What Should Replace Canvassing?

Part One of MANY

If you’ve worked elections for a long time, you remember when you used to be able to phone people, they’d answer, and then you’d have a conversation. That’s gone the way of copper wire phone lines. If you can get cell numbers, people often don’t answer from people they don’t know. Same with texts.

Up until 2024, canvassing worked well, but not so much during the most recent cycle. A lot of people have Ring doorbells (and other brands) and don’t open their door to strangers. Or, if you find them in their yards, they say “thanks, not interested in a conversation”.

So how do we engage people going forward? How do we make sure they vote?

As you’ve heard me say on a regular an incessant basis:

Far too many people are saying “there will never be another election” but hey, there were elections in Virginia a couple days ago, and more are scheduled. We (ALL OF US) MUST work this year to turn out voters for state and local elections¹.

And we do that person by person. Starting with your friends, families and neighbors. YOU can get five people who didn’t vote last year, or plan on not voting this year to the polls.

If you’re old enough, you’ll remember this commercial. The same process works for getting voters as works for shampoo.

Before you take any action, decide to whom you want to speak. You know the best friends and family² to contact, but you might need help targeting which neighbors to speak with³. So let’s talk about neighbors.

Think about yourself. You live in a house, townhouse, condo, apartment, cabin, on a boat - you likely live somewhere. And that’s NOT out in the middle of nowhere with no other people for miles and miles. Therefore, you have neighbors. You can likely identify them on sight: the people walking dogs, putting out their trash, collecting mail from central mailboxes. If your neighborhood is anything like mine, while FedEx and UPS are stellar, some of the Amazon delivery people seem to have dyslexia (not a formal diagnosis, just an observation) and often packages meant for house “123” go to house “132” or “223” and you know your neighbors from exchanging packages⁴.

If a neighbor came to your door, or called or texted you, would you answer? You probably would. There’s a higher probability you’d open the door for someone you knew than for a stranger.

This means that your neighbors would likely open the door for YOU!

There’s also a high likelihood that if you called a friend or family member, they’d take your call.

That’s the first hurdle: getting a potential voter to talk to you by answering the door or picking up a phone call.

The next step is knowing what words to use to begin the conversation.

Initial Door Contact (Existing Neighbor)

My pick fave opening line for neighbors I am contacting for the first time:

“Hi, I was hoping you could help me.”

Then, I tell them my name is Jessica, and I live over there, if I can point to my house, or “on the next block over”. Next, I ask if they have 5 minutes to talk to me.

The rest of my initial spiel is that I am the Block Captain⁵, and my job is to make sure that people on the block know when elections are coming up, who’s running and what the issues are, and I hope they can help me to get people voting. In addition, I tell them that if they need a government service, I can’t provide it, but I can put them in contact with the correct office for their issue⁶.

Then I ask if they know there is both a primary and a general this year.

If they don’t know there’s are elections this year, I ask if I can stop by in a few weeks with some information and give a line about the election. Something like: “It matters to me because there’s a School Board election, and I care who is elected because they set the tax rate we’ll pay.” - OR - “I have been looking at the people running for judge, and I’ve got some concerns about some of the candidates.” Likely they’ll care about taxes, or fair judges - or whatever the specific issue is that you care about⁷.

If they do know there are elections, ask them if they plan on voting, or if they’re a Presidential year only voter. If they plan on voting, just say you’ll check back later to make sure they have all the information they need. If they don’t plan on voting, tell them you’ll stop by another time to talk about why voting matters to you, and see if that might resonate with them.

That’s your first contact. HOORAY!!! And please believe me, it gets easier the more you do it.

Initial Door Contact (Brand New Neighbor)

This is even easier. When I see a moving truck, I go to the store and buy and Entenmanns cake⁸. I go over with a giant smile and welcome them to the neighborhood. I introduce myself, ask their names, and ask from where they moved. I tell them when trash and recycling are collected, because people always want to know, and they normally don’t! If they have moved from far away, I ask if they want to know where the local supermarkets are. If they moved locally, I skip that.

Then I say that I might be their Block Captain. It depends, I say, on their political party, but I don’t want to discuss politics right now. However, I promise to return to register them to vote, no matter which party they want to join. I tell them that my grandmother went to jail twice in the 19-teens as a suffragette, so I really care that people vote, in her memory.

And then I go back in a week or so - ask if there is anything they want to know about the neighborhood, and register them to vote on my phone.

Future Interactions

We will leave that for another day. The point is that we need to start somewhere, and engaging neighbors BRIEFLY is a great start. Over time, you’ll contact them again. Several times a year, actually.

People may stop by your house with questions. This happens to me on a regular basis: people want to know which government official to contact for a specific problem, they want to complain about something going on in the neighborhood, they’re going to be out of town and want to know how to get a mail-in ballot, all sorts of things.

Of Note

Block Captains (and related multi-touch programs) are not the only way to reach voters. And yes, I’ll be writing about them. They fall under the heading of “building community”. But always remember that people talk to people they know. They listen to people they trust. YOU are a trusted messenger!

1. I can’t stress this enough. And believe you me, I’ll repeat it ad infinitum. The ONLY way we overcome the fascists is to vote them out of office. We lost far too many races last year because not enough voters selected the better choices. We lost because too many people didn’t vote. We must turn that around this year. I’ve done a deep dive into the data that has come out so far indicating the shift rightward in far too much of the country (and that’s precinct-level data).

2. Yes, we ALL have “that family member” - don’t call that person.

3. Yes, I can help you target appropriate people in your neighborhood.

4. If you don’t know any of your neighbors, either adopt a rescue dog, or borrow one from a local shelter. Most shelters look for volunteers to take dogs on walks to get them out, and help socialize them. I guarantee that you’ll meet neighbors while walking a dog. And if you are out and about with a shelter dog, that’s a great conversation starter!

5. You can be a Block Captain. “Block Captains” used to be a feature of local political parties, but not so much anymore in most places. How do you get to be a Block Captain? You say: “I am your Block Captain.” Need training? Let me know and I’ll set up a TEAMS meeting and teach you all you need to know.

6. People have all sorts of things with which government can help, if only they knew where to direct their query. Everything from tax rebates to assistance programs to licensure to insurance programs: the list is longer than you think! Helping your friends, family and neighbors engage positively with government is a great way to prove the importance of government.

7. Some of these issues are hyperlocal. For example, stormwater runoff and flooding are big concerns in my town.

8. My complete lack of baking skills is legendary amoungst people who know me well. Entenmanns cakes are high quality, easily accessible, and everybody likes them. If you have the skill set necessary to properly cream butter and sugar, sure, bake some cookies.