Articles by Walksheet.com

Ben Donahower is the co-author of the free GOTV ebook, Get Out the Vote to Win, and blogs about political lawn signs. Ben is an authority on marketing for political organizations. Get out the vote is perhaps the most exciting part of a political campaign. In the lead up to Election Day, there is excitement and activity at every turn. During this brief phase of the campaign, however, there is little room for error. The GOTV plan must be dead on and executed flawlessly. Unlike other points in the campaign, there is precious little time to change course. Getting it right the first time matters. Get Out the Vote to Win is a free ebook with tips and tricks from eight political consultants who are recognized experts in their field. While the ebook won’t run your GOTV campaign for you, it will point you in the right direction and give you some ideas to help focus your efforts. These are three of the most important lessons from the ebook:  

Repetition is the key to learning

“Repetition, repetition, repetition: Information is best consumed through repetition. Sending only one piece of mail will do little to influence voters. Stick to a consistent message and hit voters with it repeatedly.” - Michael Bronstein, Bronstein and Weaver “Put yourself in the mind of the voter and the respondent: Most swing voters are not closely following your race. That’s what makes them swing, so every poll question should assume very little, be short and clear, and remove jargon and unnecessary numbers or acronyms.” - Margie Omero, Momentum Analysis At this point in the campaign, you have contacted your universe of targeted voters many times. You might wonder if there is value in contacting your supporter a few more times. In fact, you probably fear that one last call will push your supporter away. This is why it’s important to keep in mind what Margie Omero wrote; voters are not closely following your race. We are looking at voter contact from our perspective. You know when Election Day is, when the polls open and close, where your polling place is located and had your mind made up about who to vote for long before the average voter even knew who was running. Also, the average voter needs to hear different messages at the different times in the campaign. Even though you have secured a voters support, that doesn’t mean that you have their vote until they case their ballot at the polls, so don’t be afraid to contact your supporters during GOTV to remind them to vote.

Persuasion is a part of get out of the vote

“Simply saying “go vote,” without an element of persuasion, is noble but is off-message for your campaign and wastes an opportunity to convince an undecided voter or call a supporter to action.’ - Andrew Eldredge-Martin, Caucus Media “Persuasion: Identifying the voters most likely to be swayed over to your camp lets you focus on building your base at the expense of your opponents.” - Ted Blaszak, Democracy Resources During get out the vote, you need to contact such a large volume of people in such a short amount of time that you will look for ways to reduce the time it takes to contact each voter. One of those ways it to cut out extraneous information from your phone and canvassing scripts. Excluding a persuasion message in your GOTV program, however, is counterproductive. In Robert Cialdini’s book, Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive, he shared an experiment where an office worker asked to cut in line at the photocopier. One set of office workers just asked to cut in line. Another set asked to go first “because they needed to make copies.” Despite the latter group’s lackluster reason to cut in line, the person at the photocopier was more likely to let them go first. Of course, a meaningful reason is all the more effective. If you aren’t explaining the “because” part to voters during get out the vote, they will not be as motivated to vote for the candidate than if you incorporated a persuasion message into your GOTV scripts.

Time is of the essence

“Start your GOTV calls on the Thursday before Election Day. Wrap up by Monday evening, the day before the polls open. The prime time to call voters is between 5PM and 8PM.” - Moses Ross, PoliticalRobocalls.com Readng Moses Ross’s contribution to Get Out the Vote to Win, there are numerous references to time and the logistical structure to GOTV. Political campaigns have three resources at their disposal: time, money, and people. Time is the only nonrenewable resource among them and that pressure is all the more acute just prior to the election. To execute an effective GOTV campaign, you must be a task master. You must hit your numbers, so that you have a reliable outcome and increase in voter turnout among your supporters.

Conclusion

If you run an effective GOTV effort, you will increase your candidate’s performance by several points. In a close race, get out the vote means the difference between winning and losing. In a local campaign, GOTV can make the difference regardless. Click here for the free, Get Out the Vote to Win ebook for more GOTV tips and tricks.