their neighbors. Not their social-network neighbors. Their next door neighbors.
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You want your side to win? Get to know all of your neighbors, and call/knock them. Since you’re neighbors, they’ll listen a little more than if you called them from across town/county/state/country. Since you’re always talking to the same set of neighbors, you’ll get to know their animals names and their kids interests and their pet issues. Over time, you’ll become very effective at motivating your meat space neighbors to vote.
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That’s where the action is. It’s effective, it’s efficient, and it’s rewarding both policially and socially.
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Use your social networks too — but working your neighbors is so effective, and young people are more and more likely to forget about the meat space. Don’t fall in that pit.
most voters were in there 30s — maybe 40s — in the 20th century. It’s the century they know and love.
… that this is not an either/or issue. Of course you should talk to your physical neighbors, and of course you should talk to the folks on your cell phone list, and your email list, etc.
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But — don’t assume that just because you know someone, and believe them to be generally socially aware and liberal, that they will be anywhere near as hep to voting — and voting for Deval and Tim — as you are. Check in and make sure. And furthermore, if you get them a little more enthusiastic about it than they might have been, they may well pass on that enthusiasm to others. “I’m voting for Deval … my friend Tommy thinks he’s the bees knees”, etc. — leading the other converser to wonder “Why does his friend Tommy think Deval is the bee’s knees? What’s the secret?” And they may well become motivated to find out.
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We gotta work those six degrees of separation.
Trick or Vote is a way to meet your neighbors on the one night of the year when they are most likely to answer their doorbells:
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http://mydd.com/stor…
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Dress up in costume, print out some leaflets, buy a bag of candy and go!
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(Hmmmmm.. wonder what PP will troll about this one?… ‘But if you’re wearing a costume nobody will be able to see your face!’… ‘Penny candy for votes?! It’s a BRIBE!’… ‘[Insert ridiculous neocon comment here]!’)
And I don’t just mean the ones you regularly talk to. Try the person who handles cash in your parking garage, the person who cleans the hallways where you work, the cafeteria cashier. A lot of folks want to vote, but they won’t do it unless someone asks them.
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(And if you regularly see these people and haven’t yet developed a relationship with them, try it. It’s part of being a good person and a good Democrat. Plus, the world works thanks to people like these…who would you rather be chummy with if your heating system dies — the CEO or the building manager? Exactly.)
“Now, if you’re like me, you don’t particularly relish making a bunch of phone calls to strangers. And while you understand its importance, nothing will magically turns you into someone who likes doing it.”
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This is me: terminally shy, nervous with strangers, extremely conflict averse (in person đŸ˜‰ ) and…well, not quite misanthropic but you get the idea.
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This year, though, I’m on the phones and knocking on doors. Can you believe it? My friends and family can’t. My husband keeps asking who I am and what I did with his wife.
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It turns out not to be as horrible as I’d thought. I don’t actually try to persuade people to vote for Patrick unless they basically ask me too (a few have said “Why are you supporting him”). I’m primarily just trying to identify voters who are supporting him and, while I’m at it, express my enthusiasm through tone of voice.
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So yeah, call your friends and family, but even if you are a shy misanthrope, consider trying out a few phone calls to strangers, and maybe it won’t be as bad as you think.
voters in Spencer and Douglas. Not as bad as I feared. These are very conservative towns, but I had tremendous luck tonight with a boatload of 1s, three 3s, and a few refusals. Very, very encouraging.