I spent all day Saturday in Reno, Nevada with
Driving Votes and
America Coming Together helping to Get Out The Vote (GOTV) for John Kerry and the Democrats. This was my first time ever involved in a political campaign, and from my experience yesterday I know that it will not be my last. It was very powerful--both in the empowering sense that it gave me to be able to help out, and in the sense of accomplishment that you get from spending six hours talking to "regular people."
I had to overcome my usual shyness to do this, and I have to admit I grew quite nervous as the day neared. But as you can see above and below, I am glad I did it. I realized that even if you consider yourself to be shy, helping out in this stage of the game is easier than you might think.
I encourage everyone who lives in or near a swing state to get over any apprehension you might have, or excuses about lack of time, and help to Get Out The Vote. I read many posts from people on Daily Kos to "GOTV PEOPLE!", but if you are like me, there is a hump of nervousness and "fear of the unknown" that you have to get over first. I'm hoping that this diary (if anyone actually reads it) will provide the low-level details that I was hungry for, and in doing so help those people get over this hump and actually go and help out!
I've written a lot of information below, but for those who are not that interested in knowing all of the details, but still need some convincing on how easy/important it is to get out the vote, here is some basic info:
- In Nevada (and I'm guessing other states), people can vote early at an early voting polling station.
- The biggest goal right now is to get people to vote early to (a) "bank" the vote and (b) to use the resources of the GOTV effort on an ever dwindling population of voters. (Once a person votes, there is no reason to spend GOTV effort on them.)
- GOTV canvassing is easy even if you are shy. You are mostly visiting people who have already been found to be Kerry supporters, so there isn't much in the way of confrontation.
- Volunteer even if you can't convince any friends to join you. This was the situation I was in, and I was worried that I would just stand around not knowing anyone. But the volunteers are all excited about the cause, and are quite friendly to each other.
- I was worried that voters would be offended by people from out-of-state telling them how to vote. The issue simply did not come up--no one asked where I was from. I volunteered I was from the Bay Area to a few people who were obviously supporters, and they were actually quite happy I was in Reno helping out.
Motivation and Signing Up
I originally signed up with America Coming Together after hearing about them on Daily Kos. I'd been thinking for a while that I wanted to do something to make sure that Bush did not win re-election (later modified to "I wanted to do something to make sure Kerry won the election"). Living in the Bay Area, though, it seemed kind of pointless to try to GOTV here. I thought about writing letters, but my handwriting is terrible and a typed letter didn't seem personal enough. I thought about joining a phone bank, but I'm even more apprehensive about making phone calls to strangers than meeting them face to face. Since I've never minded road trips, the idea of heading to Reno (a three-four hour drive) started to seem the most appealing.
After signing up with ACT, I waited a while for a response. It took about a week, but finally someone from Las Vegas called me. I was a bit disappointed, because I had said in my info that I would be willing to help out in Reno, but a trip to Vegas (a fourteen hour drive) wasn't feasible for me. The guy who contacted me gave me the number for someone in Reno to call to make arrangements. I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed. I felt like (a) ACT could have been better organized, so that someone from Reno could have called me in the first place and (b) the Las Vegas guy, after speaking to me, would have had the person from Reno call me instead of just giving me his number. At this point, it would have been easy for me to have just given up on the whole deal.
But I fortunately didn't. It took a few days, but eventually I called Reno and got in touch with James Katz, the ACT Reno representative. He was friendly and encouraging, and took my information again. I told him that I was driving and could help with carpooling. He pointed me to Driving Votes.
I tried to convince my friends to go with me. I figured it would be more fun going with someone I knew, and most of my friends are Kerry supporters. (One who is a Bush supporter suggested he could go with me and knock on all of the doors that I was skipping.) I couldn't convince any of them to go, even after pulling the guilt trip ("If Bush wins November 2nd, do you really want to regret not doing everything you could have done?"). Nothing worked. I didn't want to drive alone, so I ended up contacting Driving Votes.
I received an immediate response from Driving Votes, and they were quite appreciative that I was willing to drive. I was to meet with the group at the North Berkeley BART station at 6:30pm on Friday with the intention of getting to Reno by 11pm. At first, I was told that we'd be staying at the Reno YMCA. Later, we were happily informed that ACT was funding hotel rooms for us instead.
Getting Prepared
I was not really sure what to expect from canvassing, but I knew that I had to get clearer in my head what was important to me and why I was supporting Kerry. I knew that I supported him, but I realized I couldn't really sound-bite my support. What were the issues that were most important to me? An obvious one was Kerry's generally pro-gay positions (except for his statements indicating that marriage is "between a man and a woman"), but I didn't know how well that would play in a swing state. The other two issues that were most important to me were Kerry's foreign policy positions (making America respected, not feared and despised) and his position on faith (it's fine to have a faith, but not to let it control government policy).
I read through Kerry's web site a little bit so that I could know the details of his platform a bit more. I read the details of his health care, environment, and foreign policy plans. I began to feel that I knew where he stood on many issues and would be prepared to talk about them with the people I met in Reno.
Driving to Reno
Because traffic in the East Bay is horrible and I live in San Jose, I left at 4:45pm Friday to get to Berkeley by 6:30pm. I got lost in Berkeley (as I always seem to do when I go there), and had to call my partner for Mapquest help, but I got to the BART station on time. I walked over to the entrance and found the Driving Votes group. There was a variety of people there, with all different ages, different reasons for going, different levels of previous experience. Almost no one had taken this trip to Reno before, and few had any canvassing experience. After waiting a little while for stragglers, we split up into our different cars and headed out.
As I indicated above, I can be shy, so the thought of carpooling with a couple of strangers did not seem to be the most appealing thing in the world. Was this going to be three hours of silence and stilted conversation? Fortunately, no. When you're with people who are just as (or more) motivated than you politically, you are going to have something to talk about. But I was also pleasantly surprised that talk of politics did not entirely dominate the conversation, and the topics covered were wide ranging. We drove straight through except for a stop at In-N-Out, and pulled into Reno around 11pm. (One of the guys was a New Yorker who had been in California for only a few months, so he was still enthralled with In-N-Out.) We met the Driving Votes group in the hotel lobby, and then split up. Some went to a casino; I was too tired and went straight to bed.
GOTV: Mechanics
On Saturday morning, I was starting to get pretty nervous. This was it! I'd be knocking on doors in a couple hours, and I'd be trying to get complete strangers to vote for John Kerry.
We met at a local union hall at 8:30 in the morning. The weather was great--a little crisp with the promise of a mildly warm, sunny day. The sky was filled with haze from a nearby forest fire, casting a weird light (and smell) on everything.
At the entrance, we signed in. They had split Reno into a bunch of walkable precincts, and then grouped three or four precincts together into a team. Each precinct would be covered to a pair of people. We didn't realize this right away--we just signed up for a number (team number) and letter (precinct) without knowing what it meant. It soon became clear as we were handed a clipboard, with many many pieces of paper including the all important list of people we were visiting.
The list of voters included party affiliation, and most of the people on our list were Democrats. It turned out that much of the work that ACT had been doing up until this point had been creating these lists. For months, they had been going door to door to find out where people stood on the election. The lists we had were people who had already indicated that they were likely to support the Democratic ticket. Now, the goal was simple--get these people out to vote!
I wasn't sure when signing up for a GOTV effort if it would be too helpful to encourage people to vote a few weeks before the election. Well, it turned out my assumptions were wrong. In Nevada, you can vote early without having to sign up for it. Pretty much any day before November 2nd (excepting Sundays and the weekend right before the election) any voter can stop by one of a set of polling places to vote. In essence, November 2nd is the last day to vote.
The day I was there was the first day of early voting. So, the goal was to let people know about this early voting, to provide them with information on where the early voting locations were located, to encourage them to vote early, and to offer them a ride to the polling place. The idea is to "bank" these votes, so that the Democrats and outside groups do not have to worry about getting them out to vote on November 2nd.
Our packet of papers also included a map of our precinct, a script that we could use to get the conversation with the voter started, a flyer on issues information, a list of contact numbers, a stack of polling-place location sheets, and a bunch of door hangers that we were to leave at homes when no one was there, reminding them that they could vote early. I initially felt overwhelmed by this stack of papers. We were supposed to mark information on the voter lists (e.g. "moved," "already voted," "voting on such and such a day"), so managing the stack of papers became quite important. It wasn't until late morning that I figured out a good system for managing it. (Hint: Pull out the list of voter contact info for the street you are working on and put it on top; put the stack of polling place locations right below, and put finished sheets of voter contact info in the back.)
By the end of breakfast (bagels, apples, coffee, juice), the union hall was filled with people--a couple hundred at least. The organizers got up on stage to give a pep talk about how important our efforts were, including a brief speech by Steve Rosenthal, CEO of ACT. During this time, one of the speakers asked for the number of people who were from "out of state" (i.e. California), and probably 80% of the crowd raised their hands. The large group consisted of a few different organizations--the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, Driving Votes, and ACT. (I'm still a bit unclear as to how ACT fits into the picture--whether it is an umbrella group coordinating everybody, or if it is more of a "sister group.)
One important thing we learned here is that we were not allowed to advocate for John Kerry, because ACT is a 527. So, we could not say to voters "We'd like you to support John Kerry, and here is why..." Instead, it was "We're support Democrats up and down the ticket." My preparation on why I supported John Kerry, then, was not as important as I thought it might be, but it still came in handy when talking about the issues with the voters.
We were briefed on the day's schedule. We would canvass for three hours in the morning, and then meet with our team for lunch to relax, share stories and hints, and to eat the delicious lunches ACT provided. After lunch, we'd canvass for about four more hours before heading back to the union hall around 6pm.
Once the speeches were done, we went outside. There were team leaders there, holding up signs with the team number. I found my team (Team 7) pretty quickly. The team ended up consisting of the guys I drove in with, the team leader (a Reno local), and two women from Santa Cruz. We went over our information, did a brief role playing (I generally hate role playing, but actually found this useful) and then hopped in a rented van and headed out to our area.
GOTV: Canvassing
The team leader dropped off each pair at their designated precinct. I was partnered with John, a student at Columbia (the one who wanted to stop at In-N-Out on the way over). Each of us had a listing of voters for opposite sides of each street--I got the even side, he got the odd side. The idea was that we would travel down opposite sides of the street, and knock on each door on our list as an individual. (Perhaps this is less intimidating to the people answering the door?) The lists by no means included everybody on the street; it was clear these lists had been filtered pretty heavily to include registered voters who likely supported Kerry and who were not people that voted in every election.
The part of the precinct we decided to tackle first was a gated working class community. I was excited and also pretty nervous. John and I conferenced just inside the community for a second to plan our approach. We decided the best approach was to just go through our lists and then meet up once we were done with this neighborhood.
As I'd been told to expect on Daily Kos, the first door is the hardest. I walked down the street looking for my address, and nervously approached the door. I'd been practicing in my head what I was going to say. The door opened, and a teenager answered.
"Hi, I'm Joey Rozier, and I'm volunteering with America Coming Together, a non-profit group; we are trying to let people know about the upcoming election. Is Mr. X available?"
Whew! I got it out. That wasn't so hard, was it??? I deviated from the script they had given us; they wanted us to mention up front that we were supporting Democrats. I decided that it would be best to start in a non-partisan way so that people wouldn't put up barriers.
In this case, Mr. X wasn't home--he was working until that night. So I spoke to his son instead: "Can I leave some information for your father? A lot of people think that they can only vote on November 2nd, but in Nevada you can actually start voting today." I then showed him the list of places his father could vote at, gave him that list and one of the door hangers, and said good bye.
I couldn't believe how easy it was, and I was filled with elation. I was still worried: would I face any hostiles? Anybody who wouldn't be happy with someone going door-to-door? I found out within a minute. While walking away from the house, there were three people standing around a pickup truck staring at me. Great, confrontation so early! I put a big smile on, walked over to them and said "Hi, how are y'all doing?" (The y'all is not fake by the way; I'm from North Carolina.) "What are you doing in here?" the old curmudgeonly-looking guy asked me. "Well, I'm going around letting people know about early voting in Nevada..." and went into the spiel about when and where they could vote. They just stared at me silently for a little while. Then the old guy said "Well, I guess that's okay as long as you aren't supporting one side or the other." I lied. "Nope, I'm not." Honesty is probably the best policy, but when I had a confrontation like this at the start of my day, I didn't feel like getting into an argument about my rights regarding political speech.
That was the only real confrontation of the day, and it certainly wasn't too painful. I was still glad I got it out of the way so early, though.
For the most part, the rest of the day became pretty routine. In general, the people fell into a few categories:
- Not home. Many people--perhaps half--were simply not home (or wouldn't answer their door). It was always a little disappointing when this happened, but I noted it down and then hung a flyer on their door. If someone answered the door, I asked them if they could let the person know I had been by, and gave them the information.
- Mildly interested. A lot of people basically listened to my spiel, and said "yes, I intend to vote" without any definite plans regarding when. A significant number did not know about early voting, so I was encouraged that I was able to share that information with them.
- Interested. A fair number of people had definite plans to go and vote, and when I mentioned the early voting they would volunteer "oh, that's great! I can go and vote on Monday."
- Interested, but something was missing. A good number of people had not yet received their sample ballots, and they wanted to read through them before they made up their minds (can't argue with that!).
- Interested, and willing to talk. A few people were willing to discuss their positions on the issues; there weren't actually that many of these, though. Since we were more focused on GOTV, I didn't press most people too much to talk about the issues.
- Appreciative. A few people were actively appreciative of our efforts. These were the people who help keep your spirits high, letting you know how glad they are that "someone is doing something" to defeat Bush. These people were ripe candidates for receiving information about how they could volunteer themselves.
We were supposed to press the people to go ahead and vote early, but I generally did not push too hard other than explaining how convenient it could be to get it out of the way. I was kicking myself a bit, because I forgot to emphasize early in the day how important each vote is and reminding them of Florida. I added this later on, but wish I had mentioned it to a few of the earlier people.
All in all, I probably spoke to about thirty or so people. That may seem like a small number, but remember, these are people that ACT has identified as leaning Kerry but not necessarily gung-ho voters. If every volunteer that was there on Saturday met with that many people, there were literally thousands of leaning voters contacted, people who may not have voted otherwise.
A few people in particular stand out to me (note that these people aren't necessarily representative of everybody):
- One of the first people I met was a Hispanic lady who had registered to vote for the first time. She was very happy to learn about the early voting because it would be more convenient. I guess it made her day; at the end of the conversation she had a big grin on her face, thanked me, and shook my hand.
- At one apartment, I met an undecided single mom. I let her know about the Democratic plan to provide all kids with insurance. I was friendly and not too negative about Bush, because it seemed like that would turn her off. I encouraged her to compare the plans of Bush and "the Democrats." I don't know if I persuaded her, but I brought up a few things that she had not considered before, and it seemed like it might have an influence.
- There was only one person on my list who indicated that he was voting for Bush. He was a Vietnam vet. At first, I wasn't sure where he stood and we made some small talk. Then he gave a hint when he indicated that he liked the ad that Senator Harry Reid had on TV, "even though he's a Democrat." Hmm... Then he said he wasn't sure Iraq was the right war, but that Bush would support the troops more and stay the course. Finally, he was getting angry talking about how Jane Fonda and John Kerry hurt the troops in Vietnam. I was thinking "bail! bail!" but it is hard for me to end a conversation abruptly. I got stuck talking to him for a bit longer than I would have liked to have, and I knew I wasn't going to convince him otherwise. Even though he supported Bush, though, he wasn't mean or angry at me.
- The very last person I visited had a Kerry/Edwards sign in her front yard. I knew this was going to be easy. She was one of the appreciative ones. She thanked me for coming out, and was overjoyed when I mentioned I was from the Bay Area and had driven here just for this. She was planning on voting November 2nd, but I told her that it would actually help more to vote early so that the Democrats could focus their GOTV on those who hadn't voted yet. She agreed with that logic, and switched her plans. I then gave her the flyer about volunteering. She indicated she was a bit too shy to canvass, and I told her (in a much quicker fashion than this diary) about my own experience. I'm not sure if she's going to volunteer, but she said that she probably would.
So, the whole day I only had that one minor confrontation at the start, and then the one Bush supporter. Every one else ranged from mildly interested to very interested.
One other encouraging sign was the number of other Democratic canvassing groups were out there. Since 527s can't coordinate with the Democrats and (I think) Democrats can't coordinate with John Kerry, there were at least three different groups canvassing. There was a lot of overlap, and by the afternoon, some people had already been visited by other people. Ideally, it would be nice if our efforts could be spread to more people instead of having many canvassers visiting the same people (and risk annoying them). But I'm not too concerned about the repetition; after all, if these people see how many people care passionately about this election, maybe they will be more likely to vote. And, if nothing else, maybe they'll go and vote so that when the next canvasser comes by, the voter can shut the canvasser up by saying "I already voted!" (I also did not see any Republican canvassers out.)
GOTV: Finishing Up
After canvassing, we all met back at the union hall. We sorted all of our papers into different boxes, and then just gathered around. To feel useful, I helped some people stick polling-location stickers on some door hangers for a little while. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't a more organized "closing" ceremony with everybody--people started heading out. My two carpoolers and I decided to head out so we could stop at a casino for a tiny bit of gambling before hitting the road. I ended up getting back to San Jose around 1:30am, and fell asleep in about five minutes.
My legs hurt from all of the walking, and my throat is a little sore from all the talking (and breathing in the haze from the forest fire). But this is one experience that I am so glad that I had. I'm happy that I got over my hump with some encouragement from others on Daily Kos, and hope that others will do the same.