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Grassroots and the Elections

Grassroots and the Elections

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Home Page > News and Society > Politics > Grassroots and the Elections

Grassroots and the Elections

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Posted: Oct 23, 2007 |Comments: 0
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Believe it or not, theres an election around the corner. No, Im not speaking about the Presidential campaign. Im speaking about November 6th, 2007 when communities all crossways the country will be deciding on local ballot measures, county commissioners, city councilors and the like.

OK, so maybe the thought of these local elections doesnt fill you with the same level of anticipation (or dread) as a rip-roaring presidential campaign can. But whether youre considering getting involved in the local 2007 elections, or gearing up for 2008, there are a dozen effective and fun ways to involve grassroots network members in the political process. In doing so, youll build both recognition of your cause as well as a pool of motivated and knowledgeable activists.

But before we get to those dozen ways, be sure you comprehend the rules around non-profit electioneering. Overall, the hard and fast rule at the national level is that your organization is not granted to support or endorse a particular candidate for office. Rules for say and local elections will vary, so be sure to become familiar with the restrictions in your area. One of my favorite resources for this type of information is the Charities Lobbying in the Public Interest site at clpi.org.

Properly armed with the legalize, lets plunge in!

1. Registering People to Vote: At work, home, school and everywhere in between, your grassroots activists can help get people registered to vote. Print up business cards, flyers or buttons that they can either download off your site or pick up at a local Kinkos or other distribution point (you can upload your documents online and have them printed out at most locations). The message? Go to www.beavoter.org to register in your say thats it!

2. Candidate surveys: Use a service like Zoomerang or Survey Monkey to place together a survey of candidates asking for their views on your issues. Then, work with your grassroots suggests to get responses. Candidates are always more likely to respond to requests from people in the districts they are seeking to represent. You might not use this information to endorse a particular candidate but you can sure use it to raise the profile of your issues in the election.

3. Media response teams: Whether its speak radio, local newscasts, letters to the editor or online outlets, theres generally a great deal of speak in the news about election matters. Spend some time identifying suggests who can respond swiftly to media stories in their community. You can help them by providing short speaking points and referring them to Congress.orgs media guide

4. Home Parties: The Humane Society Legislative Fund encourages suggests to take action around issues and elections through their Celebration Animals home celebration program. Activists hold small celebrations in their community and are connected to the larger effort through a call with national HSUS reps and supporters. Think about a similar approach for your issues to generate enthusiasm over specific candidates and issues.

5. Bloggers Unite: Set up a blog for [insert study of your cause here] day near the elections and ask any of your suggests who run a blog, read blogs or even know what blogs are to comment online about the importance of [insert your cause here] on that day. Again, youll want to refrain the appearance of supporting specific candidates, but your members can certainly speak about the issues as much as they like.

6. The Election will be YouTubed: You Tube has become the eventual democratic medium. Tap the creativity of your suggests by seeking their videos highlighting the importance of your issues. The videos might be interviews with business leaders, concerned residents or whoever is most affected (hint: puppies and kids are ALWAYS well received.)

7. GOTV (the old-fashioned way): For the uninitiated, GOTV stands for Get Out The Vote and its an important component of any election effort. The old-fashioned (and still viable) means of getting the vote out include handing out flyers, making calls to registered voters (lists are acquirable from local celebration organizations and/or the local board of elections) and partnering with favourite gathering places like malls and churches to help spread the word. Even simple techniques like changing ones voice mail to remind people to go vote can be effective.

8. GOTV (the new-fashioned way): At the same time, Web 2.0 has provided additional tools for GOTV, including texting, twitter, IM, e-mail taglines and autoresponders. If that all sounds like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, recall that most people under 30 use text and IM to communicate with one another if you want to get them to the polls, sending a text message is probably the ideal way to do so! Go ahead, ask your teenager how to do it.

9. Take a friend to vote: OK, not much explanation needed here. But if each one of your grassroots members encouraged one of their friends to go with them, turn out would likely increase, right? And even though one cant adopt that ALL the extra votes would go your way, if your suggests are bringing their friends (possibly likeminded people), theres a more than 50-50 chance it will turn out positively for you.

10. Have some fun! Numerous national groups are raising the profile of their issues and having some fun through efforts like www.Edin08.com and www.electsusie.com. These efforts to, respectively, raise the profile of education issues and childrens health issues engages suggests in a whole new way.

11. Online petitions: At a minimum, getting people to sign on to online petitions gives you a ready list of people willing and healthy to be active on your issue. In addition these petitions can, if favourite enough, capture the attention of candidates. Begin your own at http://think.mtv.com, www.petitiononline.com or www.ipetitions.com. You can also begin a larger online campaign effort at www.citizenspeak.org or www.care2.com

12. Encourage Election Day Workers: Even though some might not count this as truly supporting the cause (after all, as a worker, your suggests wont be healthy to promote your issue), I do believe that encouraging people to serve as election day workers will enhance not only your cause but the whole democratic process. Ive done it and its NOT simple but anyone who does it learns a great deal about the election process — knowledge that will serve them well in other advocacy efforts.

Oh, and here’s a bonus idea. Get out there and vote primeval and often.

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Stephanie Vance -
About the Author:

Stephanie Vance, the Advocacy Guru at Advocacy Associates, works with organizations that want to impact public policy through effective advocacy techniques. She offers training and consulting services on getting government to listen and can be found on the web at http://www.advocacyguru.com

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advocacy, politics, government, elections