Reddit reviews Get Out the Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout, 2nd Edition

I ran for an at large city council seat in a town of 50K people. My wife would have murdered me if I'd corrected her posture or behavior.

My advice for your significant other - spend more time reading literature on effective campaign strategies and less time correcting his "first lady" (which is an odd term since a councilmember's spouse isn't considered a first lady/man).

Unless he has billboards up all over town and commercials running at all hours, few people will recognize a city council candidate.

GOTV Green and Gerber

The Campaign Manager

Having done opponent research and fundraising for state democrats in Chicago, I can tell you that without a doubt, the smaller the election, the better it is for the majority party. In non presidential elections or any local elections, people that do vote will vote the party line or according to the name they recognize. Chicago is a very segregated city. If the district/ward is primarily Polish or German, having a Polish or German name is very necessary to be elected as a judge or alderman. In the Irish wards, Flanagan, O'Malley, etc. are just as powerful. Because people often only go to vote for one position, they will often go with whatever feels comfortable or good for the others they don't recognize.

As to your contention that abstention is a good thing, it really is not unless there is a consequence for abstention such as no candidates being elected. During a modern campaign, the goal is to get the people who have voted before to show up at the polls and then try to swing the undecideds to your side. The other goal is to lower the turnout for your opponent. While most people think it is about motivating people to vote in general, such a strategy is almost guaranteed to lose unless you have unlimited funds. A good book to read is The Race to 270. It covers the 2000 and 2004 campaigns and demonstrates the change from macro campaigns to micro or targeted campaigns. (I spent my whole undergrad studying campaigns). By pinpointing specific areas with higher concentrations of voter turnout, a campaign can spend their money effectively. Imagine sabermetrics in baseball, but for political campaigns. It's why Bush could win 2000 elections by choosing very specific Florida counties that were Red in past elections to recount (Gore failed to realize the strategy until it was too late) and winning the 2004 election without carrying the national vote. I have already gone on too much, but essentially Karl Rove figured out that certain issues and targeting certain groups was much more effective than trying to rally people to vote.

What this all means is that there are always going to be a certain number of people who vote for each side and then a certain number of voters that are undecideds. It is much cheaper to focus on your base and those voting undecided than to galvanize new people to take time to vote and vote for you. Therefore the incentive is not to come up with good ideas, but to pander to the known voters. Its why the Tea Party had such a strong presence in 2010 despite being so small. They were loud and they voted.

So abstaining without consequence is a bad thing because it only reinforces the campaign strategies that are the most successful and cost effective.

If you are interested in campaign and voting politics check out these books:

Get Out The Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout. They do a great breakdown of cost/benefits of specific campaign strategies like mailers, meet and greets, TV spots, etc.

The Persuadable Voter: Wedge Issues in Presidential Campaigns. They do a good job of defining and tracking wedge issues (e.g. abortion, guns, etc.) and how modern campaigns use them to split the opponents base or unify their base. One of the key arguments is that it is often in one or both sides' best interest to not solve a wedge issue. It's fascinating in light of Obamacare and the way that has become a wedge issue.

tl;dr It is cheaper and more effective to target areas with large concentrations of voters than to try to persuade non-voters to vote in the first place. I also recommend PS 411 for any current or future Illini undergrads.

Also, http://gotv.research.yale.edu/?q=node/10

Political mobilization, but you might find something useful. It looks like most of this comes from Green and Gerber's Get Out The Vote which is a bit out of date. More recent work is being done by The Analyst Institute.

It doesn't matter, your point is mute.

The thing which these people are supposedly fighting against is undue influence of money in political campaigns. So either that money is used to persuade voters, or to turn out voters.

I would assume that no one would think it's a bad thing to do whatever possible to get voters to the polls, right? So I guess they would have a problem with money being used to persuade voters. To which one must ask: how much money does it take to change an opinion?

All you said was "it doesn't, it just gets more people to the polls". Well, fine. You're wrong (see all of the research on campaign tactics meant to persuade voters: I prefer Green and Gerber's "Get Out the Vote"), but fine. So yes, I redirected based on your response.

Why is it a bad thing to try to turn out voters? How in hell is it "undemocratic" for someone to spend money to increase political participation??