Voter Service committee members from Seminole and Orange Leagues met to plan a get-out-the-vote campaign to encourage and reinforce civic participation among the new voters in the 2006 and 2008 elections.
The meeting, held in mid-February, explored avenues of cooperation during the upcoming elections, including training and technical assistance in utilizing publicly available databases to identify specific subgroups. Pat Southward represented Seminole, and Charley Williams and Adrianne KatzKatz represented Orange.
League members would contact new voters in target groups to provide voter service information, such as help in finding precinct locations, vote-by-mail information and where to find candidate and issue information. Since Florida law requires people to “vote where they live” on election day, Charley Williams suggested that many voters might be effectively disenfranchised at the last minute because of metro Orlando’s many home foreclosures. Another common problem is that new residents from other states are often unfamiliar with the closed primary system here.
New tools can cross-reference databases to produce targets who are not only new voters but also potential League members. Examples might be single mothers, recent retirees new to Central Florida or Hispanic women.
“League’s calls would be to provide useful information – in contrast to campaign or fund-raising calls,” said Pat Southward, “and that’s a huge advantage. You’d be calling to help them, not bother them.
“People know that the League is strictly non-partisan in all its voter services activities. Voter education and information is our primary concern.”
Many calls and contacts can be expected to end with directions to the VoteAnywhere website, which was piloted by the Orange League in 2008 and will be rolled out statewide by LWVF during the 2010 election cycle.
“This will be a good project for new League members,” said Pat Southward. “It won’t be an on-going obligation – it will be a specific project, a chance to meet other Leaguers and do important civic work. We’ll make a party of it.”
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