Sab Stacchi

Project

Presentation

Progress Log

Capstone Essay

Sabatino Stacchi

Mr. Caballero

English 8

20 April 2020

Volunteering For A Political Campaign

In late 2019, I learned about the presidential campaign of Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. She stood for big ideas that would change our country for the better, like ending Washington corruption and creating a Medicare For All system. Elizabeth Warren was the candidate for me, and I wanted to help her get elected. For my Capstone project, I have been getting involved with various political campaigns across the country through a variety of volunteering methods in order to enhance my knowledge of how politicians get elected in the first place. For my background research, I looked into how to talk to a voter, common practices for helping a campaign, and why people vote or do not vote in the first place. Through this research and the volunteering I have been doing, I hope to make a video that explains the work that is campaign volunteering, the ways someoneyou can get involved as a volunteer, and what the experience is like.

One of the most important things to know was who the campaign is communicating with and how the interactions with voters should go. When communicating with voters, volunteers are mainly contacting someone likely to vote for the candidate or someone who is likely to go to the polls (3 Step). The goal is to spark a conversation by making the message relevant to the issues that matter to them, personalize it by adding some info on why you support the candidate, and comparing and contrasting how your candidate is different from others. Make a connection, avoid repeating a collection of talking points and facts (Broockman). Try not to rush through a conversation with a voter and move on, because that often means the overall message is not getting across (Broockman). There are many ways to interact with voters on behalf of a campaign.

Campaign volunteering takes a variety of forms, many of which volunteers can do from the comfort of their own home. One can call voters, informing them about the candidate’s policy positions and persuading them to cast their vote for a candidate. A relatively new practice is texting voters, allowing volunteers to talk to large numbers of people quickly and simultaneously. The most time-consuming out of all of these is writing postcards or letters, with each containing one or two talking points about a candidate and why the recipient should vote for them. However, the coronavirus outbreak put a halt to all canvassing. When campaigns canvass, their volunteers go door-to-door having face-to-face conversations about the candidate with the voters. Calling voters, interacting with them over text, and talking with them in person are all ways that one can help a campaign.

The main goal of all is this is to get people to vote for a candidate when election day rolls around. To better tackle this challenge, I wanted to understand why some participate and why some abstain from the process. People vote for a couple reasons. They are visually surrounded by urges in the form of yard signs, advertisements, and more. Being able to say that the person we voted for won and that we were a part of that is also a driving force (Monitor). But many choose not to participate in the election for a few key reasons. First, people feel that it is unlikely that their vote could decide a race (Cook). The argument that it is a civic duty has no effect on most, because many things like blood donations are your civic duty, but we also choose to not do those (Cook). Finally, saying that non-voters lose the right to air grievances about your politicians does not work because the right to complain about a politician still exists, even if one did not cast a vote for them (Cook). After I learned about why people vote and do not vote, I was ready to start volunteering.

One of the oldest practices in the world of campaign volunteering is contacting voters by way of calling them. When someone first gets on the line, volunteers should be excited and enthusiastic about the candidate at the beginning of the call (Bailey). It is good to remember that when the person on the other end recently had their pick drop out, volunteers are competing with other campaigns, so the interaction with the voter needs to count (Bailey). People will want to know where they stand on issues that matter to them, so know said candidate, their policy positions and key stances (Bailey). Pay attention to the plans of other candidates as well, because volunteers need to be able to make connections and find common ground between candidates (Bailey). It may seem easy, but I would not recommend it to people who get easily discouraged. It is tough to keep going after being hung up on time-after-time. It can be hard to think on your feet about specific policy questions when you’re talking to a stranger in a faraway state. From my experience, I would advocate for texting voters, opposed to talking to them over the phone.

Texting voters is relatively new on the scene of campaign communication methods. It is useful because people are being bombarded with campaign messaging, but texting is helpful because it assists a campaign with standing out from other campaigns by using a new platform (Roose). Young people are a big factor in elections, and they are reached better over texting rather than calling (Roose). Also, the campaigns that send out texts get responses and donations in return. 90% of campaign texts are read within 5 minutes of being delivered to someone’s phone, they have 36 times the rate of responses to emails, and voters who received mailers as well as texts donated 8% more than those who just received only mailers (Roose). I enjoyed this a lot more than calling for a couple reasons. The texts were quick and easy to send out. The initial message would already be there, pressing enter would send it out. Responses were also already written, all that was left to do was copy and paste. All things considered, it was a way more relaxed process because you have more time to think about how to respond.

Canvassing is another method of volunteering and is regarded as the best way to reach voters. When campaigns canvass voters, volunteers go door-to-door and talk about a candidate. Canvassing is a good method of talking to voters because it puts faces to a campaign. Even in the age of digital outreach, talking face-to-face is the most effective way to meet voters and talk about the issues (Door). Some common practices for canvassing include managing the time spent knocking by limiting each conversation with a voter to 2 minutes each (Broockman). Similar to being on the phone, volunteers should make an effort to have a real conversation. If large numbers of doors are knocked every day, it is likely that the campaign’s message is not getting communicated and the interactions are rushed (Broockman). All of these methods of volunteering become more important during the last few days before the election when GOTV starts.

All of this volunteering happens throughout the campaign, but it ramps up when GOTV rolls around. GOTV stands for “Get Out The Vote”, in which volunteers register voters or campaign to get a specific election outcome (What). The voters you reach out to in this stage already know the candidate and just need to get out and vote for them (What). In this time, it is all hands on deck for the last days before the election (What), whether that be the primary or general. I have been involved in two GOTV efforts so far, with a congressional campaign and a state supreme court campaign. For Marie Newman, who is running for Congress in the 3rd district of Illinois, I worked with a large group making hundreds of calls to voters which helped her win the Democratic primary by a margin of 2,738 votes (2.7%). For Jill Karofsky, the newest member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, I helped write postcards to voters in Wisconsin with the help of a group called Postcards To Voters.

Through my research on these various methods of volunteering, I now understand how to best help a political campaign or advance a cause. I also learned about the best ways to talk to voters and what drives people to either vote or not participate. With this information in mind, I can volunteer my time to candidates I want to help elect by calling, texting, or otherwise contacting the electors. My ultimate goal is to make a movie detailing the best ways to volunteer, what they entail, and my experiences doing them. I hope that by making this film I can show other young people that once you find a candidate you like, volunteering for them becomes exciting and fulfilling.

Works Cited

Cook, Samuel. “The One Argument That Can Convince People to Vote.” Medium,

Editing Untitled, 31 Oct. 2018, medium.com/editing-untitled/the-one-argument-that-can-convince-people-to-vote-4042c70d386b.

“3 Step Guide to Efficient Voter Persuasion • CallHub.” CallHub, 9 Mar. 2020,

callhub.io/voter-persuasion-guide/.

“Door Knocking.” MA Voter Table, mavotertable.org/door-knocking.

Monitor on Psychology, American Psychological Association,

www.apa.org/monitor/2008/06/vote.

Broockman, David, and Joshua Kalla. “Experiments Show This Is the Best Way to Win

Campaigns. But Is Anyone Actually Doing It?” Vox, Vox, 13 Nov. 2014,

www.vox.com/2014/11/13/7214339/campaign-ground-game.

“What Is GOTV.” Ballotpedia, ballotpedia.org/What_is_GOTV.

Roose, Kevin. “Campaigns Enter Texting Era With a Plea: Will U Vote 4 Me?” The New

York Times, The New York Times, 1 Aug. 2018,

www.nytimes.com/2018/08/01/technology/campaign-text-messages.html.