Precinct walking, polling, or canvassing door to door
This is the basic foundation for grassroots organizing by the political foot soldier. You talk to all of your Friends And Neighbors, find out where they stand, and on that basis recruit them to help, mobilize their support in Get Out The Vote (GOTV) efforts, work to inform and influence them if they are undecided, and hopefull neutralize their efforts if they are liberals. There is no more effective way to influence elections.
The simplest and cheapest form (and least effective) of working your precinct is to get a map of the precinct from your Board of Elections so that you know where the boundaries are, and start walking and talking. We prefer that you do it in a much more organized manner as described in the pages below.
This page provides a tutorial for organizers on how to organize and coordinate a team of door to door cavassers. Note that it also describes how a database programmer can build a perfect walking list for you, if you do not have an existing source from a political party or consultant.
This is a set of experience proven "Best Practices" that all Door to Door canvassers should know. Follow these and you will be doing professional level work on your first precinct. Organizers should make sure that all
canvassers know this.
Nearly every time a door to door canvas is done, some of the details about how it is to be done change (e.g., who to call if there is a problem, where to return complete lists of new "Recruits" or "Volunteers" who asked to become actively involved when you talked to them, etc.). Instructions provide details.
The sample script provides the words the canvassers can say to avoid being "tongue tied" until they get into the groove. In addition it includes a set of questions that will draw out of the residents their political attitudes & beliefs. The questions are frequently revised to be 1) current, 2) high public priority, 3) something that distinguishes liberals from conservatives by a wide
marging (e.g., 67%). Note that Friends And Neighbors as the name of an
organization conducting the canvassing is non-partisan, not apparently
biased, as American as apple pie and a very accurate description o what
you're doing; talking to your Friends And Neighbors about issues of concern.
This is a sample page of a Walking List that an Ohio Friends And Neighbors volunteer produced for a precinct. Note that it is not uncommon for households to include members of both political parties. It is also not uncommon for a former "R" to have voted as a "D" in the March 2008 primary as instructed by Rush Limbaugh in Operation Chaos. We find that there are
conservatives among the "R's", "D's" and Independents, and that is why we
record them as Liberal, Undecided, Conservative and Recruits or Volunteers.
IF YOU NEED A WALKING LIST FOR YOUR AREA, EMAIL US YOUR ZIP CODE, STREET ADDRESS AND EMAIL ADDRESS AND WE'LL PROVIDE A WALKING LIST.
If every precinct in America is worked by a conservative beginning with the precinct canvas by November of 2010, the White House will no longer have a filibuster proof Senate and will probably lose his majority in the House of Representatives.