“Are you the guys who got the stop sign replaced,” a female voter asked a female volunteer canvasser in Georgia on Saturday.
As we train our volunteers to do, she wrote it down on a Q-slip (which is why I know about it).
Here’s why this is important. Neighbors grip about “they ought to do something” about things like downed stop signs all the time — but not that many complain to the right office. And some towns and cities, in eras of tighter budgets, even have quotas for how many complaints they have to receive in order to consider the matter. It doesn’t hurt to complain at just the right time in the budget cycle.
But voters don’t care about all that. They care about something like a downed stop sign that “allows” cars to not stop at an intersection where children play or cross the street. That kind of thing.
Hope Springs from Field PAC knocks on doors in eight Senate Swing States every weekend with Constituent Service Requests, Q-Slips and Observation Forms in swingy areas like suburbs and oft-neglected inner cities. We use a generic CSR, because we are knocking on doors in Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin, which we will pass along to the specific, responsible elected official responsible for the request. We hope, of course, that it will be a Democrat, and — if it is — we advise the elected official to reach out to the voter who made the request and take credit for addressing it and when it is resolved.
We use Q(uestion)-Slips for a similar purpose. Q-slips not only make it easier for the volunteer who is canvassing, but it also allows the voter to receive a (much) more authoritative response from the campaign (hopefully) or responsible elected official. Even if the volunteer knows the answer to the question, we ask that they record the voter’s question for this purpose. Volunteers have told us that this takes a little discipline to get used to because many of our volunteers are fairly knowledgeable about the kinds of policy questions they hear at the door. But we know that voters tend to find authoritative responses from campaigns or elected officials more believable than that from someone they don’t know who knocked on their door.
So how did they know to credit Hope Springs volunteers? Because as much as we encourage utilization of these kinds of tools in first and second rounds of a traditional five-round canvass, most campaigns (on both sides) don’t use that model anymore. And while there are at least 3, and more like 5, conservative organizations (like Club for Growth or the Koch-sponsored American for Prosperity) who regularly canvass in swing states and/or districts, they are more focused on persuasion canvassing, trying to determine if voters support their positions or can be pushed to support them. We aren’t doing persuasion canvassing (which, I know, sounds weird), we are more focused on cleaning up the voter database, registering new voters and re-registering voters who moved so they comply with federal (and state) laws.
We registered have 13,804 voters at their doors in nine states since we started last June (2021), while the Black Churches we have partnered with (Hope Springs matches church membership lists with the voter rolls, allowing them to re-register voters who have different addresses or register new voters who aren’t currently on the voter rolls) have registered 41,603 voters.
Hope Springs from Field PAC is knocking on doors and partnering with local civics and civil rights groups, Divine Nine chapters as well as Historically Black Colleges & Universities, raising awareness of the fact that Democrats care about our voters and are working to protect their right to vote. We are thinking about how to mitigate Voter Suppression efforts, get around them and make sure we have "super compliance," both informing and helping our voters meet the requirements and get out and vote. We are taking those efforts to the doors and gathering locations of the communities most effected (the intended targets or victims) of these new voter suppression laws.
Obviously, we rely on grassroots support, so if you support field/grassroots organizing and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/2022senateswing
Hope Springs from Field PAC was started by former Obama Field Organizers because field was the cornerstone of our success. Election Protection was central to the Obama primary effort in 2008 because we were running against a party favorite with strong roots in state and local party organizations and we needed to appeal to voters outside that framework. We are returning to the old school basics: repeated contacts, repeated efforts to remind them of protocols, meeting them were they are. Mentoring those who need it (like first time and newly registered voters). Reminding, reminding, reminding, and then chasing down those voters whose ballots need to be cured.
Volunteers canvassing with Hope Springs have collected 7,144 Constituent Service Requests over the last 12 months. And even in Ohio, where we just started canvassing this month, voters quickly become familiar with what we are doing in this regard. It makes it easier for our volunteers to engage with voters because word gets around that we are helping them connect with their public officials. And, in Ohio (and Arizona), we’ve even had local elected officials canvass with us because we are asking voters about their needs in their neighborhood. Democrats deliver!
Replacing a stop sign might need seem like a monumental thing to us. But it was not only important enough for one voter to request it, but also important enough for another voter who was not a part of the initial turf to thank us for months later. And while that’s not why we do it, it is a relevant benefit. Not to us. Not to the volunteers who come out to knock on doors in this heat with us. But to Democrats and people who believe that government, democratic government, is designed to benefit the public good.
If you are able to support our efforts to protect Democratic voters, especially in minority communities, expand the electorate, and believe in grassroots efforts to increase voter participation and election protection, please donate:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/2022senateswing
Thank you for your support. This work depends on you!