Ride Board: Cal Bears Beat Bush Round III - Archived Entry

I spent all day Saturday in Reno, Nevada with Driving Votes and America Coming Together helping to Get Out The Vote (GOTV) for John Kerry and the Democrats. This was my first time ever involved in a political campaign, and from my experience yesterday I know that it will not be my last. It was very powerful--both in the empowering sense that it gave me to be able to help out, and in the sense of accomplishment that you get from spending six hours talking to "regular people."

I had to overcome my usual shyness to do this, and I have to admit I grew quite nervous as the day neared. But as you can see above and below, I am glad I did it. I realized that even if you consider yourself to be shy, helping out in this stage of the game is easier than you might think.

I encourage everyone who lives in or near a swing state to get over any apprehension you might have, or excuses about lack of time, and help to Get Out The Vote. I read many posts from people on Daily Kos to "GOTV PEOPLE!", but if you are like me, there is a hump of nervousness and "fear of the unknown" that you have to get over first. I'm hoping that this diary (if anyone actually reads it) will provide the low-level details that I was hungry for, and in doing so help those people get over this hump and actually go and help out!

I've written a lot of information below, but for those who are not that interested in knowing all of the details, but still need some convincing on how easy/important it is to get out the vote, here is some basic info:
• In Nevada (and I'm guessing other states), people can vote early at an early voting polling station.
• The biggest goal right now is to get people to vote early to (a) "bank" the vote and (b) to use the resources of the GOTV effort on an ever dwindling population of voters. (Once a person votes, there is no reason to spend GOTV effort on them.)
• GOTV canvassing is easy even if you are shy. You are mostly visiting people who have already been found to be Kerry supporters, so there isn't much in the way of confrontation.
• Volunteer even if you can't convince any friends to join you. This was the situation I was in, and I was worried that I would just stand around not knowing anyone. But the volunteers are all excited about the cause, and are quite friendly to each other.

All in all, I probably spoke to about thirty or so people. That may seem like a small number, but remember, these are people that ACT has identified as leaning Kerry but not necessarily gung-ho voters. If every volunteer that was there on Saturday met with that many people, there were literally thousands of leaning voters contacted, people who may not have voted otherwise.

I was worried that voters would be offended by people from out-of-state telling them how to vote. The issue simply did not come up--no one asked where I was from. I volunteered I was from the Bay Area to a few people who were obviously supporters, and they were actually quite happy I was in Reno helping out.
--
Joey Rozier

Read Joey's entire blog at: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/10/17/134253/79