Who should I call?

Because time and volunteer power are limited, most campaigns focus efforts on contacting voters who are likely to vote AND likely to vote yes.  According to research, people who tend to vote yes for school ballot issues include public school parents, school staff, women of all ages, and college graduates concentrated in upscale areas.   These trends, of course, do not hold in all areas, and in no way indicate that people who fall outside these groups should never be contacted.  Each community must examine their own voter-base to decide who best to contact.  When trying to allocate limited resources, however, many campaigns use this information to target voter contact to these groups.  In the end, the most important thing is convincing a school supporter to actually vote.
 

What lists should I use?

Phone calls can be made to lists of registered voters, lists of parents or staff (your campaign may legally request a list of parents and staff from your school district as part of the Freedom of Information Act and your local teachers’ association can also provide you with a list of staff), lists that volunteers may already have (little league, book club, etc.), and lists provided by other supportive organizations.  To get lists of registered voters, you can contact a list broker (Labels and Lists is an example), your county elections office, or your local teachers’ association (the Washington Education Association maintains pro-education voter files as a service to local levy and bond campaigns).

Lists of registered voters can include many pieces of valuable information about the voter.  The most important pieces include name, phone number, address, absentee voter status, and voter history.  A section about calls to absentee voters is included at the end of this section.

Voter history is usually indicated by a fraction: 0/4, 1/4, 2/4, 3/4, or 4/4.  This number indicates the number of elections the voter has voted in during the past four elections.  It is read as “one of four voter,” “two of four voter,” etc.  Four of four voters are considered extremely likely to vote, zero of four voters are considered very unlikely to vote.  This information can be useful when there is limited time and volunteer power available; for example, calls to zero of four voters are only made when all other calls have been completed.  (*Note:  There is no record of HOW voters actually vote- if voters are concerned, reassure them of this.)
 

Where should the phone bank be?

The location of the phone bank depends on how large a phone bank your campaign plans to have.  If your school district is small, you may only need to run a few phones for one or two days.  If your school district is larger, you may need to run a phone bank for two to three weeks to do voter identification and persuasion calls.  Ask local businesses if they can donate space and telephones for volunteers to use in the evening (all the calls should be local, so there should be no long-distance charges).  A space with several phones in close proximity does well- a business that has several desks or cubicles with phones would work. 

The teachers’ union may also have space available that would fit the needs of a phone bank.  If you are able to find a business to use and the teachers’ union also has space, consider running a phone bank of parents and other volunteers and a second staffed by teachers.  If this option is possible, be sure that someone at the second location has been trained on how to train volunteer phoners, and that all the necessary supplies are available.

You may get requests from volunteers who would like to make calls from home.  If possible, it is easier to run a successful phone bank if all the volunteers are in one (or two) places.  This way you can make sure the calls are being made correctly and that appropriate information is being collected.  It is easier to coordinate, as well.  

What should I say on the call?

There are three basic types of calls done by a levy/bond campaign phone bank:

1.      Voter Identification

2.      Persuasion

3.      Reminder/Get Out The Vote

1.  Voter Identification Calls

Six to eight weeks before the election

These calls are designed to identify voters who are likely to vote yes if they vote in the election.  This list of likely voters is used later in the campaign as the list for reminder calls.  Identification calls are not generally used to change voter minds, although some campaigns choose to combine voter identification with persuasion.  The lists should be saved from campaign to campaign to create an on-going “Pro-education” list.  Pro-education lists from previous years can be sampled during the voter identification phase to make sure that list remains supportive, and then rolled into the reminder calls later in the campaign.

As phone volunteers determine the status of voters, make sure to mark on the main list whether the voter is a yes-voter, no-voter, or undecided.  Yes-voters will be used during the reminder call phase, undecided-voters will be contacted during the persuasion phase and possibly the reminder call phase, and no-voters will not be contacted again.

Sample phone scripts for voter identification calls can be found in the levy library.

(*A note about “stealth elections”:  school levy/bond campaigns have been accused in the past of running “stealth elections,” or elections that are so quiet only people who support the schools know about the election.  Because of the difficult 60% supermajority requirement that school levies and bonds must meet to win an election, some campaigns used the “stealth election” strategy to get mostly yes-voters to the polls.  With the dramatic increase in voting by mail and absentee ballot, this strategy has largely disappeared.  Mail-in ballots that arrive automatically make it difficult for campaigns to hide, marking the end of the “stealth election.”)

2.       Persuasion Calls

Two to three weeks before the election

These calls are designed to convince voters who are undecided to vote yes for the levy or bond.  These calls are slightly longer than voter identification calls, and include more detail.  During these calls, facts about the levy/bond and strong messages should be included to persuade the voter.  The message should be tailored to your particular levy/bond and community, but common messages include:  “does not raise taxes,” “not a new tax-replacing an expiring bond,” “funds the essentials,” etc. 

After the persuasive part of the call, the voter is asked if they plan to vote yes at the election.  Yes- and leaning-yes-voters are added to the list of reminder calls.  No-voters are not contacted again.  Undecided-voters may be contacted during the reminder calls after all the yes-voters have been contacted.

Sample phone scripts for persuasion calls can be found in the levy library.

  3.      Reminder/ Get Out the Vote Calls

Last week of the campaign and up to election day

These calls are designed to get voters who are supportive of the levy to actually vote.  These calls go to voters who have been identified as likely yes-voters during the voter identification or persuasion phase, from lists saved from previous campaigns, or on pro-education lists from other sources.  Parent lists that have not been tested are often included, as parents tend to be likely yes-voters. 

These calls are short and quick, in order to contact as many voters as possible.  The message is simply a reminder to vote on election day.

Sample phone scripts for reminder calls can be found in the levy library.


4.    Phone Calls to Absentee Voters/ Vote by Mail Elections

Absentee voters are a special case when it comes to phone calls.  These voters receive their ballots in the mail approximately two weeks before election day.  Persuasion calls should be done first to absentee voters, then to poll voters.  Reminder calls to absentee ballot voters should be made in the few days after the ballots have been mailed.  Ballots must be postmarked no later than election day and can be dropped off in person at a polling place, but absentee voters should be encouraged to send them in as soon as possible.

In addition, the profile of the traditional absentee voter is changing.  As greater numbers of voters choose to vote via absentee ballot, the pool of absentee voters is becoming younger, somewhat less conservative, and more like the traditional poll voter.  This means many absentee voters are waiting longer to vote or forgetting to vote altogether.  For this reason, if there is time and volunteer power available during the last week of the campaign, it is useful to make second reminder calls to pro-education absentee voters after pro-education poll voters have been called.

Vote by Mail Elections:  If your election is completely vote by mail, treat the week after ballots are mailed as election day.  If volunteer power is available, continue making reminder calls up through when the ballots are due, particularly if ballots are dropped off at ballot sites.