That’s pretty much how we’re supposed to do it. “Hi (voter’s first name),” then the message, closing with our first name. And we’re in Kansas, but as I mentioned in the OP we’re mailing to voters in Ohio. (Because there’s not much at stake in Kansas.) I can definitely see how it might seem a little weird to the recipient.
What @Happy_Lendervedder said!
Over the past several months, my wife has written 500 postcards to intermittent voters in North Carolina. I just mailed them to a friend in NC who will drop them in the mail there, so they get a local post mark.
(I would have helped out, but my handwriting is often illegible even to me. She’s a teacher, with very nice handwriting.)
Yup. Political junk in my mailbox, political litter on my front stoop etc, all goes in the garbage. Don’t care one bit if it’s right or left, it goes in the garbage, more often than not, without even looking at it.
In fact, one of the nice things about Informed Delivery is that, when I can see that the only thing getting delivered is a bunch of political junk mail, I don’t even bother getting it out of the mailbox. It just sits there until I feel like throwing it away.
That’s not to say that it’s not going to sway some people, I’m just not one of them. It would be difficult, if even possible, to sway me with anything ‘cold’. That is, cold calls, junk mail, randomly knocking on my door, accosting me at a Lowes/Home Depot etc. I tend not to trust unsolicited information coming from someone with something to gain from it.
Something being handwritten, at least for me, wouldn’t change a thing.
Also, Jehovah’s Witnesses use handwritten letters*, and often by people with exceedingly good handwriting. I guess maybe if I was trying to decide between their religion and another…maybe? But realistically, nothing about my religion, or lack thereof, is going to change because I got a handwritten letter.
*not my picture, but I’ve received a few like it over the years.
I would be voting anyway, so a postcard would not help me. But if I was undecided about voting it could.
This seems counterproductive. To the degree the technique works at all, and I have my doubts it does anything, the fact that people are writing to them from across the country must be a draw, I would have thought?
I think it is thoughtful, but no. I’m highly motivated to vote already.
I think it’s the other way around. If you get a postcard from across the country you’re likely to assume, even if it’s handwritten, that it’s mass produced junk mail. Getting one from your local political office might feel more personal, or at least less impersonal.
I think mailers can make a difference in some of the non-presidential elections where people aren’t as motivated or aware, like primaries, midterms, off-cycle city council, runoffs, etc. If nothing else, they can serve as a simple reminder that there is an election going on in the first place. But in this election, I’m not sure it will make much of a difference. I’m sure the same voters are getting stacks of political ads in their mail box anyway. However, I think that this election is going to be tight and every single vote will be needed. If the handwritten postcards bring a few extra voters, great!
For some volunteers, handwriting postcards may be the volunteer activity they would most enjoy. If they don’t like doing things like door knocking, calling, etc., then they may be able to still contribute by doing postcards. An introvert might not want to do activities which involve talking to lots of random people to try to sway them to vote. They might prefer more solitary activities like stuffing envelopes, writing postcards, etc.
Me personally? Here is my procedure for checking my dead-tree mailbox:
- Open box.
- Sort out mail from city/state/federal governments, mortgage lender, and bank
- Deposit the rest in the garbage can on the way to the door.
No, a handwritten postcard would no convince me to vote. Of course, I will be voting anyway, but substitute ANY activity, and it would still have no effect.
I agree with @filmore. The only time I think the handwritten postcards have much effect is in local races. The local candidates (I sent postcards on behalf of a school board candidate) don’t have a lot of money to buy ads, and just receiving something in the mail with their name on it can remind voters of who’s running when they are looking at their ballots.
I guess the question is would a handwritten postcard make you more likely to vote if you had been planning on not voting at all?
No. I’m not influenced one way or the other by a printed postcard or any other printed materials, an email or text, or a phone call. If I were going to vote, I would, if not, I wouldn’t. But I don’t consider myself typical.
I think that for most people it would be 100% the opposite. Nothing makes people get their backs up quicker than feeling like they’re being lectured to by “outsiders.” The Operation Clark County link I posted above is an extreme example, but even receiving mail from another state would make many potential voters ask, “Who the fuck is this Californian to get on my ass about voting?”
Can’t answer the question because I vote. Don’t need reminders. I don’t think many people would decide to vote because they received a handwritten postcard but I don’t see any harm in it either. I’m not thrilled about some people voting but that’s another much more complicated matter altogether.
They’ve been doing it for years, so I think you may be wrong. If there wasn’t an uptick in voting in the targeted states, they wouldn’t waste the money. I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time doing this. I can’t go door-to-door any more (which I think annoys people more than a postcard) and I refuse to do cold calls, which really piss people off. The cards only urge people to vote on election day and to urge their friends/family to do the same, not endorse a candidate or party.
Not necessarily… more like “would a handwritten postcard persuade you to vote if you really hadn’t decided yet if you were going to vote or not?” There are people who are definitely going to vote, people who are definitely not going to vote, and people who don’t know if they will or not. I think the postcards are aimed at that third group. I don’t know where they got the mailing list from, but I suspect they are registered voters who did not vote in the last (mid-term) election.
Website that talks about the effectiveness of the postcard effort.
Just to sort of explain how GOTV targeted contacts work: Campaigns or organizations get lists of registered voters, then filter voters from the party they want to reach (let’s say Dems), then they can look at who’s voted in the recent past elections. So, you can see Jill Sixpack is a registered Democrat who voted in the 2008 presidential election, didn’t vote in 2012, didn’t vote in 2016, but voted in 2020. You can also see she never votes in midterms or anything in between. She is someone who they will work very hard to get her ass to the polls on or before election day. She’ll get a dozen-plus calls from August through November 5. She’ll get people knocking on her door. And, yes, she’ll now be getting a postcard. Every contact makes a difference. These people who are getting postcards are NOT people who vote regularly, so it is NOT foolish to make contact with them any way we can. It’s not a waste of time. In fact, it’s something that can be done while watching TV at night or in a moment of free time. You don’t have to schedule a block of time to knock on doors or phone bank certain hours.
The funny thing is, if Jill Sixpack just started voting regularly, she’d get taken off of a shit-ton of GOTV lists.
All due respect, this is utter nonsense and insulting to the people who do this work. The amount of time and effort that goes into targeting, messaging, debriefing, focus-grouping, etc. is astounding. Does it always work? Of course not, but to think that it’s just people showing up at a campaign office every couple years and hoping for the best is, well, nonsense. No one is blindly throwing things at walls and hoping it sticks.
I vote in every I am eligible for. Always have. Now that I am a Canadian citizen, I vote in both countries. My wife and I took our absentee ballots to the post office two days ago.
I pick up the mail for our household, and my daughter, who is an independent, got a handwritten post card today advising her to vote straight Democratic on grounds of abortion rights. (Was reading that one of my three felonies a day?) I haven’t had a chance to talk to her about this. But as a general method of campaigning, it seems somewhere between risky and dumb. Telling an independent that they should be a straight party voter could be nails on the chalkboard.
Its little bits and pieces. Its easy to do, its easy to receive, and its an easy ask of your volunteer base to spur them to do more stuff in the future.