Grassroots Tips

HOW to Hold Successful Voter Registration Drives

voter registrationMaking sure that conservatives are registered to vote is one of the most fundamentally important activities for the future political success of the conservative movement.  And that means voter registration drives.

One of the unpleasant truths of political life is that conservatives tend to be just as bad (or apathetic) about registering and voting as the rest of the general public. The result is that we don’t leverage our numbers and have the impact that we should. The simple fact is that if conservatives aren’t registered they can’t vote. And if they don’t vote, they don’t count.

The best way to have the highest rate of success in registering the right voters is to focus your efforts where those potential conservative voters gather on a regular basis.

In other words, church.

Every poll demonstrates that people who attend church hold the most politically conservative views, and vote accordingly when they actually do vote. By conducting regular voter registration drives in churches, we leverage our time and resources by registering voters who are already likely to agree with us and don’t require as much time and resources to convince to vote the right way on Election Day.

Here’s a list of some simple steps that you can take to conduct successful voter registration drives in your church.

Get Permission First

Make sure that you get the necessary permission from the pastor or other church leadership to conduct a voter registration drive. By making sure that they approve, you can avoid any problems or confusion and possible clear the way to having them help promote it ahead of time. Better still, they may even participate!

Get the Necessary Materials

You should be able to easily get copies of the voter registration form for your state from either your Secretary of State’s website or from your local voter registration office. It may even be possible to download a copy of the form and make copies, if that is acceptable in your state, (just be sure to call and find out ahead of time). Make sure to have enough forms on-hand for your church. A good number would be enough for at least half of your membership.

Promote It Ahead of Time

This is where having permission and cooperation from church leadership can be a big help. Place an announcement in the church bulletin several weeks in advance. If there is a bulletin board for announcements, or a time for announcements from the congregation, try to use these as well. If possible, get the pastor or other church leadership to make an announcement from the pulpit and give directions to where the registration table is located.

Set Up the Registration Table

Be sure to set up registration tables in areas that have heavy traffic, such as near the exits. Spread the forms out on the tables in such as way that everyone can easily access them. And make sure to have plenty of pens available.

Be active. Don’t sit down behind a table, but stand near the table and engage people in conversation. If you’re not pro-active, people are more likely to pass you by. Ask if they are registered to vote. Encourage them to fill out their form immediately at the table rather than taking it home where they might forget. Tell them that you will make sure that it gets delivered to the voter registration office.

Have a “Stand-up Sunday”

The most effective method of registering voters in a church is to have the pastor or other church leadership ask everyone to “stand up” if they are registered to vote, then have ushers pass out voter registration forms to everyone who is still seated. People are then asked to fill out their forms in their seat and either pass them down to the ushers or place them in a central location at the end of the service. Let everyone know that the church will take responsibility to make sure that the forms are delivered to the voter registration office.

Follow Up For More Impact

Be sure to make note of the names and contact information of everyone who has registered. This will enable you to follow up with them and make sure that they get important issue education information, as well as remind them to vote prior to future elections.

Other Opportunities:

To be even more effective, you can get a copy of the current voter registration list for your area and cross-reference it with the names in your church directory (and/or other nearby churches) to identify which members are not currently registered to vote. Then contact them about helping them register. Talk about accountability and the civic responsibility to participate in self-government, and the policy changes that could occur if more church members participated in our political process.

While the church is the largest market for unregistered conservative voters, there are other places that should be considered as well, such as religious schools and bookstores.

Finally, be sure to help magnify this effort by reaching out to other conservatives in your area and encouraging them to hold a registration drive in their church as well.

Remember, political success boils down to simple arithmetic. And every vote counts.

HOW to Have Meetings that Matter

groupIt’s hard to have an organization without meetings, and you can’t have meetings without people. But meetings that aren’t organized or run well can be one of the quickest ways to kill interest and run people away from any organization.

As I have mentioned several times, “politics is people” – and if you can’t attract people to get involved to begin with and keep them involved, then you aren’t going to get much done. It’s hard enough to find people who are interested in having anything to do with grassroots politics to begin with, which makes it self-defeating when we subject them to long, boring meetings after we manage to get them into the room.

There are five key words to remember: Do – Not – Have – Boring – Meetings!

If you’re just getting involved and organizing something for the first time, then you’re probably less likely to have bad habits to break out of. But if you’re running a large, formal, preexisting organization, then you need to take a look and see if there are some old habits that may be holding the group back.

It doesn’t matter if your group is five people or five-hundred, BORING kills. Don’t let the necessity of meetings get you in a process that drains interest and frustrates the overall purposes of the group.

All Meetings Are Not Created Equally

Different types of meetings serve different purposes, and you have different purposes that you need to accomplish in order to succeed. You need to attract people, you need to inform people, you need to involve people and you need to organize people and conduct business. And all of those different purposes work better with differently structured meetings.

So what do you do? Before you decide what “type” of meeting to have, know what the objective is. Determine that, then build the meeting and the agenda around it.

And remember that each type of purpose as well as each type of meeting format attracts different types of people. All people don’t like all types of meetings. Everyone doesn’t want to listen to speeches. Everyone doesn’t want to sit through “Roberts Rules” style business meetings. Everyone doesn’t want to do social time.

The point is that you need to make an effort to be sure that the type of meetings that you hold are as diverse as the people that you are trying to attract.

The usual format of: prayer, pledge, minutes from last time, treasurer’s report, chairman’s report, new business, old business, then a speech from someone political is NOT the way to go about attracting new people into an organization. That’s not to say that it doesn’t have it’s place, but the problem is that too many of us typically run ALL meetings that way.

Rotate the types of meetings you have. Do you have regular monthly meetings? What about alternating “business” meetings with “social” meetings/events? Or holding shorter business meetings just before larger social events or meal. Or maybe a quick business meeting, then a meal, then a larger, more public social/informational/recruitment style event?

Remember, make your meeting formats serve the purposes of the group, not the other way around.

Different Meetings Serve Different Purposes:

Have Meetings that RECRUIT

Remember, one of the most important aspects of politics is to recruit other people to the cause. If you don’t attract people to your group or project to begin with, then you won’t get things off of the ground. Have social events. Think dinners, a Saturday breakfast, mixers, pig-pickins, oyster roasts, bands, etc. Throw a big-name politician in the mix if you can to attract more people. Think of it as a sales pitch that describes the problem, your group’s solution and the organization that you want to build.

And don’t forget to focus on doing something to attract young people. Remember, they’re a critical part of the farm team.

Have Meetings that INFORM

You need to have meetings that “new” people can attend and get their feet wet and decide how they want to fit in, without getting bored not bothering to come back to another meeting. Larger “general” informational meetings that describe what the group is about, what you’re trying to do and why, and what you’re trying to find volunteers to help accomplish. Talk about the jobs people can fill. Make the pitch about all the different types of opportunities people have to get involved.

Have Meetings that ORGANIZE

Once people have been recruited and informed, you still can’t really have an “organization” without getting organized. At the most basic level, this is simply a matter of sketching out what areas need to be covered and what needs to get done and then playing a glorified game of “fill in the blank”. Have meetings that focus on fleshing out the organization. Then there’s also the regular “business” meetings that you need in order to keep things organized. Just note that this is only ONE of many types of meetings, so don’t overdo it.

Have Meetings that INVOLVE

Remember the axiom, “good projects build good organization”. So think “project” meetings where everyone knows ahead of time what the point of the meeting is and comes prepared to work or with ideas to contribute. The list of possibilities is as long as the list of things that the group needs to get done in order to be effective:

Activist identification and recruitment efforts to grow the group; updates from elected officials; organizing the group’s grassroots lobbying infrastructure and plugging members into the effort to speak out on important issues when necessary; communications and media outreach, (such as letters-to-the-editor to op-eds); activists training seminars geared around hands-on training from experienced hands on specific needs; candidate recruitment meetings focusing on identifying candidates to run for specific offices and convincing them to run; voter registration project planning; candidate forums; get-out-the-vote strategy planning… The list goes on and on.

Identify the things that the group needs to do, then plan meetings around those specific items.

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Remember, volunteers are at a premium, so don’t run them off. Keep your meeting topics and formats centered around the purposes of the group.

Have meetings that matter.  Do. Not. Have. Boring. Meetings.

How to Develop a Message

message1When you’re trying to have an impact on pretty much anything in politics it usually involves a need to communicate a clear message – whether to a group of people, the media, or both. But in order to cut through the clutter of competing messages and communicate in a way that will make a difference, you need to do a little preparation.

Before You Begin…

Before you develop a message, you really need to be able to address the following points:

  • Know your Goal: “Why” are you saying something? What are you trying to accomplish?
  • Know your Target: “Who” are you going to say it to?
  • Know your Message: “What” are you going to say. Before you develop and refine your message, you need to make sure that you know the subject matter. Are you passionate about it?

When you know the answers to those questions, you’re ready to get started.

Create a Message Map

Creating a “message map” is a simple three-step way to build your overall message.

  1. Gather all the information that’s relevant to your issue (or campaign) and distill your concerns down into bullet points. This will help you think through the process and focus your arguments.
  2. Develop a short headline that describes the essence of your issue (or campaign). Try to make it short enough to be “Twitter friendly”.
  3. Add three or four supporting points, and then some extended points to each of those, (such as including some examples, statistics, stories or news items). A good rule of thumb is to say “three things about three things”…or less if you can!

The result is that all of your content after the main headline (or message) supports that message. The process helps you create an outline (or “map”) for your overall message and will help you further refine it as you go. It will also be a resource later if you need to develop a “theme” for your effort, or as you “package” your message for supporters, the media, print-material or even speeches.

Once you’ve got a good initial draft, then review and refine in in terms of the remaining points in this chapter.

Make it Resonate

Make sure that you describe “why” your message is important in a way that is compelling and relevant to people and fits their value system. People will support an idea (or candidate) that they think can make a difference – or someone who speaks to their values and cares about the things they care about. Remember, a shared concern plus your unique proposal (or qualities) can equal an emotional connection with the audience.

Describe the Key Benefits

Make sure that people understand the key benefits of your position (or the “qualifications” of a candidate). How will your ideas (or candidate) make a difference? What’s in it for them?

Define the Problem to Fit Your Solution

Make sure that you define the problem that your message addresses in such a way that people can easily see how it will be “solved” by the solution or outcome that you’re calling for (or by the unique qualifications of a candidate, if it’s an election situation).

Make it a Choice

A good message will force people to make a choice. It should be framed in such a way that they have only one acceptable choice – yours. Don’t give them an alternative.

Make it Personal

Abstract arguments are not as good as explaining how an issue really impacts people’s lives. Find a victim or a success story that people can relate to and humanize the issue. A victim is a “poster child” who illustrates the problems you want addressed, and a success story illustrates the good things that will happen if your position is successful.

Make it Actionable

Be sure that the message is “actionable” by defining what specific action you want people to take. What do they do after they’ve heard you? And make sure that they can see how the action that you ask them to take will help “fix” the problem.

Keep it Simple and Clear

Muddled messages don’t move people. Keep it simple, clear and to the point so people have absolutely no doubt what it’s about and why it’s important.

Short-Circuit the Opposition’s Arguments

If you understand what your opposition is saying, you will know how to communicate your own message in a way that counters their arguments and undermines their credibility.

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If you’re going to go to the trouble of speaking out for a policy or proposal that you believe in, (or even run a campaign), then you may as well go to the (slightly more) trouble of developing a relevant, clear and concise message that can help you be more successful.

Otherwise, what’s the point?