Home-based Activism

Phone banks

Changing the Conversation

Changing the Conversation Together (CTC) is an organization of concerned citizens building a national corps of deep canvassers who bridge political divides and help electDemocrats to take us forward.

CTC is running phone banks to swing districts in Pennsylvania.  The emphasis is on a quality, lengthy call, discussing values and personal stories to change people’s minds.  Find out more here about how to get training in this technique or to Sign Up for a call shift.

RSVP for April 29th Virtual Storytelling Workshop
RSVP for April 30th Virtual Storytelling Workshop

Part II of the storytelling workshop is combined with a virtual canvassing action: 
RSVP for May 3rd Virtual Training and Canvass in Bucks

Turnout 2020

Turnout 2020 is a running more typical Get Out the Vote calls to Wisconsin for special election on May 12 as well as other campaigns.  Sign up to become a new caller. Then register for a new volunteer workshop and training. The training will walk you through the signup and the dialer script. The training workshops are required in order to start calling. Available dates are:

Tuesday April 28 at 12 pm ET

Wednesday April 29 at 4 pm ET

Thursday April 30 at 7 pm ET

Back to Blue PA

This phone bank is targeting young voters in Pennsylvania to alert them to the primary coming up on June 2 and to urge them to vote by mail. Experience suggests that the contact rate on this and other phone banks is quite high (perhaps 6-8 contacts per half hour of calling) because people are home and open to answering the phone. Vote By Mail is crucial this year since many people may not feel safe enough to vote in person. In PA, VBM is brand new this year, so exercising it during the primary is a big step to making voters comfortable to use it in November. Sign up for training or a call shift.

 

 

Text Banks

National Nurses United

National Nurses United is the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in the US. They are running text banks in support of Medicare For All. To participate, Join the Movement. In a day or two you will receive an invitation to join this text bank and further instructions. You can also volunteer to text nurses to offer them updates from the union on COVID-19 by calling 240-235-2000 to sign up.

These texting programs require you to sign up for a Slack account and for your browser to be Google Chrome.

Indivisible

Indivisible has a number of campaigns to choose from. These will rotate in your browser window or you can click the white arrows on either side of the page. The Payback Project is designed to Hold Senate Republicans Accountable for their bad votes. Enter your email and zip code, and click Count Me In. In a day or two you will receive an invitation and instructions on how to enlist the help of local voters represented by the 11 targeted Republicans.

These texting programs require you to sign up for a Slack account and for your browser to be Google Chrome.

Letter Writing

Letter writing is very easy to do at home and there are several ways to get involved with this.

GOTV Letters for November

The key to winning elections is voter turnout and hand-written personal letters are a very effective way to motivate low-propensity voters to vote. The challenge is that in a Presidential Election, we need to reach a lot of voters (at least 2 million) to make a difference. Writing that many letters takes time, so, working with Swing Left and Vote Forward, we started in January. We are stockpiling all of our letters until a week before the election.

The letters we write are form letters downloaded from the internet, which we then print and personalize and hand address. To get letters, register for an account at Vote Forward. IF YOU DON’T HAVE A PRINTER, we may be able to get letters to you in a “contactless” way so that everyone remains safe. To receive “contactless” letters, contact Stephen Real via email at stephen.real@icloud.com.

Virtual Letter Writing Parties are being held on Sundays from 1pm to 3pm. To join a party, register for the Zoom Call.

Purged Voter Postcards

As you know, many states have undertaken ruthless purges of their registered voter rolls. These purges have been most common in the South and most impact voters of color. Under a program called Reclaim our Vote sponsored by the NAACP you can write postcards to notify the probable victims of these purges how they can restore their voting registrations. For instructions and postcards to work on, contact Kathryn Solomon at ksolomon7604@gmail.com.