Call to Action: Register 1,000,000 Voters
Wed May 07, 2008 at 09:09:22 AM PDT
The following diary lays out a detailed plan for registering at least 1,000,000 voters in time for the general election through an online network of volunteers called VoteZip.org. This project has been in development since early March, when a group of socially conscious and politically progressive graduates of Yale Divinity School (who currently are spread out across the country) conceived it.
There is actually much more to discuss than what is covered in the present diary. In the following days I will post follow up VoteZip.org diaries which will focus on the organization's egalitarian netroots power structure, how the service benefits people with disabilities, financial policies (including our forthcoming 501(c)(3) status), its immunity to legal challenges, plans and strategies for informing unregistered citizens of this service, as well as the occasional fun and interesting fact about voting and voter registration.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- VoteZip.org - The Basics
- VoteZip.org vs. Previous and Current Voter Registration Efforts
- 1,000,000 New Voters - The Numbers
=================================
- VoteZip.org - The Basics
The guiding principle behind VoteZip.org is to make registering to vote as easy as possible. Anyone who wants to register can simply visit the website, click "Register" and enter their name, telephone number, and zip code. That's it! From this point a volunteer will do all of the work for them.
This is where we, the volunteers, come in. When registrants in your zip code submit their information, the database matches them to you by zip code and automatically emails you a notification with the contact information they provided.
From here, the volunteer contacts the person over the phone to assist with the registration process. We highly recommend that volunteers conduct this procedure in a two-step process.
- Fill out the The National Voter Registration Form for them over the phone. Have them dictate all of their information as you fill out the form. Most states (perhaps all states - still looking into this) allow for another person who is not the registrant to fill out the registration form on the registrant's behalf. The only fields you should leave blank are Party Affiliation, Social Security Number (or "State ID Number"), Signature and Date.
- Meet the registrant in person to have them complete the form. This should only take a minute or two, so it can be scheduled fairly easily, perhaps around weekend errands (e.g., meet me at the grocery store in town at noon). Have them review what you entered to make sure everything is correct. Then have them sign and date the form, as well as enter their Social Security Number first, and make certain they did it correctly. After this, hand the form back and give them a private minute to select party affiliation.
Those are the basic guidelines. There are different laws that vary from state to state, all of which are detailed in The National Voter Registration Form, so you will need to account for your particular state's guidelines. For instance, Wyoming does not permit its citizens to register using the National Voter Registration Form, so we'll need to think up an alternative plan for Wyoming registrants and volunteers (Thanks Dick Cheney!).
Beyond this, anything you can do to help voters register is up to you. Can you provide the registrant with an envelope and a stamp to mail the form in, and perhaps even mail it in yourself to make sure it gets done? Great! If not, you still did amazing work, and helped a voter to overcome the most daunting part of the process. Registering voters is nothing more than removing obstacles, so everything you can do towards this end helps the effort.
That's the basic idea. The Volunteer Database is currently active and online, so if you've read enough about VoteZip.org and want to volunteer click here. Otherwise keep reading to learn more about how VoteZip.org is different from previous voter registration drives, and why it has the potential to be more successful.
=================================
- VoteZip.org vs. Previous and Current Voter Registration Efforts
Think of Voter Registration as a service industry, for example house cleaning. Cleaning the house is something anyone can do. It takes very little skill, and it doesn't take very long. But there are many people who, despite the fact that they want a clean house, lack the motivation to pick up a vacuum, a mop, and a dust rag. I'll bet more than a few of us fall into this category.
In this respect, registering to vote is exactly the same as cleaning the house. The only difference between the two is that there is a service industry for house cleaning where professionals will clean your house for you, whereas voter registration has always been a Do-It-Yourself endeavor. If there were no service industry for housecleaning, millions of homes across the country that are currently clean would be filthy, just as right now there are millions of citizens across the country who are not registered to vote.
Registration drives are the equivalent of the housecleaning service industry. They help people register to vote who otherwise lack the initiative or the ability to do so on their own. But traditional drives, where volunteers set up a table with registration forms and a cup of pens at a community center on a Saturday, as helpful as they have been to the registration effort, miss millions of citizens each election cycle. This is because of the physical limitations of traditional drives.
VoteZip.org is a 24/7 virtual voter registration drive. Anyone, at any time of day, can go to VoteZip.org and alert a local volunteer that they need help registering to vote. This introduces convenience to the voter registration effort - an asset that it has lacked before. Also, it's simple. Registrants need only enter their name, phone number and zip code. That's it. Done. We'll take it from there.
To carry the housecleaning metaphor one step further, our country is our home. VoteZip.org offers an easy and convenient civic housecleaning service. Right now, the United States of America is in a state of political disarray. It is filthy. We are coming to clean house!
If that did it for you, and you are ready to Volunteer for VoteZip.org, click here. Otherwise, continue reading in order to learn why the goal of registering 1,000,000 voters is not only achievable, it is a drastic underestimation of what we can do.
=================================
- 1,000,000 New Voters - The Numbers
According to the US Census Bureau In the 2004 General Election:
197 million American citizens were eligible to vote
Of these eligible citizens, 142 million (72%) were registered to vote in the general election
Of these registered voters, 126 Million (89% of registered voters/64% of eligible citizens) actually voted
There are two significant points to take from this. First, the vast majority of registered citizens voted in the general election - 89%. This suggests that if a person is registered there is a high probability that he or she will turn out to vote on election day. The second point is that 55 million eligible citizens were not registered to vote by November of 2004. This, then, is the number that every voter registration drive this year has to work with.
According to the US Census Bureau, out of the 55 Million people who were unregistered, the following are some of the reasons people provided for not registering to vote:
4.5% did not know how or where to register
5.6% did not register because of an illness or disability
17.4% did not meet registration deadlines
This suggests that at least 27.5% of all 55 million unregistered citizens in 2004 stated that they wanted to register, but were unable for various reasons - that's over 15 million people (the number is probably much higher, but this will be discussed in a future diary). If we can catch just 10% of this total, we will exceed our goal of 1 million new registered voters. This is a minimum! There is no reason to believe that we cannot reach far more than 10% of those who want to register.
If you believe that we can register over 1 million new voters in 2008, then click here to volunteer for VoteZip.org.
Permalink | 14 comments