Political campaigns have a variety of techniques available for trying to reach and persuade potential voters; these methods include rallies, canvassing, and mail campaigns. This article details the variety of mail campaigns available, what they are, what type of voter each targets, and their intended effects. We discuss 5 types of mailing campaigns: voter registration, voter registration chaser, get out the vote, vote by mail, and persuasion.
In all these types of campaigns, we need to consider how many net Democratic votes we can get. To calculate the impact of a campaign, take the number of Democratic votes gained and subtract the number of Republican votes that gained at the same time. Even when we do our best at selecting the voters who receive our mailings, and when the effort is worthwhile because they convince enough people to vote, some of those people vote the way we wish, but others do not. So if a campaign generates eight out of ten new Democratic voters, and two new Republican voters, you’ve earned six net Democratic votes. The two new Republican voters counteract two of the eight new Democratic voters. The science and art of selecting where to send the cards, which is called targeting, is quite challenging.
Voter Registration campaigns encourage an unregistered potential voter to register, either by mailing hard-copy voter registration forms or on-line. This can be challenging due to the difficulty in constructing reliable mailing lists of unregistered potential voters. However, as a unique example, the democracy-supporting technology infrastructure group Civitech has creatively subtracted the names of registered voters within a state from the same state’s lists of licensed professionals in various fields, yielding a list of professionals in each field who are not yet registered. Mail can then be sent to the remaining list for professions that might be expected to support Democrats, such as health care workers or educators. Civitech has reported an average 4% lift in net Democratic votes two to three years after their voter registration mailings, with higher gains among young people. To increase the net Democratic votes, registration drives often target locations that are known as left-leaning.
Voter Registration Chasers encourage an unregistered potential voter to take action on a voter registration application that was previously mailed to them. For instance, Sister District Action Network sent handwritten postcards in 2018 reminding people to send in voter registration materials that they had received about one week earlier. Tracking afterwards, 435 people who received cards returned their registration materials, versus 361 who did not receive cards. However, it appears from the research report that there were almost 20,000 people in each group, so the overall response was low. The study authors also wisely cautioned: “This experiment tested the use of postcards to boost voter registration. The study does not tell us about the utility of postcards to boost voter turnout. It would be an apples-to-oranges comparison to try to extrapolate any effect of postcards on voter behavior from an experiment about voter registration.”
Get Out the Vote campaigns encourage episodic voters to to turn out, increasing the total votes cast, but not necessarily garnering votes for a specific candidate or ballot initiative. Research has demonstrated that these messages should include specific information about how and where to vote. A successful outcome was illustrated with Swing Blue Alliance’s handwritten postcards to low propensity Democratic-leaning voters who did not have phone numbers and would have been difficult to canvass door-to-door, encouraging them to vote in the August, 2023 Ohio referendum that was a prelude to the fall referendum on abortion rights. Card recipients were 1.2% more likely to vote than a control group who did not receive these cards.
Vote by Mail campaigns encourage voters who are already registered to sign up to receive a mail ballot. Although this may not necessarily increase overall turnout, it can help when coordinated with other campaign strategies. For example, once a voter has submitted a mail ballot, volunteer labor can be saved by removing that name from phone or canvass lists during the urgent last period before election day. Successful outcomes can also include voter address updates and signing up to receive ballots by mail on an ongoing basis. A Swing Blue 2022 handwritten postcard campaign boosted vote by mail in two Pennsylvania counties by up to 2.6%, even though overall turnout by voters who received those cards did not increase.
Persuasion is one of our most desirable campaigns, and among the most difficult to achieve. A successful persuasion campaign convinces likely voters to either change who they vote for or shift from undecided to voting Democratic. When it works, a campaign can net 2 Democratic votes for each switched vote, if the Democratic candidate gains a vote at the same time that the opponent loses a vote. For instance, in 2023, Swing Blue Alliance sent to some precincts in each district partially handwritten postcards with the photos of 3 rural Virginia state legislative candidates and their main positions. Impact was measured by comparing their vote share across precincts that were more or less saturated with cards. This kind of message has the most effect if the mailings come within a few days before people cast their votes. During the 2024 Presidential campaign, Swing Blue Alliance is collaborating with Working America to send letters to Working America members, many of whom have said in prior contacts that healthcare is a highly important issue for them. The letters include personal stories about healthcare, to activate members’ thinking. Working America will then contact those same members by phone or text closer to election day, to connect good healthcare policies with particular candidates.
(Doyle, J., Merson, M., Newby, R. , & Sheriff, C., 2024)