Some of you may be like me, and don't want to use your home phone or cell phone to call voters and can't make it to a phonebank. This election, I no longer have that excuse for avoiding GOTV phoning. Here's a primer (that some of you probably though of) for making calls from home, for free, and without your phone or cellphone.
Things you need:
High speed internet
A computer
A mic (Most laptops have one internally now) attached to your computer
Computer speakers
More below the fold:
- Have your computer connected to the internet, and your mic and speakers attached.
- Sign up for google voice: https://www.google.com/... You may need to link the number to a phone; however, you will not need your phone to make calls. Choose a google voice number - this will be the number recipients will see when you call them.
- Sign up for Gmail: mail.google.com, and install the GoogleTalk plugin. This will allow you to make outgoing calls from Gmail.
- Sign up for the democracy for america's Call out the Vote: http://calloutthevote.com/...
- Copy the phone number from the Call out the Vote page. Open a window/tab with Gmail. Click "Call Phone" and paste the number. It will start dialing and automatically turn on your mic. You can switch back to the DfA page at this point if you want to follow the script - just have a normal conversation like you would over the phone.