What I Did For The YES on Prop 8 Campaign

What I did for the Yes on Prop 8 campaign.

A couple of you have asked what I did for the Yes on Prop 8 campaign, so this is an effort to record it on my blog and to let you know how I participated.

There were several steps in the process.
Lists of registered voters for the 956__ zip code were printed out. These list included name, address, phone number, age and voter registration numbers.
These lists were distributed to grassroots volunteers who then went door to door knocking, to talk to people and ask how they were planning to vote on Prop 8. Yes voters were noted and asked if they would like a lawn sign. No voters were marked and no further action was taken, Undecided voters were marked and further information was taken or left with them at the time of first contact. Those who were not contacted in person were called to get the same information.
Lists were turned into a recorder (That was me). I entered each person’s unique voter registration number into the computer which would bring up their name in our compilation data bank. Numbers represented their answer on how they would vote.
1. Yes
2. Probably yes
3. Undecided
4. Not home
5. Probably No
6. No
Additional numbers indicated further action to be taken, like sending more information or delivering a lawn sign once they came in. The lawn signs were ordered from China!

This door to door or phone calling was the biggest time consumer. Next, we delivered lawn signs and D_______ volunteered to help with that, although everyone seemed to be helping.

The next step was printing out the likely Yes voters and precincts that were expected to vote Yes. These people were called again to remind them to vote and to tell them how important their Yes vote was on Nov 4th. We also gave them the address of their polling place where they were to go to cast their vote.

The Saturday before Election day, in the pouring rain, 60 people delivered 5,000 door hangers to voters who were expected to vote YES, with the Yes on Prop 8 logo and the polling place and address. D______ was part of this group. Meanwhile, LOTS of us were making more phone calls to remind people to vote.

On Election Day, Nov 8th, I went to the Call Center at M________’s home. People had been there since 9 am calling to verify that people HAD voted. We also had team of two people at each of the 16 polling places in our zip code as “Poll Watchers” Every hour, the poll supervisor posts a list of voters who have voted at their polling place. We copied this info onto a master list which. This information was replayed to the Call Center and each voter was crossed out once they had cast their ballot. After everyone had been called, we used this list to CALL AGAIN to remind the people who had not been crossed out how important their vote was to our Yes on 8 campaign. Call Center callers offered to pick them up and DRIVE them to their polling place, if they needed a ride. Others were standing by to do this, if needed.

Meanwhile, I had asked the ladies to sign up to bring food to the Call Center on a staggered basis to provide food for those working at the Call Center and going in and out to the Polling places. I had no idea how many people would show up to help, but it was like Loaves and Fishes story in the Bible. The food just kept coming. We fed 120 volunteers and still had food left over!

6pm was the last time the voters list was updated, then we still called and called until 8 pm when the polls closed.

Meanwhile, there were people putting up lawn signs all over town in all the road easements that would allow it. Others stood on street corners with YES ON PROP 8 signs. See this video of you’d like an idea of how many people did that!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tutiJHTqNRE

And there were actually more people as the time went by, joined of course by some No on 8 people as well.

Then we cleaned up, and went home to wait and see how it turned out.