Cross-posted from CREDO Blog.
Fortunately, posting here gives me a little more space to make my point than the 160 characters allowed in a text message. But over the past couple of days, I've been forced to be concise as I work to send out non-partisan SMS alerts from CREDO Mobile and our partner groups to over 12,000 people's mobile phones reminding them to vote in today's Super Tuesday elections. The final message came out something like this:
Reminder that TODAY is Election Day. Democracy depends on citizens like you, so please vote! Fwd to yr friends! -CREDOmobile/WorkingAssets (Rply STOP 2 unsub)
Can so few words make any difference? We certainly think so. In the November 2006 mid-term elections, we designed an experiment to find out for sure. The results were impressive: people who were randomly selected to receive a text message reminder on the day before the election turned out at 4 percentage points higher than those who didn't receive a message. It may not seem like much, but it actually way outperformed traditional outreach like direct mail and kept pace with live phone calls, all at a far lower cost.
This time, we're working with the Student PIRGs' New Voters Project and the ONE Campaign to confirm the results of our initial study, and we're getting the word out to even more voters. We're especially excited to use this new medium to connect with people who don't participate as much -- especially younger voters, who are more likely to have their only phone be a mobile phone and are less likely to hear from campaigns through normal channels.
We've been a phone company with a deep commitment to political engagement for a long time, but this is a place where our civic values and our products and services really match up. Can your mobile phone really change the world? We're proving it can.
Sign up to receive election reminders and action alerts from CREDO Mobile Action on your mobile phone today.