Form #29
GOTVPLAN TEMPLATE
“Get out the Vote” (GOTV) is the final step of the campaign plan that represents a final, aggressive push to turnout supporters on Election Day. A successful GOTV plan is fully dependent on the quality of work put forth on each day preceding GOTV. Therefore, the efforts to build a strong GOTV must start early and often.
GOTV is achieved using the following methods:
- Recruiting volunteers to conduct phone calls to potential voters about getting out the vote
- Recruiting volunteersto go door-to-door with potential voters asking them to get out to vote
- Paid, pre-recorded messages going out to likely voters
- Direct mail sent to voters
- Driving people to the polls
- Hosting Tele Town Halls
- Hand-written cards by volunteers to voters
- Emails from the campaign to voters
- Emails from friends of the campaign to their friends
- Use of social media
Get out the Vote Universe
Not all voters will be contacted and reminded to get out to vote. The list of voters to be contacted should be targeted.
In this example provided here the campaign determined that the GOTV Universe will be comprised of:(Sample bullets, please provide actual methodology)
- Voters that have turned out in fewer than 3 of the last 4 federal elections
- Voters with same last name as the candidate
- Newly registered voters over the last 2 years
- Voters that have voted in 1 primary, but not the last federal election
- Microtargeted moderate and low turnout that are likely voters for our candidate
The following grid shows the size of our overall Get out the Vote (GOTV) universe broken down by local municipality:(Sample data, please provide actual)
MUNICIPALITY NAME / SIZE OF GOTV UNIVERSE / UNIVERSE WITH PHONES / HOUSEHOLDS IN GOTV UNIVERSESample Name 1 / 17257 / 11735 / 11787
Sample Name 2 / 4516 / 3071 / 3084
Sample Name 3 / 15225 / 10353 / 10399
TOTALS / 36998 / 25159 / 25270
Overview of Direct Voter Contact from Volunteers
The campaign’s GOTV effort will span the last 10 days of the election. During that time there will be ___ complete passes through the GOTV phone universe, ___ times of which will be in the last 72 Hours, and ___ complete passes door to door, ___ of them in the last 72 hours.
Early Voting
For states that offer some sort of early voting, it is important know the date on which early voting begins and to track early voting data. For more information regarding early voting strategy, seeForm #31.
Volunteer Shifts
Volunteers will be contacting voters directly both over the phone and by going door to door.
The campaign has done the math and figured out how many volunteers we will need in order to contact our entire universe.
Since the script for GOTV calls is short we will use a rate of 1 volunteer can make 40 calls in an hour and 1 volunteer can knock on 15 doors per hour on average.
Our goal is to recruit volunteers to fill the 3 hour shifts by October 20th, 2014:
MUNICIPALITY NAME / GOTV UNIVERSE / PHONES / HOUSEHOLDS / 3 HR. SHIFTS TO CALL / 3 HR. SHIFTS TO KNOCKSample Name 1 / 17257 / 11735 / 11787 / 98 / 262
Sample Name 2 / 4516 / 3071 / 3084 / 26 / 69
Sample Name 3 / 15225 / 10353 / 10399 / 86 / 231
TOTALS / 36998 / 25159 / 25270 / 210 / 562
GOTV Volunteers
Getting out the Vote will depend on Volunteers. Knowing the number of shifts we need to fill we now can identify how many volunteers it is estimated we will need to meet our targets.
MUNICIPALITY NAME / 3 HR. SHIFT TO CALL / 3 HR. TO KNOCK / PHONE / DOOR TO DOORSample Name 1 / 98 / 262 / 25 / 66
Sample Name 2 / 26 / 69 / 0 / 0
Sample Name 3 / 86 / 231 / 22 / 58
TOTALS / 210 / 562 / 47 / 124
Note - Since Sample Name 2 is has no walkable precincts any volunteers will be redirected onto phones or other tasks.
We will sign up our volunteer list/database for specific shifts during the last week of September and the first week of October, and will make confirmation calls from October 16th thru the 19th. This task will be done or assigned by our GOTV coordinator.
The volunteer list/database will also be set up to manage this task, including the ability to assign shifts by the GOTV Coordinator no later than October 14th.
Recruitment
Volunteers will be recruited and signed up every day of the campaign at every event and at headquarters. We will do volunteer recruitment calls to (sample- 4 of 4 Republicans in August). We will also aggressively use all forms of social media (email, Facebook, Twitter, ect) to recruit volunteers.
Phone Banks
The campaign has established the following goals for number of phone banks we need to have operational by local municipality, all must be secured prior to October 10th, 2014.
MUNICIPALITY NAME / PHONE BANKS NEEDEDSample Name 1 / 7
Sample Name 2 / 2
Sample Name 3 / 6
TOTAL / 14
Door to DoorStaging Locations
Staging locations are places where volunteers and campaign staff can congregate and distribute materials for door to door. This can be as simple as a shopping center parking lot, or even campaign headquarters.
We will also identify staging locations for door to door early, since they are easy to identify. This will be done by August 31st.
MUNICIPALITY NAME / STAGING LOCATIONS NEEDEDSample Name 1 / 4
Sample Name 2 / 0
Sample Name 3 / 3
TOTAL / 7
Scripts
The campaign will be using the following scripts for GOTV:(include copies of GOTV door and phone scripts here)
Paid GOTV Efforts
- Mail - GOTV Mail will be sent to the full universe on the (Sample-Wednesday and Friday) before the election. This will be a fully produced piece of mail and the message will be (Sample- Pelosi and jobs). Since the message will not change this will be produced early, the goal of this campaign is to have this produced and ready to mail by (sample- October 5th).
- Paid Door to Door (if applicable) - The campaign is expecting a shortage on door to door volunteers and is planning on hiring people to canvass door to door. We anticipate we will need to retain (Sample 15 people to go door to door working 6 hour shifts over the last 10 days). These will be recruited no later than October 21rd. We will find them (sample- at the local college) and pay them (sample- minimum wage).
Rides to the Polls
The campaign will be offering rides to the polls on Election Day.
You will begin collecting that information into your voter file on day 1 and will have recruited drivers by October 20th. Driving assignments will be completed by October 28th and four “floating drivers” will be recruited for Election Day call-ins (and other tasks) by October 28th. If you don’t have a rolling phone system at campaign HQ,you’ll need to assign a phone number for people requestinga ride to the polls bySeptember 13th. This will ensure enough time for the number to be printed on GOTV mail and materials.(You will need to assign a number because the main headquarters phone line will be tied up on Election Day.)
Do Me a Favor Cards (if planned)
The campaign will produce do-me-a-favor cards which will remind people to vote and ask then to vote for your candidate. (To save money they will be produced as 3.5” x 5.5” and will use a post card stamp.) These will be ordered to be delivered by September 30th, distributed to volunteers over the first three weeks of October and mailed between October 28th and October30th.
Emails
The campaign will send a reminder email to the campaign email list that was gathered throughout the campaign. This will be done each of the three days of the campaign.
The campaign will also draft a sample email that will be forwarded out by volunteers to their friends and family. Final draft due of email to be forwarded is due by October 27th.
Social Media
The campaign will buy targeted web ads and Facebook ads. We will also push the Facebook fan page group with a message that can be forwarded as well as a status message that they can post. This is due by October 29th.
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