Precinct Chair Training, Part 1

Building and Training Your Precinct Team

Prepared by the Precinct Chair Recruitment Committee of the Bexar County Democratic Party

Introduction	Building your precinct team	Training your precinct team
How big is a precinct?	What's to know about my precinct?	When do I start the training?
What is the 50-state strategy?	What size team do I need?	How do I train the team for canvassing?
Why do we use targeting?	Where can I find team members?	What information will we collect?
What is the Voter ID Matrix?	What organizations can help me?	What do I need to do, and when?
What's the overall goal?	What duties do I assign to my team?	What about campaign signs?
What's the precinct chair's role?	How do I keep track of my team?	How and when will we get out the vote?

Fast forward to Part 2: Using the Voter Activation Network (VAN)
Fast forward to Part 3: Precinct Convention Training

Bexar County precinct statistics

622 total precincts (this includes 60 precincts with fewer than 100 voters, and 20 precincts with no voters)
898,663 registered voters (an average of 1445 per precinct)
Back in January, only 32.3% of the precincts have a Democratic precinct chair
As of July, 45.5% of the precincts have a Democratic precinct chair. This means that for every three precinct chairs that we had, we have added a fourth one.
But we still have a lot of work to do in recruiting more precinct chairs..

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) Strategy

In all 50 states:

Identify and motivate Democratic voters

Identify independent voters who could support Democratic ideals
Identify Republicans
Target persuadable and GOTV (get-out-the-vote) voters

Why do we use targeting?

In a perfect world of unlimited resources and unlimited time, we could contact every voter and hope to get their vote.
In the real world, we have to use targeting.

The Voter Identification Matrix

Don't target for persuation or GOTV:

A. People who will never vote
B. People who always vote Republican
C. People who always vote, and always vote Democratic

Do target:

D. Swing voters who always vote (for persuasion)
E. Democrats who only vote sometimes (for GOTV)
F. Swing voters who only vote sometimes (second persuasion)

Every voter can be placed on this tic-tac-toe grid.
The rows on the left, "always/sometimes/never vote" can be provided by the party database, the Voter Activation Network (VAN).
As you canvass your precinct, always ask voters whether they intend to vote. Record that information.
The columns at the top can be provided by VAN in some cases.
As you canvass your precinct, always ask voters whether they vote Democratic, or Republican, or for the candidate regardless of the party. Record that information.

Why we know this will work

The states shown in yellow were "battleground" states in the 2004 presidential election.

With 10 more Democratic votes in every precinct

With ten more votes per precinct, John Kerry would have won New Mexico, Iowa, and Ohio.
Ohio alone would have been enough to win the Presidency.
Imagine how much different the country would have been with Kerry the past 4 years instead of Bush!

With 50 more Democratic votes per precinct

With 50 more Democratic votes per precinct

With fifty more votes per precinct, Kerry also would have won in Nevada,
Colorado, Missouri, Arkansas, West Virginia and Florida.

With 100 more votes per precinct

With a hundred more Democratic votes per precinct, he would have won in Arizona,
Kansas, South Dakota, Louisiana, Indiana, Kentucky, and South Carolina.

This year, as unpopular as the Republicans have been, we think even Texas can become a Democratic state once again.

The Precinct Chair: a challenging role

Represent the precinct as voting member of the County Executive Committee (CEC)*
Serve the Democratic Party
Provide voters with candidate and party information
Canvass the precinct**
Register new voters
Initiate the precinct convention
Get Out the Vote (GOTV)

*Precinct coordinators do all of the above but cannot vote on the CEC until they complete a Precinct Chair application and are approved by a majority quorum at the monthly CEC meeting.
**VAN accounts are not available for Precinct Coordinators. However, the party office can assist by providing blockwalking lists.

Building Your Precinct Team

First, get to know your precinct

Know your precinct map: http://www.bexar.org/elections/maps/Precinct/pct1001.pdf (Put your own precinct number in place of "1001")
Know the number of registered voters (from the Bexar County Democratic Party website)
Know the number of Democratic Voters (from the BCDP website)
Know the number of Republican Voters (from the BCDP website)
Estimate the number of unregistered voters
Survey your precinct's most important issues

Set a goal for the size of your precinct team

Determine the number of voters per team member
Determine the number of geographical partitions for your precinct
The more team members you have, the less workload that will be on each team member

Determine the number of voters per team member

The greater the number of precinct team members, the fewer voters each team member will manage.

Determine the number of geographical partitions for your precinct

With four team members splitting up the area of responsibility, the precinct becomes much more manageable.

Find your precint team

Start at home: recruit your family members.
Include friends, neighbors, members of your church.
Find recruits at your precinct convention.
Include community leaders who live in your precinct.
Find members of local Democratic organizations who live in your precinct (http://www.bexardemocrats.org/Clubs.html).
Find people through the Voter Activation Network (VAN)
Include union members.
Find out what contacts the Bexar County Democratic Party (BCDP) office has who live in your precinct.

Precinct team building contact methods

Phone
E-mail
Mail
Blockwalking
Party or social event invitation

Some local Democratic organizations (For updates, visit http://www.bexardemocrats.org/Clubs.html)

Bexar County Tejano Democrats (Charlie Urbina-Jones, chair)
Bexar County Texas Democratic Women (Ruth Stewart, president)
College Democrats of UTSA (James Gill, president)
Democratic Leadership Council (Connie DeLuna, chair)
New Era Democrats (Ann FitzGibbons and Robert Wurzbach, co-chairs)
Northeast Bexar County Democrats (John Courage, chair)
Northwest Democrats (Joyce Dorrycott, chair)
Bexar County Young Democrats (Jessica Ramos, president)
Southside Democrats (Gina Castañeda, chair)
Stonewall Democrats of San Antonio (Roberto Flores and Lynne Armstrong, co-chairs)
Trinity University College Democrats (Maxwell Fisher, president)
Eastside Democrats NEW!

Precinct organization

Assign geographic areas of the precinct to your team members

Assign various tasks to your team members

Keep track of who is on your team

Make a spreadsheet or chart, including:

First and last name
Spouse's name
Address, city, zip
Home and mobile phone numbers
E-mail address
Church and club affiliations
Voting history
Favorite issues

Training Your Precinct Team

Schedule a team training session soon as soon as you can (after the March primary)

Explain the Voter Identification Matrix (see above)

Your team will help you find where each voter fits on the matrix.

Precinct canvassing

"Canvassing" means identifying voters.
Use your walk list to record or correct information.
Drive or walk your precinct and look for candidate signs, bumper stickers, etc., that identify a party affiliation.
Blockwalk or call to ask the voters in your precinct directly

Record the canvassing information

Voter matrix information

Always votes Democratic? Always votes Republican?
Swing voter?
Intends to vote?

New and special needs voters

New to the neighborhood? (If they are Democrats, hand them a voter registration card. If they are Republicans... thank them and say Good-bye!)
Do they need a ride to the polls?
Do they need an application to vote by mail? (disability, or over age 65)

Make corrections to information on your walk list
We have a canvassing script that you can use for blockwalking or phone calls

Timeline of precinct chair duties

CEC Meeting (Every month!)
Canvassing (Now through August)
Campaign signs (August)
Persuasion (September and October)
VICTORY (November)
Finally, not until March 2010.... the Precinct Convention

Candidate signs (starting in August)

While canvassing, ask voters if you can put campaign signs in their yard.
Get signs from the candidates' campaign office.
Post the sign that same day.
Set the sign up perpendicular to the street.
Target key locations.

Busy streets
Entrance to the neighborhood

Give priority to candidates for President, Senate, House, State legislature, and key statewide races: these are the signs that will paint the neighborhood blue!
Observe sign laws and restrictions.

Campaign sign laws

By state law:

Signs can be posted on private property up to 90 days before the election, and 10 days after.
Homeowners associations can NOT prohibit campaign signs.
No signs on trees, telephone poles, traffic signs, fire hydrants, or public right-of-way.

San Antonio ordinances:

Campaign signs limited to 90 consecutive days
Must be at least two feet within the property line
On corner lots, observe the "triangle law"

No signs within a triangle whose two sides include the first 25 feet of curb from the corner

In suburban cities, check at the city hall for information on local ordinances.

How to get campaign signs

At the time that this training module was prepared, most campaigns had not yet decided on how they will distribute campaign signs. We will attempt to keep the latest information posted on the Precinct Chair Information page of the BCDP website.

Get Out the Vote effort (September and October)

•Get voters to vote early. This allows campaigns to use their resources more effectively.
Election Day is October 20 (through October 31, then November 4).
Some GOTV ideas:

Register Democratic voters at least 30 days before election day. (You needn't become a deputy voter registrar. It's easier just to give them a card that they can mail in.)
Send postcards with election dates, early voting schedule, polling locations.
Blockwalk with handouts of this information.
Identify elderly and disabled voters, and provide them with applications to vote by mail.
Find ride services to get voters to the polls.

The Precinct Convention (March 2010)

The Precinct Chair receives the convention packet from the election judge, and begins the Precinct Convention at 7:15 p.m. on the primary election day after everyone is finished voting.
After everyone has signed in, the next agenda item is to elect the Convention Chair, who may or may not be the Precinct Chair.
Specifics of the Precinct Convention are included in Precinct Chair Training, Part 3.

Thank you for working for democracy!