Enfranchise Yourself!

Be a part of the most important demographic – The Voting Electorate

An open letter to the disenfranchised youth of America.

A few months ago while working on an ad campaign for a city council seat I realized one of the reasons why a large segment of our population is disenfranchised from the political spectrum.

It was a community of 55,000 voting age citizens and about 37,000, or nearly two-thirds were registered. During the 1996 & 2000 presidential elections about 20,000 voted. More than half of the registered voters showed up at the poles for the presidential elections. During the 1994 and1998 biennial federal elections only one-fourth, about 10,000, of those registered voters showed up at the polls. For the annual school district, city /county fall elections an average between 4,000 and 5,000 voters (about 14% of the registered voters) would vote and for special elections usually held in the spring about 2500 or 7% of the registered voters cared enough to vote.

Part of our ad campaign was to send out post cards with a picture of our candidate and some blurb about his concerns for the community and a reference to his website for more information about the candidate, his positions, affiliations, issues, and experience.

We only had a small budget of $1,500 to work with. With this money we had several objectives. We wanted attractive color flyers to pass out at the town meetings and other speaking events arranged by our candidate. We wanted a website we could refer voters to that would more fully explain the positions and issues important to our candidate and also a place to present his family, background, business interests, community involvement, affiliations, sponsors and ideas related to his candidacy. We had to decide how many post cards we could afford to mail and to whom they would be sent. Postcards including printing, postage and labeling cost about 35¢ each to send. This was an off year, spring, municipal, special election, and the kind of election that prompts the lowest voter turnout.

A.  To send to all eligible voters, 55,000 would cost $19,250. This was quite a hefty sum for a small suburban town city council seat. Many of these potential voters were not even registered so many of these addresses were a total waste.

B.  To send to all registered voters, 37,000 would cost $12,950. This was still too much money. Besides, nearly half of this group never even bothered to vote in the presidential election. There was only a remote chance they might vote in the smaller (less significant) city council election. Again many of these addresses were a total waste.

C.  To send to all those who voted in the presidential election 20,000 would cost $7,000. Again less than 15% of these voters would cast a ballot in this municipal election. So many of these addresses would be a waste.

D.  To send to all those who voted in the biennial federal election, 10,000 would cost $3,500. This group of voters who vote consistently every two years in these major federal legislative and senatorial elections is best group to concentrate your advertising and mailing programs to. Getting these voters who are already fairly committed to participate a little more by joining in these off year municipal elections is not such a stretch. Since many of these small town elections are won or lost by less than 50 votes it seems reasonable to spend a little money on this group of voters who have already shown a fair degree of commitment to the electoral process.

E.  To send to voters who voted in annual fall elections, including the city, county and school board elections, 4,500 would cost $1,575. Now we are getting down to the seriously involved electorate. Since this was an off year special election and the expected voter turnout was only about 2500 and our candidate was challenging a three term established incumbent I felt we needed at least to advertise to this group of voters who had already shown their interest and concern for local elections. I felt we only needed to pull a few extra voters from this assemblage to capture the election.

F.  And finally to send exclusively to that hard core group of voters who vote consistently in all the federal, state, municipal, county, school board, bond and special elections 2,500 would cost only $875.  In the end because of our budget limitations this is the group we chose for the mailings. The most hardcore consistent participants in the voting process were the ones to receive our endorsement. These are the ones we spoke to because these are the ones who show up when it counts, at the ballot box.

City council positions in these small Texas communities pay no money. There are rarely any salaries, wages or any type of remuneration associated with serving the community. City council meeting are usually held only once or twice a month in the evenings after 6:00 PM. Sometimes other special meetings are held in the evenings since most council persons have normal jobs or businesses to run. Many council members are retired members of the business community or are retired citizens that have been actively involved in local politics and other community programs for several years. A few volunteers mostly close family and friends do some canvassing, put out some signs in the neighborhoods and make a few calls. To even have a budget for more than a few signs in these elections is unusual. Therefore, without large organizations and fundraisers sustaining these candidacies there is not a lot of money being thrown into these campaigns. Nonetheless it is a great proving ground for the basics of campaigning and the effective result oriented use of time and money.

 Who are the hardcore voting electorate?

With a limited budget and only 12 or 18 working hours each day you simply cannot afford to talk to everybody. If you could personally spend 10 or 15 minutes with every eligible voter, present them with a flyer to remind them about your candidacy and what it could mean for them and their community, contact them again with a reminder about early voting and a phone call follow-up before election day it would be hard to loose an election. Unfortunately the constraints of time and money disallow such a utopian, gargantuan, undertaking. It all boils down to, “How do you get the most bang for your buck?”

Although, some strategists talk about registering new voters and bringing new people into the electorate, and thus to change the face of politics by overwhelming the stagnant delirium and opposition to reform in our two major political parties, this is an unlikely scenario to win an election.

The most successful strategies involve those that address the individuals most likely to vote. Who are the most likely voters? Those with a track record for voting, the ones who never miss an election, those who vote early when possible are most likely to deliver for your candidate. What are the demographics of this group, the hardcore electorate? To truly enfranchise yourself you must become a part of this hardcore electorate. Age, economics, race, religion and other interest groups are only partially deciding factors. They are not intractable and we can determine and shape those demographics merely by showing up for each election and casting a ballot.

In preparing for this campaign we examined the voting statistics for over 100 Texas communities. We created spreadsheets and database analytics to see what parallels could be drawn for the voting habits of the populace in general. We discovered a remarkable similarity in voting demographics across the state from suburban metropolitan communities to the midsize towns of rural West Texas.

Age – The number one determinant.  Of the 2500 hardcore voters in this community there were 3 voters over 90 years old, 37 over 80 and only one under 21, only 6 under 25. Less than 6% of the voters were under 35. Eighty percent of the voters were between 45 and 75. Even though this suburban community had a large youth population, nearly 30% of the population was between 18 and 35, they were the least likely group to be members of the voting electorate. To the campaign organizers this simply means don’t even bother wasting your time, your precious budget, advertising dollars, or town meetings, addressing this demographic. They simply don’t show up.

What is amazing is that this demographic, 18-35, is the most important, the dominant group in the economic spectrum and the weakest, least influential group in the political spectrum. They vote with their dollars to determine the music, fashion, movies, cars, TV shows, magazines, books, the media culture which influences businesses with a worldwide impact. Just reflect how the rap and hip-hop culture has penetrated markets throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.

It makes about as much sense advertising new political candidates and promoting electoral change to an age group of 18-35 as it does to advertise a new hip-hop music group or concert to a demographic of over 65’ers. Sure there are senior citizens that like new and innovative music and there are youngsters that are active followers of the political process. But, they are the exceptions and in the real world where time and budgets impose their own limitations, where are you going to invest your advertising dollars? Where are you going to focus your attention? Naturally it is going to be on those most likely to buy tickets for your event or show up at the ballot box for your candidate.

It is not, “Show me the money.”  It is, Show me the votes!

Just imagine, if when going through the voter registration lists and picking out that dedicated group that show up for every election, the 2500 voters in our small suburban town of 55,000 eligible voters, I noticed that one thousand of these voters were less than 25 years old. Don’t you think that would change our message? Would that not change our whole campaign strategy? That doesn’t mean necessarily that we would abandon cost of living increases for social security, reduce Medicaid/Medicare benefits or raise the retirement age and increase taxes on retirement income. But we would have to address issues that directly affect voters under 25. Perhaps minimum wage, job training, college tuition subsidies, child care and pre-school / after-school programs, drug rehabilitation and decriminalization of recreational drugs would take on more importance.

In the role of a campaign strategist, as much as I might love today’s younger generation, and as much as I am concerned about the inequities and unnecessary stumbling blocks that inhibit their ability to reach their potential, without their vote I can make no case in my election plan to seriously include issues of concern to them in our program. Sure we’ll throw in some altruistic banter, political platitudes, a sprinkling of bodacious blurb, and sound bites of saccharine frosting for a cardboard cake that has no nutritional value. All this is done for appearance’s sake. But without concrete votes at the ballot box there can be no concrete programs, legislation or directives to truly implement these ideas.

The real power brokers in this country are those in these graphs who belong to the orange and turquoise bars. Are you a part of the hardcore electorate?

Enfranchise Yourself - Show me the votes!

This is my little get out the vote speech. Although I have been telling it to everyone for the last year-and-a-half I have gotten little reaction. I think it might be easier to get an atheist to attend a Pentecostal revival meeting than to get a young adult to the ballot box. I don't know that our population realizes that several thousand poor and struggling voters have more political clout than several dozen wealthy lobbyists. The biggest and most important special interest group is the hardcore voting electorate, the ones who can be counted on to show up for every election.

August 24, 2004

Glen Rogers

Webfax Communications

Guerrilla Marketing in the Digital Age

www.webfaxcom.com