Sunday :: Nov 5, 2006

Election 2006: GOTV


by eriposte

Some Democrats are understandably nervous about the Republican Party's vaunted "72-hour" GOTV program and its ability to get out the vote (GOTV).

Let me say this. While it is true that the GOP is good at GOTV, there is also a lot of PR and hype from them on their GOTV. For example, read Prof. Michael McDonald's article on myths v. realities on voting and GOTV and Keith Goodman's "Microtargeting Myths and Realities".

Democrats do need to catch up to the GOP, but so far things are moving in the right direction.

Let me give you an example. In the previous post, Mary mentioned her experience with MoveOn.Org's Call for Change. Here are some stats from MoveOn's Eli Pariser (received just a short while ago), reprinted with his permission (emphasis mine):

Our goal for voter contacts Friday through the end of Election Day was to contact (as in, actually talk to) 450,000 people several times. We will hit that goal today.

So far, we have made 4.43 million calls to voters. 805,000 yesterday alone.

People are holding over 3,000 parties across the country. That’s 50% more parties than we’ve ever done in one round.

We're adding around 4,000 new volunteers a day.

And as of yesterday, more people are participating in this campaign than did in 2004. Think about that. There is more get-out-the-vote energy now than there was in 2004.

On the one hand, let's not read too much into this because the fact that MoveOn is doing better than in 2004 is not necessarily enough to get sufficient numbers of Democrats and Independents to the polls. That said, what is promising about these stats is the significant GOTV energy in a mid-term election that has evidently surpassed the energy in a major Presidential election. It's people like you who are helping drive this! Please don't stop! If you have time, continue to do what you can.

Please use the comment threads to tell us about your experiences.

eriposte :: 12:19 PM :: Comments (24) :: Digg It!