The Kerry camp. needs YOU / Diary 2 from Col. OH

Part 2 in a series about my 11-day stay in Columbus OH (from Boston, MA) to volunteeer.

Part 1

Perhaps the most disconcerting thing about the parties is how many of their employees are kids fresh out of college--people who have clearly never before been in a major campaign.  As a result, they made, and continue to make, amateurish mistakes.  In particular, there was an obsessive focus on making their quota of numbers (number of people polled on a daily basis, to report to the state HQ) to the neglect of actually getting votes.

My diary yesterday was about how I tried to help them materially by purchasing office supplies and bumper stickers.  Here's a list of some thing I did in my attempt to fill the gaps in how they dealt with people.

• When phone bankers and canvassers handed in their papers with lists of voters, sometimes they would note something next to a person's name that went beyond the person's favoring Kerry/Bush/Nader/Undecided.  For example, sometimes there would be a note such as "Send information on health care,"  "Send her an absentee ballot application," or "Asked to be taken off our calling list." or even "Moved, but new person at address, so-and-so, supports Kerry."  Before I arrived, these notes were not being followed up on:  support level was simply noted by the data entry people, and the papers then shoved into a box.  

• Canvassers were NOT given voter-registration forms or absentee ballot applications, despite them having them right there in the office!  So when a canvasser encounters Kerry supporters who are not registered to vote, which typically happens once or twice each time a canvasser goes out (In my two canvasses I registered 4 people and found 2 people who needed absentee ballots.), rather than simply register them on the spot, they are forced to 1) Take down their name on the form.  2) Pray that someone actually does go through the papers later (See above.).  3) Have this person use and envelope and 2 first-class stamps to send them a pre-stamped form.  4) Pray that thee Kerry fan don't screw up filling it in.  5) Pray that they get the form in on time

• Volunteers were often not told about the myriad of opportunities to help; many were simply told to come in and phone bank.  Now some people like to phone bank (I personally hate it.) but an analysis of old canvass/call sheets showed that someone knocking on doors reaches at least twice as many people, probably 3-4 times as many, in the same amount of time.  And of course a face-to-face encounter with a supporter is far more likely to persuade an undecided voter than is a phone call.  So why were many volunteers, not informed about the existence of the canvass?

• When a caller did make contact with a voter, they would typically forget to ask them about whom others in their household supported, meaning others would have to call the same residence all over again.

• Along similar lines, callers were not trained to offer voter registration forms to unregistered Kerry supporters, nor even absentee ballot applications to elderly Kerry supporters.

As a volunteer there, I did my best to rectify these problems, with varying degrees of success.

On my own initiative, I spent several days going though their entire backlog of canvass sheets and following up on requests.  The Kerry people agreed to have a volunteer spend the 60-90 minutes/day to stay on top of this from now on, and I trained a couple of people and wrote up instructions.  This was my one real success.

On the other issues I was able to rectify these issues when I was there, but despite my pleading (done in the most diplomatic way possible), the kids there refused to make it standard procedure.  I'm still tearing my hair out about them not giving registration forms to canvassers.  My back-of-the-envelope calculation indicated that if doing so were standard in Ohio, we'd get at least 10,000, possibly a lot more, new Kerry voters for practically zero effort.  Their rationale, by the way was that "Other groups are focusing on voter registration."  sigh

At minimum, it did make me feel very needed.

In fairness, there were areas where the people were doing a good job.  The day-to-day operations were surprisingly well-organized.  They were implementing a system of precinct campaigns--people who would canvass their neighbors, which seemed to be going very well.  They're also doing a great job trying to make sure Nader doesn't flout the law by getting into the OH ballot without enough legitimate signatures (more on that tomorrow).  It's just that if they'd been a bit less focused on their voter-contact number quota and a bit more focused on actually getting people to vote for Kerry, at least when it didn't take extra effort, they could get at least 20% more bang for their buck (or more precicely, 20% more bang for their hour of volunteer labor).

This is where you come in.  I will end with a plea to go to your local Kerry office and help!  Or take a trip if you can And, if you see something they're neglecting to do, please speak up!  Perhaps if enough other volunteers request voter reg. forms it will become standard policy.  If you tell one eager volunteer who hates phones about other ways he/she can help, you'll get that person coming back.  Remember that, if you have volunteered before, you in all likelihood have more experience than do the people in the office.  In general, they all need volunteers.

Coming tomorrow:  Diary 3:  response from the field, and the battle against "Zell" Nader, and other miscellany.