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Data Matters: Preparing the Electoral Battleground [1]
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Date: 2022-08-29
For years, I've been sending out canvassers with Observation Forms, Q-Slips and Constituent Service Request forms in their walk packets. Hope Springs from Field PAC has done this, as well. We did it in the Georgia Senate Runoffs, in the several special elections we canvassed in, and, since June 2021, we have done that in these Senate Swing States.
Observation forms are used to record canvasser impressions of houses on their walk lists, like signs that state "no solicitors" or presence of children or indications that it is a Gold Star or Blue Star family or display a yard sign.
Q-slips are question slips to record questions that a voter has when the volunteer is at the door. You might think the purpose of this is obvious but the point is that volunteers don't have to know the answers to all the possible questions (or even any questions). You want volunteers to be as comfortable — but also as efficient at the door — as possible. In pre-canvass training, when discussing how to use the q-slip, we ask volunteers to write out the question in front of the voter (and if they feel compelled to answer, to preface their response with "I can tell you what I think but I am going to write your question down and see if we can get an official response"). It also gives us more info about the voter for VAN.
But Q-slips can be particularly effective for helping campaigns in message, voter history and connecting with voters in general. "Hope" and "change" came from Q-slips in Iowa. The Obama campaign even printed both signs for distribution before the 2008 caucus. And, voter questions can often be indicators of what thing will help them decide for whom to vote.
Constituent Service Request forms are used when voters have a public service request in their area that they want one of their local governments to address. Before primaries, we send these to Democratic elected officials responsible for the requested functions, but if the appropriate office is held by a Republican, we still send it along. For Democrats, though, we encourage them to reach out immediately to the voter who filled out the Constituent Service Request forms and let them know they are working on the issue. This credit-taking is enormously valuable to the Democratic office-holder. But when we have an official Democratic Senate nominee, we filter Q-Slips and CSR’s through those campaigns.
This week was the first Saturday where we reported some of the results of the Q-slips volunteers had collected in Ohio and Wisconsin.
The Ryan campaign has received Q-slips from the beginning and we’ve had volunteers who heard back from voters that they had “heard something from our incoming senator.” Being in Arlington, Virginia, I have a friend who works for Senator Warnock on the hill. And she has asked me about the Q-slips. “You know they come to us, right?” She means to their office in D.C. “So why don’t you send them directly to us?” she wondered. And I had to explain to her that we give them to the campaign so that they can start a relationship with the voter who requests a public service (government offices aren’t supposed to provide information to campaigns). If we gave them directly to the elected official, the campaign shouldn’t know about them and can’t establish that relationship. Maybe even gain a volunteer or two.
But when our volunteers start hearing about results, about voters who have gained some public service due to their efforts, they ask why they haven’t always done this. Then, of course (at least those volunteers who have been with us through this election cycle), they remember that this is what we do. This is what we have always done.
We send volunteers out with paper (a couple of Issues Questionnaires, 3 Observative Forms, a handful of Q-Slips, 10 CSRs (with instructions how to obtain more if they start to run out) and an Incident Report form), as well as lit. Yes, much of this could be punched into VAN at the door (Issues Surveys are used for show-and-tell with the voter at the door; data is punched into their phone at the time). Not only does filling out a paper form increase confidence with the voter, but many government agencies need it to translate the data over to their own forms. But Democrats Deliver! And voters get reminded of that. Volunteers, too.
Hope Springs from Field PAC has been knocking on doors in a grassroots-led effort to prepare the Electoral Battleground in what has been called the First Round of a traditional Five Round Canvass. We are taking those efforts to the doors 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, voter registration (and follow-up) and our efforts to protect our voters, we would certainly appreciate your support:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/2022senateswing
Hope Springs from Field PAC understands that repeated face to face interactions are critical. And we are among those who believe that Democrats didn’t do as well in the 2020 Congressional races as expected because we didn’t knock on doors — and we didn’t register new voters (while Republicans dud). 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.
In Wisconsin, we had sent a fat envelope of Constituent Service Requests to the Barnes campaign. When I warned them they were coming, they told me they didn’t know what to do with them or have the bandwidth to handle them. I asked if they collected email addresses? “Of course!” “Pass them along the the Lt. Governor’s office when you are done with them.”
One of our volunteers works in a local city hall. And she saw one that came into her office. “I know where that came from!” she told her group canvassing in the WOW counties. Her organizer reported that they giggled, which he claims is similar to when we’d “high five.” Oooooooooooooooookay.
In Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania (as well as Wisconsin), we’ve been collecting Q-Slips, Observation Forms and Constituent Service Reports for more than a year. Incident Reports, as well, although we use these for building out our Election Protection plans. While last year, we’d distribute CSRs to local elected Democrats (if we could) but whatever we’ve collected this summer is going to the Democratic nominees for Senate. Every state where we are canvassing, we hear reports that elected officials are responding to the CSRs and senate campaigns are answering the questions voters have asked that have been forwarded on the Q-Slips. And volunteers love hearing that. Volunteers love knowing that they are having an impact on their neighbor’s lives. Because Democrats Deliver!
For more than a year, we have been preparing the battlefield upon which the highly contested Senate races would be fought. They call this deep organizing, but some people call it Relational Organizing. None of this is new. We may have forgotten because most Democratic campaign staffers aspire to government jobs. And we lost a whole “generation” of field organizers in 2020 because we didn’t take the field in the midst of the pandemic. But as the organizers who have volunteered over the last year move over to staff Democratic campaigns, they all know this process, this system, for helping voters help themselves. Data mining at the door, so to speak. And as that Senate maps expands in 2024 we will pair it with the presidential swing state map, as well.
We came to Ohio at your urging, the almost desperate urging of DKos commentators. One of the considerations, at a time when everyone was saying Ohio was (again) out of reach was this question: “What if we could win here? Wouldn’t that change the 2024 (presidential) map?” And when one of our key organizers in Southwest Georgia responded, “How could it not?” Ohio became our next target.
I make no secret that, as part of my regular outreach to our volunteer canvassers, I talk to 10 of them each week. One Ohio volunteer I talked to had told me, “You know we fill out the CSRs for our neighborhoods, too, right?” That, for whatever reason, that volunteers would do one for themselves instead of a voter (because, you know, volunteers aren’t really voters!?!). But doing this also provides a useful check on the system. To see if CSRs are actually being addressed. (I didn’t mention that at the time.)
This work — this endless work — prepared the field for these next two months. If all politics are local, if people want to do more than just complain (online?), if voters would rather see issues addressed instead of having politicians talk about them, we have set the field for Democrats to do well this Fall. Not that we are stopping. Just taking note that there’s a purpose to what we do and the reward is electing more Democrats, do the Senate and, hopefully, across the board. This work does have impact on voters, on neighborhoods and on their communities. Which is why we will win on November 8th. It won’t be a miracle, even if it surprises the deniers among us.
We ask for contributions because this kind of grassroots activity requires funding. Now, more than ever, as we begin the 4th quarter in this election cycle. If you can afford a reoccurring contribution, that really helps to justify planning for 2023 and 2024. So if you are able to support our efforts to protect Democratic voters, expand the electorate, and believe in grassroots efforts to increase voter participation and election protection, please do something:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/2022senateswing
Thank you for your support. This work depends on you!
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