getting out the vote

.

This morning I mailed 15 postcards to Alabama voters who are registered as Democrats.

I won't call voters, because I don't want to be called.

But I'll write postcards.  (I'd have written a lot more if I'd learned about this earlier.  They said I should make sure my postcards were in the mail "first thing in the morning, December 6," to make sure the voters got them in time to plan to vote.)

I bought 50 pre-stamped ("Forever") postcards at the post office, for 38¢ each (includes 34¢ postage). 

It is all very easy once you are signed up.  I started here -- https://onethingyoucando.com/tag/tony-the-democrat/

The short story is -- you text them.  They email you a list of rules, and a list of suggestions for messages.  You write a sample "get out the vote" message.  You email them an image of your hand-written sample message, with an agreement that you have read, and will follow, the rules (which are easy to agree with).   Having demonstrated you're not a robot, you become an "approved writer."

Once you are "an approved writer," you text their robot, which will text (and email) you a list of addresses.  And if you finish with however many addresses you asked for, you can ask for more.  The bot responds almost immediately......

Each postcard took me about 4 minutes, once I got going.  I can only do so many in a row -- I get cross-eyed and stiff.  But if I'd had more lead time, I'd have done a lot more.

Now that I've got 35 postcards waiting for the next candidate, I am poised and ready to jump on the next campaign!



As with everything, it would be so interesting to know how much difference we actually make.  How many postcards, on average, result in a voter who wouldn't have voted without a postcard?  How many dollars make a noticeable difference to a candidate's campaign?  How many pieces of trash sent to the landfill make any sort of substantive difference?

We can't know.

My position on all of this is -- if we go down, I am going down fighting.  Bad things are not (Not NOT) happening because I sat by and did nothing.

And that's it.


.