“Hello, My name is ‘Luam’, and I am with Patrick Murphy for Congress. I am just stopping by to remind you to vote on November 7th.”
I have knocked on several hundred doors in the last few days and said pretty much that. Depending on how they respond I continue, or thank them and move on. Most often I get a smile and polite thank you as they take our literature and close the door. Even better is when the say that they voting for my guy. The ones who like to talk about politics are fun, but I’ve got to keep moving along – so many doors to hit, too little time.
GOTV Canvassing is lots of fun. You get sent to friendly doors and perform a service of reminding them that a very critical election is coming up and they shouldn’t forget to participate. It’s also fun because people are very friendly giving me the thumbs up, and wishing us good luck. Most importantly we are working to change things through the simplest method possible: talking to people we are generally likely to support us and encouraging them to do their civic duty.
According to the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, direct voter contact is really the way to get new voters to the polls (bold added for emphasis):
The greatest difference in the turnout decisions of first time voters and repeat voters was the impact of personal contact. Compared with repeat voters, first-time voters were substantially less likely (78 percent vs. 96 percent) to claim that “it is a citizen’s duty to vote in every election.” Personal contact helped overcome their weaker sense of civic duty. Three times as many first-time voters—61 percent vs. 21 percent—said that a reason they voted was because “my family or friends encouraged me to vote.”
The only real down side is the hours of walking, sore legs and blisters on my feet. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blisters of patriots.”
So if you possibly can get out and contact your local candidate, tell them you want to help them get out the vote. Make sure to remind your friends and family that this is a critical election and they really need to vote for a change in our country’s direction. Get out from behind your computers and do real voter contact. I know that over here at Patrick Murphy’s campaign we would love to have you.
