Howard Bilofsky and David Mosenkis of Germantown Jewish Center have just
published an article about POWER’s s voter education drive. I still struggle
with the words of the article. When Howard explained it to me, I could get it
from the graph. Here is the article followed by my interpretation of the graph.
Effectiveness of
POWER’s Spring 2014 Voter Engagement Campaign
POWER targeted low income, infrequent voters in our Spring 2014
voter engagement campaign leading up to the May 2014 primary election. Overall, 19% of registered voters in Philadelphia
turned out to vote in that election. But
the population POWER targeted had a lower turnout rate of 10%. This rate would have been even lower were it
not for POWER’s outreach to that population.
Voters in the population that POWER volunteers touched (by talking to
them in person and on the phone or leaving a message) had a turnout rate of
25%. Voters who POWER touched and who
committed to vote had a turnout rate of 38%.
So voters POWER reached were 2.5 times as likely to vote as the overall
population, and voters who POWER garnered commitments from were nearly 4 times
as likely to vote.
Voter Turnout for Low
Income Infrequent Voters
Interpretation of the Graph
You see the dotted line down the middle. That represents the per cent of Philadelphia’s registered voters who turned out to vote in the May 2014 election, 19% (shamefully low, I think).
You see the little box on the top. That shows the rate at
which infrequent voters turned out
to vote. Only 9%. In other election cycles, 9% would be above average for
infrequent voters. POWER raised the total rate.
You see the middle box. That shows the rate at which infrequent voters who had received a
communication from POWER voted. Instead of 9%, 25%
of infrequent voters who heard from POWER voted .
The bottom box shows the rate at which those who committed
to vote in response to POWER voted. 38% of infrequent
voters who told POWER that they would vote actually went to the polls and
voted.
ASTONISHING! Now look at the numbers of infrequent voters
who have committed to vote so far in our fall campaign. In just two sessions with
11 phoners, we have gotten 140 commitments. We had 177 actual conversations, so
far. So 79% of the people we talk to commit to vote. We know from our May
experience that if they commit, they are very likely to follow through.
We still have three Sundays (12:30 to 3:00 p.m.) and one
Wednesday (Oct 22 4:00 to 6:00 p.m.) on which we can call. Jess Ballenger has
become extremely competent in training and guiding us in the process. This work
gives a sense of accomplishment and confidence that we are building a community
of education voters. Please sign up here to come try it out.
-The Rev. Carol Duncan
