It is March, if you are a Democratic precinct captain that means you should be analyzing your precinct, if you have not already done so. So I thought I might excerpt the section of my book that deals with this subject:
What sort of precinct do you live in? The first order of business is to get a map of your precinct. You might be able to download it from the Registrar's office's website. But more likely, you will have to go to their office and buy a precinct map of your jurisdiction. There is no possibility of doing proper precinct work if you do not know the actual boundaries of your precinct.
The next order of business is to analyze the returns of at least the last four elections. So far as I am aware, every jurisdiction now has precinct returns going back to 1996 online. When you look at the returns you need to consider who wins in your precinct, what the trend has been, and by what sort of margin. Do Democrats win? Republicans? Do you live in one of those rare precincts that vote for emergent parties? (Yes, Greens, Independents, and other emergent parties do win from time to time.) Until you have actually looked at the returns you know nothing. The other thing you need to look at is turnout, is the turnout in your precinct 50% of registered voters or better? Or is it less than 50%? Obviously this will vary greatly from year to year, which is why you need to look at more than one election.
The next order of business is to actually walk your precinct. If it is a very large precinct, this will not be possible to do in one afternoon. You will need to walk sections of it until you have surveyed the entire precinct. What sort of precinct is it? Is it older houses? A new development? Townhouses? high-rises? Garden apartments? Some mix of these? The sort of neighborhood you live in determines your overall approach.
If you live in an older neighborhood with detached houses where there is little turnover, you will want to spend a great deal of time doing voter ID. I will discuss that later. For now you need to determine where you need to spend your time.
If your precinct is mostly new developments, but detached houses that look like future turnover will be limited, you will also need to spend your time doing voter ID.
If your precinct has mostly townhouses and/or condominiums, where turnover looks like it would be every 3-5 years, you will still need to do some work on voter ID, but visibility and leafleting will be more important.
If your precinct is mostly rentals with a turnover of 6-18 months, you will need to put your energy into leafleting, visibility, and possibly voter registration.
So the initial question is, do you live in a low, medium, or high turnover precinct? The sort of precinct you live in will determine how you spend your time.
The next question is what sort of people live in your neighborhood? Families with small children? Families with adolescents? Older adults? Single adults? It would be an error to assume that the single gentleman in his thirties does not care about schools, but you can be very sure that the family with school age children DOES care about schools. Looking at the sort of people who live in your neighborhood will give you a feel for what sort of concerns they have.
Notice that I did not suggest you observe the ethnic character of your neighborhood. Precinct operations are about treating voters as individuals, not as members of a group. Having said that, you should be aware of voters who speak English as a second language. You will want to know if you need political literature in a language other than English, and if so, which language. You will also want to know if you need to recruit volunteers who speak foreign languages, and which languages you need.
This is the sort of practical information that I used to provide when I did precinct operations training for the Fairfax County Democratic Committee. Ideally every Democratic Committee in the country would be offering this sort of training. Ideally the Democratic National Committee would be sending out traveling field operatives into every jurisdiction of offer this sort of training. Realistically, that is not going to happen. That is why I wrote The precinct captain's guide to political victory, described by one reader as "clearly written, right to the point and will certainly drive political campaigns to victory." My book is not for candidates, campaign managers, nor consultant. My book every grassroots political volunteer who wants to win elections and is looking for practical guidance as to how to do so. My book assumes that the reader has little or no experience of electoral politics and little or no institutional support from the local party apparatus. I have personally tried every method I describe here and can guarantee the effectiveness thereof.