HOW THE LCI GOTV EFFORT DEVELOPED AND WHAT IT ACCOMPLISHED

Starting in 2018 the LCI Issues Group began dedicating a portion of their meetings to writing letters to registered voters in key states holding important elections to "get out the vote (GOTV).” LCI ordered voter lists and scripts from Vote Forward, printed hundreds of copies of the letters supplied by Vote Forward, provided stamps and envelopes, and hosted letter writing meetings at the Brewster Ladies Library (BLL).

In early 2020 Covid-19 struck. BLL closed and in-person meetings elsewhere were out of the question due to Covid restrictions. The group improvised a new strategy to rally local volunteers to get out the vote while still complying with Covid restrictions and in the process switched from writing letters to postcards. That strategy, which has been refined over time, is described below:

• The Newsletter Team obtains GOTV postcards and addresses of registered voters from trusted sources such as Common Ground (click here to see a list of Postcard Organizations) for an upcoming election.
  Click here to see a list of Postcard Organizations
• Volunteers are recruited through the LCI Newsletter, which has approximately 1,100 subscribers living in or near the Lower Cape.
• For the most part, the postcards' messages are non-partisan – "Your Vote Is Your Voice," for example.
• The Newsletter announcement identifies locations where cards can be picked up (usually the trunk of a car in a team member's driveway), pickup date and time, and email addresses for volunteers to request that a certain number of cards be reserved for them.
• The Newsletter announcement specifies who will provide the stamps (now up to $0.48 each) – LCI, the volunteer, or a combination.
• Team members bundle postcards, instructions, addresses, (when relevant) stamps, and label the bundles with the requesters' names.
• Volunteers pick up the cards at the house of an LCI member and are responsible for writing the GOTV message and the names and addresses of recipients and mailing the stamped cards on or by a specified date.
• These efforts are financed through cash donations from postcard writers and contributions made online to LCI.
  Click here to donate.

LCI volunteers worked hard to get out the vote in the 2022 elections. In February, we wrote and mailed 2,000 postcards to women in Texas urging them to vote. For the midterms in the fall, a total of 2,000 postcards were written and sent to voters in 14 key states (Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Illinois, Ohio, Virginia, Oregon, Washington). Our message: Hi [Voter's First Name], Thank you for being a voter! When will you vote in the Tues. Nov. 8 election? Please plan ahead! - [Volunteer's First Name.] A sample postcard looks like this:

After the November election, LCI volunteers rallied to GOTV for Senator Raphael Warnock, who was forced into a runoff against Herschel Walker in Georgia, sending 1,260 postcards to Georgia voters. Warnock won!

Shortly thereafter in 2023, LCI sent 500 postcards to Virginia voters urging them to vote for Jennifer McClellan, a progressive running for a Congressional seat vacated by the death of a fellow Democrat, Donald McEachin—she won!

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