Your best source of solid votes is personal, face-to-face contact with voters. Having the actual candidate appear on someone's doorstep is the ideal vote-getter, but campaign volunteers working on behalf of a candidate are almost as effective.

School board candidates seldom walk their district. Most voters have never had a school board representative knock on their door. That a candidate cared enough to come by and talk can be enough to cement the votes of most households.

Most school districts are too large for a candidate to personally canvass all the neighborhoods. Efficiency requires the use of candidate surrogates (volunteers) and effective identification of high propensity voting households. It's a waste of time to visit households that have not voted in past elections, even if they are registered. Prior non-voting is a strong indicator for future non-voting. Even so, always have your campaign associates and yourself appear to be accessible with immediate email, phone, and snail mail contact information.

The typical direct, face-to-face voter contact will take three minutes, including time spent waiting for the voter to answer the doorbell. Assuming a 60 second "walk time" between homes, each direct house call will consume five minutes. A full eight-hour day thus yields 480 household contacts per day--assuming anyone is home. You're most likely to find voters at home during evening hours, say from 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm.

* Use Volunteers

A candidate needs volunteers to help cover his district. However, because volunteers will not work as hard, or as long, as the candidate, many volunteers are required. Generally, no more than two hours of work can be expected from a volunteer each week.

Each volunteer should be assigned a small list of homes to visit, along with a simple list of instructions. But before assigning them your list of homes, ask your volunteer to call on fifteen good friends in the district.

Reading a script over the phone is okay, and should be followed up by a mailed campaign flyer, friend-to-friend. However, a personal visit to the friend, to ask for their vote and leave the flyer, is better.

* Seek High Propensity Voters

You can purchase a list of high propensity voters for your area from professional database vendors--or obtain such a list, free of charge, from a friendly, local political party office. A high propensity voter is anyone who has voted in the past two elections; such a person is likely to vote again.

If volunteers are working before absentee ballots have been mailed, all registered Libertarians (or other targeted voters) should be door-knocked. If it's one week after absentee ballots have been mailed, eliminate all PAVs (Permanent Absentee Voters) from household visits.

Parse the list of voters to 30, and no more than 50, per volunteer.

Least effective is to knock on every door regardless of personal friendship or prior voting history.

* Volunteer Preparation

Provide your volunteers with specific instructions, and a check-off list, so that they can confirm the work done. Volunteers need to know that you care enough about their work to check up with them. They will respect what you inspect. If the candidate never asks for confirmation of the work done, it is likely the work will not be finished.

Provide volunteers with a script to read when they contact voters. Include candidate name, ballot location, and date of election. Always ask for the voter's support, and if they will vote for the candidate. End with a cheerful “thank you for your support.”

Provide a simple list of concept statements that volunteers can use to explain what the candidate supports. These should match and reinforce campaign literature to be left behind with the voter.

Provide a script to read over the phone.

In 2006 John Briscoe was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Ocean View School District. He can provide sample scripts for interested Libertarians.
Contact info at: Vote4Briscoe.com.

Copyright 2007 by John Briscoe