Perennially purple Maricopa County represents 60% of Arizona’s electorate. For over a decade, Maricopa County, Arizona, has been the largest-gaining county in the nation, adding 56,831 residents in 2022. Swing Blue estimates that at the time of the last Presidential election, there were over 500,000 unregistered adult U.S. citizens living in Maricopa County.
For our voter registration trips, we use a combination of census data and voter registration files to identify hotspot precincts. Two-thirds of Maricopa County’s unregistered adults live in precincts that went for Biden in 2020. For door-to-door canvassing, we obtain lists of unregistered people and check them against other databases, including the registered voter file. We use this information to cut turfs (walk lists) that identify unregistered and under registered addresses.
On March 24, 2024, Swing Blue Alliance partnered with the Maricopa County Dems (in Arizona) to test door-to-door canvassing targeting the unregistered address households. While we registered just one new voter of 53 doors knocked, our local hosts indicated that identifying 10 voters who needed to update their registration was “pure gold.” Residents of other homes were not able to register because they were not U.S. citizens, had religious objections to voting, or were residents of group homes. Future tests will include under-registered households, containing one or more potential voters identified from consumer data lists.
Two stories from Phoenix, March 23-24
On Saturday we worked from 10 to 6 at the Maricopa County Democratic Committee tent at the Rainbow Festival. It was a sunny day with temperatures in the low eighties. On Sunday, we did a voter registration canvass in a Democratic-leaning precinct in LD-27, a flippable state legislative district. The weather was cold and cloudy, with intermittent rain.
Story One: At the Rainbow Festival, about 75% of passersby I spoke to who were not registered to vote at their current address did not want to take advantage of this registration opportunity. In some ways this was understandable. LGBTQ couples were at the festival to revel in a safe place. They just weren’t in the mood, and even if they were, their friends were not willing to let them take the time to register. It was frustrating to be in an environment where so many people could have used our service and declined. I finally trailed after one woman whose partner refused to register to vote to find out why. I said, “I’m not going to pressure her, I just wanted to know why.” The woman replied, “She saw some terrible things while she was in the military and now she wants nothing to do with the government.”
Indeed, that was a common refrain. Last fall, while canvassing in Virginia, I encountered voter apathy: “My vote won’t matter; politicians are all the same.” By contrast, some Arizonans I spoke with hold a deeply nihilistic view of government. It’s not just dysfunctional—it’s evil, in their eyes. For these folks, fascism is already here.
Story Two: During the pilot voter registration canvass on March 24th, I met a man in his seventies who lived alone. When I told him that no one in the house was registered to vote, he looked a bit flustered, and then said, “I’m not eligible to vote because I was arrested for marijuana possession back in 1974.” It turned out that this felony conviction happened in New Jersey. Some time in the early ’80s he moved to Arizona, registered to vote, served jury duty and purchased handguns that he used for target practice. It wasn’t until the Brady Bill passed in 1993 that his felony conviction caught up with him. He said, “I was in a gun store purchasing a gun. The woman behind the cash register told me she couldn’t sell it to me. She wasn’t supposed to say why, but she whispered, ‘New Jersey 1974.’ That was all I needed to know.”
I asked the man if he had ever tried to get his voting rights restored. He said that he had tried once, a long time ago. He learned that it would cost $5,000 in legal fees. We discussed the fact that recreational marijuana use is now legal in both Arizona and New Jersey and that I could find him a pro bono attorney to take his case. He said, “Look, I’m 74 years old. I have emphysema. My kids are doing okay. I’ve made my peace with this. I’ve learned that life is like a leaf floating on a river. Sometimes the sun is shining and everything is fine, other times you hit a whirlpool and get dragged around.”
I wrote my number on a piece of paper and gave it to him. “Let me know if you ever change your mind,” I said.
Stories from Rita Ranch, Tucson, March 26
After we completed the pilot test, we went to Tucson, AZ, where we collected signatures for the Arizona Abortion Access Ballot Initiative. I had an exceptionally high contact rate on a day with temperate weather. Initial sun gave way to increasing cloud cover and minor showers. At more than half of the 82 doors I knocked, I was able to speak to someone. These conversations yielded 6 refused, 7 moved, and 32 abortion-access survey responses. Of these, 13 signed the petition, 13 did not, and 6 had already signed.
Story One: A heavyset young man with a flashy red sports car in the driveway. He told me right off the bat that “You and I aren’t going to agree on a lot of things.” He said that he believed that life begins at conception. But that didn’t stop us from having a conversation, and over the course of the next five minutes, we started to enjoy talking to each other as we got into a discussion about the moral ins and outs of abortion access. At one point, he proposed that we both avoid talking about the extreme ends of the spectrum, so I didn’t ask him to defend proscribing IVF treatment and he didn’t make me defend casual abortion as birth control. We agreed on the fundamental principle of freedom, but he believed in freedom for the unborn. This man felt energized by the conversation because he felt heard and he felt respected. When I reached out to shake his hand at the end, he clasped my hand with both his hands and said with an emotion that must have surprised him and certainly surprised me: “Thank you so much for what you are doing.”
Story Two: They’re a married couple in their seventies. The woman who answered the door wanted to sign the abortion access petition. Her husband called out from inside the house, “What are you signing? Don’t sign anything without me knowing about it.” He came to the door and gave me a baleful look. I handed him the abortion access flyer, being careful to turn it to the side that explained the bill. Instead of reading it, he flipped to the other side to see who it was from. LD-17 Democrats…. He said, “I don’t think this is a good idea.” The wife said, “I’m signing it.” I handed her the clipboard and the pen. The husband opened his mouth to say something, thought the better of it, and just stood by watching his wife sign it, looking disgruntled. After she finished signing, I thanked her and walked away—no way I was going to ask him to sign!