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Volunteer Energy and Political Tipping Points - What We Can Do
By Paul Rogat Loeb, The Smirking Chimp
October 15, 2008 - 9:33am
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On election day four years ago, I was canvassing in my home state of Washington, alternately knocking on doors for
gubernatorial candidate Christine Gregoire and breaking to call Ohio and Florida. After three recounts, Gregoire won by
129 votes. I had no idea my state election was so close, but I did get three people who wouldn't have otherwise
voted--one forgot it was election day, one needed a ride to the polls, and a third didn't know how to turn in her
absentee ballot. If you multiply my efforts by those of thousands of other volunteers, we clearly helped make the
difference.
The same happened in 2006. During the election's final weeks, I spent about 30 hours calling through MoveOn's Call for
Change program, contacting voters in Virginia, Missouri, Montana, and other states with key Senate and Congressional
races. Grabbing spare moments where I could, I dialed my way across the country, convincing maybe 20 people who wouldn't
have otherwise to back the Democratic challengers. Some initially resisted saying, "They're all the same. They're all
corrupts." Or "My vote won't matter so why bother." But I convinced them to vote, and added a few with election-day
reminders. Later I read that MoveOn had 120,000 volunteers. If each had half the impact of my efforts, that meant over a
million votes, in a season when US Senate seats swung on margins as close as Montana's 3,500 votes, Virginia's 9,000,
Rhode Island's 29,000, or Missouri's 48,000. Our common efforts again tipped the balance.
It's easy to think of our individual election volunteering as insignificant. But when enough of us act even in small
ways, we can have a powerful impact. Studies have found that if you talk to a dozen people by going door-to-door, you'll
likely add at least one new voter for your candidate, a ratio that tends to hold true from local to federal elections,
so long as you're working in reasonably receptive neighborhoods. Phone outreach can have a similar impact, though you
need to talk with more people for a comparable result. Imagine what a few hundred more volunteers could have done to
shift Florida's 537-vote official margin in 2,000, even with all the Republican machinations.
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