2021 AZ Canvass + Organizer Model
Case Study: Our Voice, Our Vote Canvass and Organizer Campaign Model
In spring of 2021 we partnered with the Voting Rights Lab and Our Voice, Our Vote Arizona to run a combined voter contact canvass and organizing program over the course of 12 weeks to oppose proposed laws under debate in the state legislature aimed at curbing the wildly popular vote-by-mail process utilized by an overwhelming majority of Arizona voters. More than four in five Arizonans are on the "Permanent Early Voter List" (PEVL), and we organized constituents across 6 target state legislative districts to pressure their representatives to oppose a proposed purge and restructuring of PEVL.
Pictured: Organizers & Canvass Staff at the OVOV Cookout in Phoenix
We built out a canvass operation northwest of Phoenix in the Glendale and Peoria areas, with a goal of knocking on 30,000 doors and identifying 2,100 petition signers and supporters of the campaign's goals. An embedded organizer was then tasked with following up and generating additional engagement and action-taking by identified supporters. A subsidiary goal of the canvass was to identify "conflicted" voters - those who either wouldn't take action, but did present as soft supporters through survey questions, and those who took action and signed our petition, but through the subsequent survey showed vulnerability to opposition messaging. In addition to the canvass-embedded organizer, we placed two additional organizers in target areas to build out a ground-up relational organizing program to generate visibility and identify additional action-takers in those districts.
Pictured: Speakers at the Press Conference/Petition Drop Event
We wound up blowing our campaign goals out of the water. PEVL is widely popular in Arizona, and we were able to convert an extremely high rate - a staggering 57-percent - of contacted voters into action-takers, resulting in nearly 3,300 total petition signers from the canvass effort alone. Additionally, our three affiliated organizers generated nearly 5,000 petition signatures, ultimately orchestrating a petition drop press event on the steps of the state capitol building on the morning before the legislature took to the floor to vote. All told our organizing operation was able to convert nearly 300 identified supporters into active volunteers and generate 8,500 supporter email addresses and nearly 4,000 phone numbers, including roughly 1,500 verified cell phone numbers. In addition to the press conference we were able to generate significant online traffic and attention to the vote, including retweets by high-profile accounts like LeBron James and other celebrities, and multiple op-eds in local papers. While we were not able to stop the passage of SB1485, we were able to force a quicker vote and raise the visibility and salience of the issue with voters while building out a substantial infrastructure of activated voters and supporters in target districts to roll into this year’s election season.