Volunteering

Canvassing

Canvassing is a political activity that has been employed as long as I have been working in politics. I did my first canvassing with my father in 1954 for Councilman Baker who campaigned on a platform of limiting growth in the Hollywood Hills.

Canvassing is an activity that teaches you more about how people live and think in your community than anything else I can think of.

My good friend, John Cage, canvassed the whole neighborhood of North Oakland in 1966 for his political science Masters thesis. He interviewed voters as to their attitudes about government, elections, politicians, and issues important to him.Based on those interviews and the information John collected, Jesse Unruh, Speaker of the California State Assembly and later Treasurer of California, made John the youngest delegate from California to the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. While demonstrations were attempting to make their anti-Vietnam news apparent by demonstrating amidst the tear gas in Lincoln Park, John was successfully arguing for an end to the war platform for the Democratic Party in the Platform Committee

Canvassing is hard work, but it is the single most reliable source of voter information the candidates have.

Tools needed for canvassing:

1. Four hours of your time (Anything less does not accomplish much, provides incomplete data and winds up wasting organizers' time who don't know what to do about an incomplete precinct assessment.)
2. Comfortable shoes - You will be climbing stairs and sometimes hills.
3. You need to be able to walk 3-4 miles without getting tired.
4. A backpack (for carrying literature).
5. A bottle of water - unless you are a camel.
6. Enough literature to distribute to all the registered voters in the area you plan to cover.
7. A pen
8. A non-threatening smile
9. The ability to be a chameleon - taking on any attitude to be persuasive.
10. A canvassing kit (given to you by the campaign organization) which is comprised of:

a. A map of the precinct you will be covering
b. Register of voters names, addresses, party affiliation, age
c. A pen

11. Optional: A cup of coffee before or after and a tub of hot water to soak your feet after the day is over.

One volunteer takes one side of the street, the other volunteer takes the other. You agree to meet at a certain time or place afterwards in case you lose sight of one another. If you are concerned because of the type of neighborhood you are in, you agree to wait for one another at the end of the block.

Scenario (You knock at the door.)

1. No one answers (most common) after 20 seconds. You drop a piece of literature in front of the door.
2. Someone answers the door. You ask if the voter is home. If the occupant is the voter, you:

a. Introduce yourself.
b. Give the name of the candidate you are there on behalf of.
c. Ask if the voter has made up his or her mind about whom they are voting for. If they have, say thank you and ask if you can leave some literature.
d. If the voter has not made up his or her mind, ask if you can tell them some things about our candidate. If they say "No", say thank you and move on to the next address. If they say yes, try to give them a short message and then engage them. It is important to listen if they want to talk and identify attitudes they have that our candidate might connect with. If they ask you how our candidate stands on a particular issue, if you don't know, state that and then give them the campaign office number and tell them someone at the office will gladly answer their question
e. Ask, "Do you think we could count on your vote?"
f. Record "yes" or "no" on your list. If they say yes, ask them if they would like to vote early with an "Absentee Ballot so they don't even have to go to the polls. If they say yes, leave them an absentee ballot form and let them know that they need to fill it out and send it in. That the form is not voting and they will receive the actual ballot from the city registrar.
g. Ask them if they would be willing to have a yard sign put up.
h. Ask them if they would like anymore literature.
i. Thank them for their time.
j. Say good bye and then move on. Be sure to tabulate in your campaign kit if the voter was a "yes" (Y) "no" (N) "undecided" (U) or "not home" (NA). Write in the margin if they would be willing to have a yard sign placed in their yard.
k. Move on to the next address.

Houses not having visible house numbers from the sidewalk may have the numbers on the street side of the curb. Keep moving, close all gates, try to stay off the grass and don't go inside any residence for any reason.. Canvassing is a numbers game, the more people you can talk to and get their opinions, the more the candidate knows about his strength in that precinct. He can then modify his campaign strategy as needed.

Return your packet to the campaign office. Tally your results. This is the most important thing you do all day. All your efforts are wasted if the results you tabulate in your precinct kit are not tabulated and placed in the candidate's computer. Congratulate yourself if you did it right. You are creating power and molding the course of public policy and history. In the eight years that ALAN has been doing electioneering, we have established a wonderful reputation for the quality and professionalism of our work. Almost every candidate we have ever worked for has been grateful and impressed. It has translated into the kind of gratitude that has created an impressive list of new public policies. See the history of our legislative victories page. It all begins with the feet on the pavement and the knock on the door.

Phone banking

What is Phone Banking?
Candidates rent or are donated locations that have a number of phones. Volunteers agree to go to the location, which is usually on weekends and evenings during the week. I hae never known them to be in suspicious or poorly lighted areas, but any campaign is willing to provide an escort from and to your car if you will phone them when you arrive, on your cell phone. The point of phone banking is to get the name of our candidate in the mind of the voter and to do some rapid polling of the candidates support in the areas phoned..

Each volunteer is given a script with which to start. It is a conversation flow chart to ease your anxiety about calling someone cold. Some candidates like volunteers to stick to the script, but others are grateful for the more natural style that can develop with time , confidence and experience. There is a real sense of empowerment that can come from spending time in a phone bank. One is also given a precinct list, listing the telephone numbers of registered voters in the candidate's district. Next to each name will be the following: (Y) supports the candidate (N) will not state or admits to supporting another candidate, (U) undecided, (NA) unable to speak with the voter (unfortunately, this is a large majority of the calls you make. You tabulate the result of you contact after every phone call.

Your job will be to contact each voter.

1. If there is no answer, hang up.
2. If a telephone answering machine responds, leave a scripted message. (This will be the case on most calls.)
3. If a real person answers:

a. Briefly introduce yourself.
b. State the name of the candidate whom you are calling on behalf of.
c. Ask if the voter has made a decision as to which candidate they will be supporting. If the answer is "yes", you might ask if it is the candidate you are calling on behalf of. If the answer is "no", ask if you could give them a little information about the candidate. Then ask if we can count on their support for this candidate.
d. Record the response of the voter on the telephone list.

One can easily make 30 to 60 calls in one hour. I have often talked voters into supporting an animal friendly candidate when they were planning to vote for the opposing candidate. My personal record for overturning opposing votes was when I was phone banking for Judith Hirshberg. I was able to convert six opposing voters in one hour. (Judith Hirshberg lost that election by 36 votes.). Can you imagine what might have happened had we had more volunteers on the phones in her campaign that election.

Honestly assessing your time availability

Calendar for scheduling your participation (HTML version), Word version

Tee, Golf shirts, and why

Tee and Golf Shirts and why. One of the useful tools we use when we are working in a candidates campaign office (we never wear them when we are going door to door ) is a Tee or Golf Shirt with the ALAN logo. Shirts identify you as an animal person. It makes it obvious to the candidate and his staff, the extent to which animal people are working on their behalf.

We purchase them from a contractor and offer them to volunteers at our cost ($8.00 for a T-Shirt, 17$ for a Golf Shirt) since we believe they are a useful tool. If you want to get the most out of whatever time you spend helping elect animal friendly candidates, you should get one and wear it.

To order a shirt:

Print our order form and send it to:
Animal Legislative Action Network
2379 Panorama Terrace Los Angeles CA 90039
Print order form and fax it to: (323) 660-2944
E-mail the form (Save the Word version and send as an e-mail attachment to:
alan1@ix.netcom.com
Or call us at (323) 662-6728

Appeal letter for volunteers and contributions