I am a member of a St. Louis, MO Obama Neighborhood Team. Voter registration in MO closed today, and I can say with a great deal of pride that our region met and exceeded the campaign's voter registration expectations. My understanding is we have also met and exceeded the campaign's statewide goals. The actual numbers will be released Thursday night.
Despite the fact we have been making calls, knocking on doors, and registering voters for over three months our real work is just beginning. We must now ensure that every registered Obama supporter in the state of Missouri casts their vote by the time the polls close on November 4th. We plan on winning MO for Barack.
And we need your help. Just as the Obama Neighborhood teams in OH, CO, NH, PA, MI, WI, NM, NV, FL, VA, NC, IN, and MN need Obama supporters in their states to step forward for these last 4 weeks.
Barack needs your help. Here is what you can do.
Look up your localObama office by clicking first on your state and then on the find your local office link to the right. Call that office. Get hooked up with your local Obama Neighborhood Team. Or you can find the next Obama Campaign local event near you by putting your zip code in on the event search page. Go to that event. Help out. Meet your fellow local Obama volunteers. And by the way, our St. Louis Obama Neighborhood Teams have been blessed with the additional help of numerous Illinios Obama supporters over the past month--and there numbers are growing. So if you live next to one of the battleground states this message is for you as well.
What will we be doing for the next 4 weeks?
- Voter education: we want new (and infrequent) voters to know what their rights and responsibilities are in their polling place to ensure they don't get disenfranchised; we want all of our voters to know what their ballot will look like ahead of time so they can make their candidate and issue decisions beforehand and keep that long line (and with an projected 80% turnout there will be a line) of voters moving at a steady pace; we want to identify every voter with a special need in advance so that they can get a ride to the poll on election day, vote absentee if they are housebound, find childcare if they are a single parent with young children, or get help with any other issue that might keep them from voting.
- Voter identification and persuasion: we still have Obama supporters to ID in our area despite having knocked every door on our turf between 2 and 5 times, and we need to make sure that if we locate a voter who is either undecided or leaning that we know what arguments will pull them into the Obama camp.
- Recruit and train volunteers: you can never have too many.
- Put the election day voter protection program into place
- Put the Election Weekend Get Out the Vote Program into place and test it with a dry run the week before the actual election.
All of these things guarantee a whirlwind of activity that YOU can be a part of between now and November 4th as you get to know all the folks who make up your local neighborhood Obama team.
And finally, if you want the word on how these neighborhood teams work here is a sweet article detailing how they are helping win Ohio for Barack.
NOW GET INVOLVED FOR THE HOME STRETCH! AND MANY MANY THANKS IN ADVANCE.