gotv 101

ok, gather round. after just a week in the trenches, i think i’m getting a sense of the makeup and intent of this dense constellation of organizations that are working to get out the vote (gotv).

there’s a monstrous national coalition known as america votes – this org is serving as a coordination hub for the various progressive campaigning groups so that everyone’s resources and efforts are maximized. here’s a list of the groups. these are groups like the one i'm with - national/regional level issue or constituency orgs that have been campaigning on the ground towards this election. many have large level operations that include multi-levels of personnel and voter identification strategies.

one such group that has emerged as a critical factor during these elections is america coming together (act: "building victory one voter at a time"). one of the america votes partners, act has built one of the biggest field operations going (maybe even in history, some say) – they’re running full-on campaigns in at least 17 states, thanks to a budget of over 100 million usd.

think about it. 100 million fucking dollars. the un development programme needs 100 million dollars to remove 40 wrecks in northern gulf waters. the gdp of the marshall islands is around 100 million bucks. in 2002-03, cida spent just over 100 million on “countries in transition”.

people around here are zooming around the whole gotv plan. as of this week, adam participates in a morning check-in call with reps from the networked groups to coordinate gotv plans and activities.

november 2nd is expected to be an incredibly intense and exciting day (duh). here’s how gotv will shake down: a highly coordinated volunteer dispatch strategy will be operated inside of ‘staging sites’ in key locations around the country (like madison); when an e-day volunteer arrives, s/he is given an info pak and one whopping minute of training, then sent off to gotv.

here, they get out the vote. back home, we pull it. either way, we’re all still driven by the same damn thing – ensuring progressives actually cast their ballots. and holy fuck, that takes work.