Neighborhood Canvass

The GCA process builds networks of supporters by growing engagement and the membership of democratic committees. The goal is for volunteers to regularly reach out to their neighbors so that when election time comes, it will be an old habit and they will have no trouble reaching out to people with whom they have already built relationships. The supporter base created by the GCA process becomes the Democratic Party field team in every community across the country. This organically created field team will serve as a communication channel for Democratic committees to inform voters about our candidates and issues leading up to the election. The network provides a counter-narrative to the Republicans' echo chamber in the community. During the GOTV window of the election, it will ensure that the Democratic base votes. During the primary and general elections of the 2022 election cycle, I did a walkthrough of the GOTV process in my own neighborhood.

Outreach Process

My neighborhood consists of 700 households, with 400 Democrats and 300 Republicans. Republicans consistently win in my neighborhood because Democrats forget to vote and have bad voting records. My goal was to increase Democratic turnout over 2020 and 2018. The process consisted of an informational drop the week before early voting started, followed by a doorknocker drop the weekend before the election, and finishing with an automated message sent the day before and on election day.

On the weekend, before early voting, I knocked on the doors of all Democratic households in the neighborhood—around 400 doors. I left a bifold literature packet that informed my neighbors of the details of the upcoming election and included candidate profiles. Once early voting was complete, I got an updated voting list from the town clerk and purged anyone who had already voted, creating a consolidated list of voters. The weekend before the election, I did a ‘Vote Tuesday’ doorknocker drop to anyone on the consolidated list. On Monday, an automated phone call went to the same list, finishing with a text message at 2 PM on election day. This process was carried out for both the primary and general elections with great success.

Outreach content

The cover page of the bifold literature piece included information on all of the different ways to vote. Inside the literature piece was a "Make a Plan" check list on one side and a list of all the Democratic candidates on the other. On the back cover during the primary was a list of local Democratic organizations, and on the back cover during the general was a list of ballot questions. My voter outreach also included regularly posting memes on social media with the same content as the bifold. The door knocker was a yellow piece of paper that said "Vote Tuesday," with polling times, an address, and a link to the town clerk's website. (Appendix H)The last night of early voting, I deployed "Vote Tuesday" lawn signs. The lawn signs were put at every major intersection and at the homes of key Democrats in the neighborhood. The automated messages that were used during the final days of the election were straightforward and simple: polls open at 8 am, vote for all the Democrats, and here's a link to the clerk's website.

Click here to go to the membership section to download examples of the content that was used during the neighborhood canvass.

Outreach results

During my canvassing, I had multiple accidental interactions with voters in my neighborhood that led to good conversations about the voting process, Democratic candidates, and ballot issues. For the primary election, the Democratic turnout increased by 10% over the last election and by 20% over the midterms four years ago. For the general election, all but 65 voters cast their ballots either by mail or in person during early voting. The day of the election, I was at the Marshfield polling location and can account for at least thirty of my neighbors voting in person on the day of the election. The purpose of the GCA process is to build in every community a network of volunteers that work with Democratic committees at the town, ward, county, and city levels and can work in a similar way to the GOTV process I did in my neighborhood for getting our base out to vote.

• If you want to learn more about implementing the GCA process in your Democratic Committee, please click here.