Get Out the Vote and Early Voting Campaigns

Depending upon the state the voter is in early voting practices will differ or won't exist at all. When there is early voting, it will either be possible for the voter to vote by mail or to vote early but in person or both.

Political campaigns should create a robust effort to encourage their supporters to vote early where it is possible. This is very helpful to campaigns particularly when it comes to get out the vote.

Imagine that there is a campaign for mayor of a 50,000 person city. Since it is a local election, not many people will actually vote. Let's say that it's like that 10,000 voters will actually cast their ballot for mayor. If hypothetical candidate, Smith, has identified 5,200 voters who are supporting him and convinces 400 voters to vote early, the campaign only has to worry about getting 4,800 voters to the polls.

This is a significant financial and time savings. If the campaign's get out the vote plan required them to contact all known supporters twice the weekend before the election and once on Election Day itself that's a savings of 1,200 phone calls and potentially more than fifty hours of volunteer time depending upon how fast the campaign's average volunteer makes phone calls. If the campaign was relying on paid phone callers to supplement the amount of volunteer's the campaign had available, there is also a substantial cost savings to the campaign to get their supporters voting early.

Besides leveraging the campaign's time and money during the get out the vote phase of a campaign, encouraging supporters and likely supporters to vote early will also allow people who might not otherwise vote to do so. In campaign speak, early voting campaigns will increase voter turnout.

Going back to the fictitious campaign for mayor, Smith's numbers look great going in to Election Day. His campaign has identified 52% of likely voters as supporters and has done a great job getting his supporters to vote early. His opponent, Jane Doe, however, has also used early voting to her advantage focusing on voters who are likely to support her but might not actually go to the polls. She has targeted very old supporters and young working families that are strapped for time. Doe has gotten 300 voters to vote by mail who wouldn't be willing or able to stand in on Election Day to vote. In this scenario, she wins but either or both ways of using early voting are effective.

Either using early voting to reduce the demands on the campaign during get out the vote or using it as another tool in addition to get out the vote to increase turnout are effective ways of using early voting in conjunction with GOTV programs.

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