VoteForward Last Saturday I hosted a Vote Forward “Party”. Four friends came over and we wrote letters to unlikely voters in CA25 [Hill (D) vs Knight (R).] It took the five of us about an hour and a half to write out 100 letters, but we were visiting quite a bit. It is fun to gather together with like-minded friends.
After everyone left I had a nice pile of letters sitting on the table, ready to be mailed. I wanted my husband to join in the fun, so we printed off another 25 letters but by this time CA25 was full so selected a new district: TX02 [Litton (D) v Crenshaw (R)-Open seat]. It was my way of supporting Beto!
At book club on Wednesday, some of the gals expressed interest in writing letters, so I hosted another party yesterday. All the original districts VoteForward had selected were full, so they opened up a bunch more and WA08 was one of them. One of our members lives in that district and we all want Dr. Schrier to beat Dino Rossi. Once again we wrote out 100 letters in about an hour and half. More talking this time than last. WA08 is one of those crazy districts that snakes around the state pulling voters from four counties on both sides of the Cascades. West of the Cascades is generally blue, east of the Cascades they are red. Unlikely voters with D-leading impulses need to vote to switch this district.
I still have leftover Hot Wheels stamps (they encourage using fancy stamps to make the envelopes look less like bulk mailings), so this morning I went back to the VoteForward website and was amazed and pleased to see that all WA08 voters were taken. Once again I shopped around and decided to select KY06 as my next district. This is the district where fighter pilot Amy McGrath is neck and neck with her opponent. My hubby and I will write more letters this afternoon.
Here is what you need to know if you, too, want to write letters to unlikely voters for Vote Forward.
1. It is easy to sign up, but you will have to wait for approval, so you can’t start right away. They want to check your social media accounts to make sure you are real and not a repub shill. That approval may take up to 24 hours. So if you want to write letters this weekend, sign up now!
2. You can write up to 100 letters on one account. When I was finished with my first 100, I created an account in my husband’s name for my second 100. When I maxed out both of our accounts I emailed Vote Forward to request more. They asked me to send them a photo of my pile of letters. We aren’t supposed to mail them until October 30th, so I still had the pile to photograph. They are being careful to not assign letters to people who won’t really write them.
3. The goal of the letters is to encourage recipients to vote, not to promote particular candidates. but there is a spot to write why you vote, otherwise the letter is a form letter. My husband said on his letters, “It is our duty as citizens to choose our elected officials. If I don’t vote, others get to decide.” I said, “I want to elect representatives who support the same issues I do, like health care for all and environmental concerns.”
4. The return address is one VoteForward gives you. It is within the district which is covered. My CA25 return address was in Newport Beach, TX02 was in Houston, WA08 was in Lacey, and the KY06 will probably be in Lexington. You will sign your first name and last initial. It is not threatening at all.
5. Mail letters on October 30th. Vote Forward has some research about the effectiveness of letters vs post cards and the timing of the arrival of the letters. this populations is likely to need a nudge at the last minute or they will let it slip.
I encourage you to sign up to write a few letters this weekend.