Mission Possible: Improve Voter Turnout
Why rob banks? Because that’s where the money is!
Notorious American bank robber Willie Sutton explained that he stole from banks: “Because that’s where the money is.” In other words, his end goal was money so why waste time looking for it in obscure or questionable places instead of taking the path of least resistance and most success and going straight to the source? – Investopedia
The rule also applies to getting out the vote.
Swing Blue Alliance applies the principle to finding the best areas to focus on to improve voter turnout. Use this StoryMap to see how to find precincts with high percentage of Democratic voters –AND– a low voter turnout percentage. By focussing Get Out The Vote (GOTV) efforts on those areas increases the chances of getting more Democratic voters to vote – without breaking the bank.
How to find the best voting precincts to focus on
The process is simple. Swing Blue Alliance obtained publicly available records on voter turnout by party in the 2022 election for Berks County (for this project). This only cost a few dollars and each record looked like this with the County, Ward and Precinct.
This information was mapped for Berks County, Pennsylvania using esri software. Swing Blue Alliance organizers use this map to quickly find:
Which precincts had the highest percentage of Democratic voters?
What was the voter turnout % by precinct?
Which precincts had the highest percentage of Democratic voters – AND – the lowest voter turnout?
Finding the precincts with most potential to improve voter turnout
Go back to the Willie Horton rule : “Why waste time looking for it in obscure or questionable places instead of taking the path of least resistance and most success and going straight to the source?
Using canvassing, post car writing and other tactics on voting precincts with large numbers of Democratic voters who didn’t vote is likely to improve voter turnout.
Swing Blue Alliance
Swing Blue Alliance is the largest all-volunteer, Democratic grassroots organization headquartered in Massachusetts. In partnership with organizations in swing states, we develop evidence-based programs to protect our democracy, work on competitive local and national elections, and strengthen the Democratic Party at the grassroots level. More than half a million actions from their volunteers in 2022:
Postcarding: 460K+ mailings across all state campaigns
Volunteer Recruitment: Nearly 17K actions to recruit nearly 3000 Democratic volunteers
Pennsylvania: 200K+ actions for phone banking, canvassing, and postcarding
New Hampshire: 17K actions to canvass and 24K calls to voters
North Carolina: 33K actions for phone banking and $380K in fundraising
Georgia Runoff: Nearly 17K actions across phone banking and canvassing
TakeAway: Technology is an equalizer in the fight to protect American democracy against billionaires trying to overthrow democracy and install a dictator. Get pro bono technical help with projects for social justice and voting rights.
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Image Credit: Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible
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