I agree with Angie in WA State Old School that 'old school' is an excellent GOTV method. I wrote about my pilot project in 2012 Getting Out the Vote. My only reservation is that, unless voting patterns are very different in Washington than what I found in Ohio, you may be talking to the wrong people.
When I examined voting in mid-term elections in Allen County I found that both registered Dems and registered Reps voted about 80% of the time. However the undeclared voters, which are close to two-thirds of the registered voters, vote only about 20% of the time. Now in Ohio you become a registered voter by voting in a partisan primary. If Washington handles things differently, the pattern may be very different. However it would be worthwhile to look at the data from your BOE and make sure that you're talking to the right people.
Below the fold I'll talk about what I am doing to implement what I have found out in the pilot project to fit the patterns of voting in Ohio.
Since the people we need to get out are the undeclared and since both registered Dems and Reps turn out in high numbers, it makes sense to run a non-partisan get-out-the-vote effort. As I reported after the election my pilot project turned out quite well. I know that some of my people did not get much done but I counted the results from everyone and my block captains still had a 7% increase in turnout in 2012 over the turnout in 2008 despite an overall drop in turnout in 2012. Some results moreover were spectacular. One of my block captains increased the turnout on her block from 42% in 2008 to 83% in 2012!
In 2012 I walked the blocks of my precinct and managed to recruit only 20 people for my pilot project. However after the election every one of them agreed to help again in 2014. That is a large part of my idea--to create a GOTV project that continues. By making sure that the workload is light enough that people don't get burnt out, you don't have to recruit from zero every year.
The duties of a block captain are key. 1. The block captain never has to leave his of her own block. 2. The block captain is given a list of registered voters in the block (by address) and some voter registration forms. 3. The captain visits each house, registers any unregistered overs, and gets a phone number. (The neighborhood supervisor takes the completed voter registration forms to the BOE.) 4.On the weekend before early voting starts, the block captain calls each voter and gives them the hours for early voting that week, urges them to vote early, and asks if they need a ride. (If they do, the captain calls the neighborhood supervisor.) 5. The block captain repeats the calls each weekend until election day. The program works because it is your neighbor who is calling you.
The decision to make the project non-partisan is part of trying to recruit new block captains. I am currently negotiating with the local League of Women Voters to get their endorsement. I am told that they have been interested in doing a non-partisan get-out-the-vote effort and my Neighbors calling Neighbors program would certainly fit the bill. I also am working with the Retired Teachers Association. If I get both of them, I can do a major news conference at the Library to announce the project. That should be a key to making presentations at service clubs, churches, and colleges to recruit block captains.
I have simplified the program slightly--primarily by cutting down the amount of work I was doing. For instance I was tracking absentee voting and calling my block captains to let them know who had voted so they could take them off the list. I decided that they can just ask their voters if they voted the next time they call them. Since I hope to have a lot more block captains, I'm going to need people (the neighborhood supervisors) to take the block captains their lists of registered voters and registrations forms and to pick up their completed registrations and take them down to the BOE. I knew that most of the people likely to volunteer for neighborhood supervisor would not have the time to check the absentee voting.
I was hoping to have everything arranged by this time, however I am getting a lesson in coalition formation. I know that GOTV, particularly as I am doing it, needs to start now. The organizations I am trying to work with think of it as something to organize in the Fall. I'm not their primary concern, I'm a "that would be nice." Getting on their schedules when they usually meet once a month and have other priorities is frustrating.
I remain convinced that Neighbors calling Neighbors has the potential to greatly increase voting turnout and particularly so for mid-term elections. I just need to learn to push better and more intelligently.