Friend to Friend Voter Outreach Workshop

October 3, 2020

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Larry Litvak

Mill Valley Community Action Network

llitvak@aol.com

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Friend to Friend Voter Outreach

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Leveraging your relationships in battleground states

Contact people who…….

1. Share your values/will support Democratic candidates
2. Live in priority states
3. Most likely to know people who might not always vote (can be hard to know)

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F2F Voter Outreach--The Four Questions

1. Who Do I Contact?
2. How Do I Contact Them?
3. What Do I Say?
4. How Do I Follow-Up?

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Battleground states (10 most important).......

President President & Senate Senate

Pennsylvania Arizona Georgia

Michigan North Carolina Maine

Wisconsin Montana

Florida Iowa

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You

Close Friends

1.______________

2.______________

3.______________

4.______________

5.______________

Relatives

1.______________

2.______________

3.______________

4.______________

5.______________

Work/Professional (LinkedIn)

1.______________

2.______________

3.______________

4.______________

5.______________

Other Relationships (Facebook Friends)

1.______________

2.______________

3.______________

4.______________

5.______________

Contact them through…...

Most normal how you communicate with them

&

Uses the contact information you have available.

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Close friends and relatives: email, phone call, text

Facebook-only friends: Facebook Messenger

LinkedIn-only friends: LinkedIn Messaging

Use the following message…..

….Hello {Name}! I hope all is well. I’m reaching out to people I know in battleground states to ask them to remind three friends to vote on Election Day. Can I count on you to do that? Research shows that a reminder from someone the voter knows is really the best way to get people to the polls!

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….Fantastic! What are their first names so I can send you a reminder to talk to them before Election Day? It’s best if you can think of people who might not be certain to vote.

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….Great, thank you so much! You’ll be receiving a reminder to get these three to vote before Election Day!

________________________

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Can modify to your personal tone and style but keep it direct and simple!

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Examples of F2F outreach….

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Responses to common hesitations….

• Can’t Think of People?: “No worries! Can you think of a family member, co-worker, or neighbor you can remind?”
• Can’t Think of Three: “No worries. If you can only think of two or one right now, that’s totally fine! As long as we get more people out to vote, that’s all I care about :)”
• Doesn’t want to share names: “No worries! I totally understand. I'm not trying to collect data, I just want to be able to send you a super personalized message before Election Day. I can take initials or even nicknames, as long as you know who you should be reminding!”
• All my friends already vote: “Think about some people who might not be close friends or family but with whom you interact occasionally in your neighborhood, church, organizations, job or commerce, especially younger people.”

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Following up before the election

Approximately 14 days before the November 3 election date (October 20) re-contact your volunteers.

1. Remind them to make sure their friends are voting.
2. If your volunteers provided the names of the people your they said theywould remind, mention them.
3. Include a link about finding a polling place in case they want to pass that on to those they are reminding. A good one is iwillvote.com.
4. Send them another reminder 3 days before the election, unless they have already confirmed contacting their people.

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“Turnout rates are 13.2 percentage points higher in the randomly assigned treatment group than the randomly assigned control group, the largest intent to-treat effect documented by an experimental GOTV study over the past two decades. This promising get-out-the-vote approach merits further research and development.”

Turnout Nation: A Pilot Experiment Evaluating a Get-Out-The-Vote “Supertreatment,” Donald P. Green, Columbia University, Oliver A. McClellan, Columbia University, February 7, 2020.

“A friend is a much better messenger than a stranger. In ​research​ conducted by Analyst Institute, relational voter turnout has been found to be an effective strategy to increase voter turnout. Include “friends and family” or “relational”outreach in your GOTV program to mobilize ​volunteers to ​call or ​text ​people ​they ​know and ask ​them ​to ​vote.”

--Analyst Institute, 2020 GOTV Recommendations