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AAUWs Voter Education Turnout Campaign
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Mobilize Voters and Recruit Members

• In October 2000, the AAUW Palo Alto (CA) Branch
  conducted a phone bank to encourage women to
  vote. They targeted women between ages 25 and 65
  who did not vote in 1998 (approximately 25
  percent of female voters in Palo Alto).
• AAUW members called 91 percent of their voter
  list ... and recruited five new members.

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AAUW Voter Education Campaign Resources

• At www.aauw.org/onevote youll find
• Woman-to-Woman Voter Turnout A Manual for
  Community-Based Campaigns to Mobilize Women to
  Vote to order or download
• Posters, stickers, and pins to order
• National Coalition Partners

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The Gender Gap

• Since 1980, there have been noticeable
  differences in candidates supported by women and
  men
• The gender gap is driven by policy issues
• As more women vote, politicians will be forced to
  respond to the interests of women voters

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Why an AAUWWoman-to-WomanVoter Turnout campaign?

• Increase womens activism
• Keep womens issues in the forefront
• Impact future elections by increasing the number
  of women voting
• Hold elected officials accountable

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Why an AAUW Woman-to-WomanVoter Turnout campaign?

• Foster leadership development among AAUW members
• Forge diverse partnerships nationwide
• Increase AAUW visibility
• Recruit new and retain current AAUW members

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Why an AAUWWoman-to-WomanVoter Turnout campaign?

• Since 1995, AAUW has conducted Voter Ed GOTV
  activities in almost every state.
• AAUWs VEC is unique its one of few programs
  that specifically target female drop-off voters
  with issue education messages on the issues women
  care about most.

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What does an AAUW Woman-to-Woman Voter Turnout
campaign look like?

• Voter registration drives
• Voter contact (phone banks, canvassing)
• Issue-based voter outreach
• Voter guides
• Issue Forums
• Candidate Forums

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The Personal Touch

• Effective voter turnout techniques use
  peer-to-peer contacts
• Techniques such as
• Canvassing, and
• Phone banking

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Canvassing

• Face-to-face conversations with potential voters
• Demonstrates your commitment and importance of
  voting
• Most effective voter turnout technique

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Phone Calls

• Personal communication with potential voters
• Most effective within one week of election day
• Second highest voter turnout technique

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Make a Statewide Impact on the Womens Vote

• AAUW of Pennsylvania held regional voter
  education and voter turnout trainings for AAUW
  branches and coalition partners in the state in
  2008.
• With 48 branches statewide, AAUW is set to make a
  significant impact on the womens vote in PA in
  2008!

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Planning Your Campaign

• 1. Identify Election Day.
• 2. Set goals to be achieved by Election Day.
• How many women will you contact?
• What will you do to contact them (e.g., once by
  a
• canvasser and once by a phone call)?
• What will you do on Election Day?

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Planning Your Campaign

• 3. Set dates for completing the following
• Appointing a campaign team
• Recruiting volunteers
• Acquiring voter registration files
• Identifying drop-off women voters to target
• Contacting targeted voters

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Teamwork Collaboration

• Campaign Team
• Coalitions
• Volunteers

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Recruiting Your Campaign Team

• Campaign manager
• Voter file coordinator
• Volunteer coordinator
• Canvassing coordinator
• Phone coordinator

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Building Coalitions

• Building coalitions among key groups
• extends the benefits, reach, and impact, and
• avoid duplicating efforts and pool resources,
  volunteers, and expertise

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AAUW 2008 GOTV Partners

• League of Women Voters
• Lifetime's Every Woman Counts Campaign
• AARP Divided We Fail Campaign
• Commission on Presidential Debates

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The Company You Keep

• Legal reminder Any 501(c)(3) organization or
  501(c)(4) organizations that are not endorsing
  any candidate and do not coordinate with
  candidates or political parties organization may
  work on voter turnout.

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Volunteers

• Critical to success
• The number of volunteers determines how many
  women you can reach

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Targeting

• Focus on people most likely to vote
• Drop-off women voters
• Use voter registration files

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Drop-off Women Voters

• Registered and have voted in the past, but not in
  recent elections
• More likely to become regular voters with
  personal contact
• Information publicly available from voter
  registration files
• Women are more likely than men not to vote in
  non-presidential elections

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Finding Drop-off Women Voters

• Voter Registration Files
• Voter history
• Contact your state elections office
• National Association of State Election Directors
  www.nased.org/membership.htm

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Working WithVoter Registration Files

• Request a computer file or printout
• A second option is to register women to vote and
  then contact each of them the week before
  Election Day
• Recruit someone proficient with spreadsheets or
  databases

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Keeping Your Campaign Manageable

• Focus on women who have voted in the past but did
  not vote in the last election
• If the voter registration file is extremely
  large, plan a smaller campaign
• Pare down your list. Target women in a limited
  number of precincts or young women

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Building Relationships

• Moving women from non-voters to voters takes time
• Build peer-to-peer relationships and
  relationships with your branch both during and
  outside election season.
• Encourage potential voters to vote through
  subsequent election cycles
• Voting is habit forming!

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Relationship BuildingOutside of Election Season

• Invite targeted women to AAUW and coalition
  events
• Inform them about public policy issues in their
  community
• Ask them to join AAUWs Action Network

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Keeping Women Involved

• AAUW of Connecticut created a WAGE hub to support
  programming around the state that trains women to
  advocate for pay equity.
• Ongoing programming using AAUWs Pay Equity
  Resource Kit keeps women engaged outside of
  campaign season and keeps womens issues in the
  forefront.

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Stir the Pot

• You can educate women in your social network by
  bringing together an informal gathering to talk
  about issues important to women. Use AAUWs
  Congressional Voting Record, position papers,
  Action Network, Washington Update, or research
  reports for topics.

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Voter Registration Drives

• AAUW of New York State encourages branches to
  have voter registration forms available at all
  branch programs in addition to setting up one or
  two days "off site" (at local libraries, for
  example) as dedicated voter registration programs.

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Voter Guides and Voter Contact

• In 2006, the AAUW Memphis (TN) branch produced
  voter guides for the Senate House races and
  called more than 1,000 drop-off women voters to
  encourage them to vote.
• The targets were identified through election
  commission records using methods from AAUWs W2W
  manual.

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The Company You Keep, Part 2

• Legal reminder The only organizations that can
  legally participate in voter guides are 501(c)(4)
  organizations that are not endorsing any
  candidate and do not coordinate with candidates
  or political parties. A 501(c)(3) charitable
  organization cannot participate in this part of
  the campaign.

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Issue Forums

• The AAUW St. Paul (MN) Branch worked with their
  U.S. rep. in 2005 to hold a roundtable event to
  discuss a U.S. Dept. of Education clarification
  on Title IX.
• Local college and high school athletic directors,
  coaches, student, AAUW members, and the public
  learned about the clarification and shared their
  experiences.

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Issue-Based Voter Turnout

• AAUW of Michigan joined with 10 other womens
  organizations in 2005 to put together the
  Michigan Womens Summit to educate women about
  the effects of an upcoming anti-affirmative
  action ballot measure.
• House parties were held to educate women, and
  phone banks reached 1,448 AAUW members urging
  them to vote against the amendment.

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Candidate Forums

• The AAUW Dallas (TX) Branch and the League of
  Women Voters of Dallas co-hosted a successful
  candidate forum in 2004. The forum featured two
  long-term incumbents, Reps. Pete Sessions (R-TX)
  and Martin Frost (D-TX), who were running against
  each other in a newly formed district.
• The race had national prominence, and the lively
  debate was featured nationwide on C-SPAN.

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Public Relations

• The AAUW Palo Alto (CA) Branch wrote letters to
  the editors of three newspapers about a tuition
  voucher initiative campaign and other coalition
  election issues.
• The branch also co-sponsored a paid ad on a
  local school bonds initiative. These activities
  gave the branch visibility and helped educate the
  public on AAUW priority issues.

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Keeping Your Campaign Manageable

• Take stock of your resources
• Leadership
• Energy
• Interest
• Time
• Volunteers
• Money

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Putting it All Together

• Plan a campaign that fits your resources
• Celebrate and build on your successes
• Keep track of your progress
• Evaluate what works and what doesnt

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AAUW Public Policy Resources

• Action Network
• Washington Update
• Position Papers
• Congressional Voting Record

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AAUW Public Policy andGovernment Relation
Department202/785-7793

• VoterEd_at_aauw.org
• www.aauw.org/issues advocacy