OUR OREGON: ADOPT-A-VOTER
How to win new voters and influence people

The Challenge
The call came in late in the election cycle. In a short span of time, in an election year where dozens of groups were trying to attract voters to their cause, our client came to us with a challenge. They needed to turn out the vote of traditionally non-active voters – and do it quickly. Sure, there were the usual possibilities of TV commercials and direct mail campaigns, or other conventional outreach avenues. But this was no time for cookie-cutter solutions, which would surely have gotten lost in the cacophony of nonprofits and other groups targeting the same hard-to-mobilize voters.

Add to the mix the unique election picture in Oregon: if you plan to vote in this state, you’re going to do it by mail because that’s the only option. We knew we’d have to think bigger and come up with a creative solution that used existing tools we have in our toolbox, but in a different way. We already knew the universe of potential voters was small enough to quickly reach the saturation point with the onslaught of competing GOTV efforts. We knew these unmotivated voters were hard to reach even in the best of circumstances.

What out-of-the-box campaign could we develop to reach these potential voters – and effectively change their often entrenched, non-voting behavior? Fueling the fire, our window of time was running out. 
 

The Solution
Fire drills are nothing new for us – they energize and motivate us to think differently. We sidestepped traditional messengers to create a bold program that would gain attention and effect change in voter behavior. We called it Adopt-A-Voter. The core idea was to appeal directly to faithful voters who lived in the same household and ask them to take responsibility for making sure the rest of the household voted. In the short time we had for planning, we used a combination of existing research, implemented some new research and dug into our tool box to use tools we had at our disposal – but in a new  way.

We appealed to the better voters sense of civic duty, by thanking them for voting, and then posing the all-important question: Can I count on you to help make sure the OTHER people in your household vote and turn their ballots in this year? How do you get your message out in about 10 seconds or less? By using a carefully researched and conceived script with clear and concise language and the right intonation, we appealed to the best voters in the household to take responsibility for the less motivated voters. 
 

The Results
What we found at the other end of the phone lines were passionate people who were happy to jump onboard and be part of our action plan. In fact, 56% of the people we talked to eagerly agreed to take responsibility for getting the other ballots in. They embraced their civic duty to vote and wanted to do their part to help persuade others. The better voters, who weren’t the direct target of any election communications, appreciated the chance to be enlisted in the community effort. The potential pool of new voters was wide – and included spouses, significant others, parents and students. We were energized by the results and the client was thrilled by the resounding success.

In the future, we have some excellent add-on ideas to continue the conversation with the better household voters and continue to engage the households—plans we will implement in our next GOTV campaign. Stones’ Phones continues to fine-tune the best ways to communicate with the better voter to influence the others in the household as we add new technologies and ideas to build on an extremely successful and effective model. 

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