[Sent them the "Welcome" email with instructions on how to write their sample to join #PostcardsToVoters which for now, has a message for our current Ohio Supreme Court campaign.]
"I want to send pro Biden postcards."
We only write to Democratic voters...
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...and even if the message has the names of two amazing Judges running to flip the Ohio Supreme Court majority to Democrat, every voter we succeed in reminding to vote will absolutely positively definitely vote for Joe Biden at the top as their first vote on the ballot...
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...before they do way down further on the ballot to vote for these two named judges. Biden/Harris do not need space on a tiny postcard to improve their name recognition. Democratic voters won't forget and accidentally skip past the very first contest on their ballots.
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But, voters very often *do* skip contests further down their ballot and that's where we often lose close elections. Not because there weren't enough Dems voting. But because too many of them stopped voting their ballot as soon as they got to names they didn't recognize.
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It's fun to write "Vote for Biden/Harris" but writing #PostcardsToVoters is also about being truly effective in getting more Democratic candidates elected. So, let's hunker down and do the work to flip Ohio's SC to majority Democrat ahead of redistricting.
Write on!
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There will be 42 municipal offices up for election in Pinellas County, FL on March 9, 2021. You won’t need to write new #PostcardsToVoters to Democrats there because you’ve already helped them enroll in VBM. Which means they will receive ballots in the mail automatically!
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In all 67 Florida counties, fun, friendly #PostcardsToVoters have succeeded in boosting VBM enrollment among Democrats since we began this focused project two years ago. The benefits of this enrollment windfall can be counted for years to come.
As casual voters who newly...
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...enrolled in VBM begin receiving ballots for all types of elections large and small throughout the years to follow, their habits of voting will grow stronger. Just having the ballot appear without needing to ask for it will boost participation.
Once upon a time, (actually this has happened twice that I know of for a certain fact), a campaign received stacks and stacks of volunteer-handwritten #PostcardsToVoters mailed to them in bundles from all over the country. They hadn't asked for these cards.
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But, well-meaning volunteers wrote them, put stamps on them, and then bulk shipped them to the campaign for them to be mailed locally to get local postmarks so that voters would think they'd been written by their neighbors.
These two campaigns didn't have time to proofread.
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With all the critical work they had on their plates, they couldn't spare anyone to sort through the stacks of postcards to remove any that were illegible or contained problematic language or images.
So, discretely, instead of taking them to be mailed. They were disposed of.
Different communication approaches will have varying degrees of effectiveness for an array of calls to action.
Billboards, radio spots TV ads, newspaper ads, phone calls, door knocks and postcards are not all equal in getting voters to register, or enroll in VBM, or to vote.
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But, because getting volunteers to write postcards is easiest and doesn’t cost the organizing group, we see it being picked more and more often without regard to effectiveness.
When the organizing group moves the cost burden to volunteers, they can afford to care less...
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...about the results. Because any result is good when it’s “free” to them.
Eventually volunteers will become savvy consumers of the activism opportunities. In the meantime, it frustrates me to no end to be on a call with someone who, in the face of numerous logical...
"Tony, why are you asking us to write for someone in a very red part of Georgia who has no chance of winning instead of writing to purged voters in WI or for people like Amy McGrath? My group wants better reasons to write."
This is a question that we receive regularly.
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In one form or another, some of our best writers and volunteer group leaders ask us this. It's picking up with regularity as we get further into the 2020 frenzy. So, let me try to address the different points and you can let me know if these answers suffice.
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Q: Why do we write in red areas where our Dem candidate has such an uphill battle to win?
A: If we have writing capacity in an otherwise clear calendar, I feel it is a responsible thing to offer as one of the postcarding choices. Being as forthright as possible explaining...
O: We have an exciting and important project to propose to you for PTV.
T: Great! Tell me more.
O: You know that state with hundreds of thousands of voters about to be purged?
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T: Yes. It’s all over the news.
O: Would you organize your volunteers to write to those hundreds of thousands of addresses urging the voters to take action to restore their voter registrations?
T: Well, let me understand a little more first.
O: Okay.
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T: Are any of these records for voters who may have moved away?
O: Yes, that is a certainly a part of the list.
T: Ok. Can we match the purged records to the USPS National Change of Address file?
O: What’s that?
T: It’s a service offered by the USPS to businesses.