In IL-13 we have a close congressional election coming. I canvassed a student district for about two hours today: 9 new voters registered, very likely D’s.
Several others said they would switch or consider switching their registrations to this district online. A few others were confirmed as already registered at their current addresses. About 40 doors were internationals, so they can be scratched off future canvass lists.
This is the the most efficient canvassing I can remember. It was organized completely differently than the usual DCCC method. Lists of registered voters are useless in student districts, where almost everyone has moved. Instead we just grab a handful of voter registration forms and knock on every door. For those who said they’d register online, we hope for the best. For the 9 who filled out the forms, we have contact info to make sure the registration went through smoothly and send reminders about early voting etc.
We have a few dozen people doing this, organized by a group with close ties to our state rep. I strongly recommend that everyone near student neighborhoods adopt this method, at least in states where registration laws make it easy for volunteers to get these registrations.
Don’t wait for DCCC to do this. Get a group of volunteers going and then give the local campaigns the info they need.
UPDATE: Today is “Quad Day” for new students. We had a huge volunteer turnout, clipboards everywhere. I pooped out in the heat after 2 hours, with 13 new registrations. The goal was to register 3000, maybe we’ll get something like that.
MORE UPDATE: We got 2030 at Quad Day. Better than ~1200 in 2016.