Sincere question- Texas democrat wants to know how to get out the vote

How do you register neighbors?
How have you educated yours?
What transportation methods work best?
Any other ideas?

There are people drowning in Texas... with the right approach,i think I can get them going to the polls...any suggestions?

We have been unsuccessful in my county....I've tried with little success since 2005.I'm hoping to get my partner involved in Henderson County as well.
I'll repost there as well.

I signed up in my area in 2003 and helped organize voter reg. We got lists of volunteers and set up calender and places where you were allowed to go and we brought the forms for people to fill out then we turned them in. We also gave out info on democrat candidates. You have to be careful, cant have signs or clothing to one side because voter reg is non partisan.

Then a few years ago and new town i live in, smaller rural area, for obama i went along with others door to door to ask people to vote.

Also get lists of current dems and call and talk to them.

Neighbors are harder because you have to live near these folks! I know 3 of my neighbors are hard core repubs so we dont talk politics. One writes eco books and is liberal.

You cant educate unless someone is open. Most repubs are closed minded and its a waste of time to argue with them. I find the best way for neighbors at least is to treat them like i want to be treated. Just because i think they are stupid to listen to fox and rush i dont ever act like that.

I invited neighbors grand kids to swim in my pool...they give us veges from their garden....we have to learn to be like that in this coutry if anyone ever will open up to talk.

And now in wa state where i helped with obama.

voter registration campaigns and hammer home why people must vote. Use the Churches to branch out and get to young people and get them registered. Don't let republicans take advantage by using the ID ruse, get every voter valid IDs. Don't turn your nose up to the ID issue, you will face it at the polls, face it and beat it now. The election is about numbers, minorities in Texas, when drawn in large numbers will offset part of the white vote and when combined with liberals and moderates of all races and ethnic groups, win elections for democratic candidates.

It's the only thing that's sure to get voters out. Every precinct walker carries registration materials and knows the issues and is able to say exactly why the Republican is bad and the Democrat is good on every issue raised by every person talked to.

go into strong democratic profile neighborhoods and get every possible voter legally registered, with ID cards that defeat republican tricks. Organizers must go into wavering neighborhoods and districts and win voters in those locations. Organizers must not give up any votes that can be won. Even past republican hot button issues like big government are working against them, organizers must be cold blooded in taking advantage of republican missteps.

It takes hardworking, well-trained volunteers, and they're hard to come by.

Let's rally behind Obama and have MORE wars, more patriot act, more torture, more secret prisons, and less of everything for everyone not in the top 5%.

Let's tick a government gun in the faces of america's poor and tell them that they are gonna give their money to insurance companies or go to jail. Let's rally behind the banksters and billionaires.

Excellent plan sir.

Yeah, Obama killed Osama. yeah. cool.

He also fucked the people who voted for him in so many ways it is becoming difficult to remember them all. The guy is nothing more or less than Bush III, and his palls in the Senate and House are no better.

So tell me what I am voting FOR and maybe I will give a shit. Make it good enough and I will get out there and HELP.

He was public education focused... including reintroducing trade schools back into the public school system, instead of the "for-profit" schools that exist now.He wanted to introduce more alternative energy resources to Texas. he was very pro-union.
See where that got us?

People don't really get out to vote for local and state offices and that's almost impossibleto change. Further, and let's be honest here, regardless of the state you are in or the guy you support, I suspect most people feel their local guys are about the last people to get excited about. I suspect most folks view all of them as completely corrupt self-serving douchebags, and for good reason.

You want to change Texas or any state, you need a national party and platform worth voting FOR. It also helps to have an opposition party worth voting against.

Obama won because Bush was a freaking disaster, yes, but also because he promised to fight for a laundry list of significant changes. And within a week of taking office he was abandoning both the promises and the people who voted for him. He didn't fight for shit, he fought against his own voters. He became Bush III. And sure, the GOP grabbed the ball and sprinted to the social con right, but then what else do expect, and Obama is right there with them, running a single pace behind and yelling for them to let him catch up.

Let's review.

A vote for Obama and the Washington Democrats is a vote for more war, it is a vote against civil liberties, a vote in favor of patriot and all the other unnamed police state policies and agencies, it is a vote supporting torture, a vote supporting tax cuts for the wealthy and tax hikes for the poor, it is a vote for corporate welfare, a vote against single payer healthcare. It is a vote in favor of looting the rotting corpse ofthis country and giving it straight to the banksters and mega-corps. It is a vote in support of BP, and banning the press from the gulf; a vote in favor of sending the police after private citizens who visit their own fucking beaches to photograph the carnage. It is a vote in favor of telling our nation's poor that they shoud skip eating so that they can instead give their money to fucking insurance companies, and if they insist on feeding their kids rather than handing over their money then the fucking government will come after them.

It is a vote against everything that progressives claim they stand for.

So how in the hell do you plan to get people excited? Woo Hoo, we killed Bin Ladin? Woo Hoo we are bombing Libya? Woo Hoo gas and unemplyment and the debt are all sky high but you can maybe get a job polishing Rush Limbaugh's new 747 or maybe McDonalds as a Fry Guy? Woo Hoo, we're just like Republicans only without all that Jesus stuff.

1. Simply call your county Democratic Party headquarters.
2. There are Democratic Meetups (believe it or not, Meetup.com is still around); there's a link in my signature.
3. Also, Drinking Liberally is one way to meet other Democrats in your area who might be connected to campaigns and such.

By basically being in touch with Democrats from my area, I got hooked up with a get-out-the-vote effort where they actually rented a bunch of buses to take people to Wisconsin to offer people rides to the polls (Chicago is pretty solidly blue but we have neighboring swing states that need our help). There's often an organized effort that just needs people to come in and take portions of the work that needs to be done. The neat thing is that in 2004, someone made some kind of estimate of how many Democrats were helped by the get-out-the-vote efforts in Wisconsin, and compared it to the election results, and we actually could have been the ones that swung the state for Kerry!

If you can persuade two R's not to vote, it's like getting an extra vote from someone who votes your way right down the line.

The VAN is a data based voter information service. All Precinct Chairs have access. The VAN helps to identify how voters vote, whether or not they are strong Dem's, how they vote over the years, etc. Perhaps they will give you access without being a Precinct Chair.


Good Luck with your efforts.

:hi:

(2) It's a numbers game: you're trying to reach people who are more likely than not to support your side; there's no harm in being wrong sometimes provided you're right most of the time
(3) One on one contact works: phone calls or door knocking.
(4) Be informed, be polite, be thick-skinned, be normal, be real, and be quick to move on
(5) Think on your feet: it gets easier with practice
(6) Be willing to change what you're doing to adapt to different neighborhoods
(7) Good organization matters

I drove people to the polls for several Presidential elections in Texas in the 70s and 80s. You'll have to decide what your comfort zone is: you might be more comfortable with a partner

In 1988, one of my assigned rides was a nice old lady who looked out her apartment window at me and decided I was too rough-looking a hippy for her, so she cancelled; the polls were going to close in half an hour or so, and I didn't really have time to find a pay phone and call in for another assignment, so I just drove over to a group of guys standing in the parking lot and asked if they wanted a ride to the polls; it was a solid Dem precinct, so my odds of helping my ticket were good; four of them jammed into my car, and they all voted. So because the nice old lady wasted my time, I ended up taking four people to the polls instead of just one

Sometimes people will try to take advantage of you. In 1996, I heard one driver say she'd taken a woman to the polls, and then on the way back the woman talked her into dropping her off at the grocery store, and when they got to the grocery the woman talked her into waiting while she did her grocery shopping, and then she helped the lady carry the groceries into her house, so the ten minute ride back home turned into an hour or so. Figure out in advance how you'll say no, with disarming courtesy and no pointless argument

Here and there, now and then, you'll encounter a real jackass: they're rare, but they do exist. Don't get sucked into a pissing contest. It's your chance to practice being frickin St Francis of Assisi for just long enough to back pleasantly out of the conversation: thanking them for giving you something to think about and wishing then a great day or whatever it takes to get you back on the task of getting more friends than foes to the voting booth