Lorraine Bieber graduated from Camp Wellstone Cleveland in March of 2006. As an organizer for the League of Young (Pissed Off) Voters in Ohio, Lorraine works with young people who have been shut out of the political process to make politics fun, engaging, relevant, and meaningful.
Lorraine talked with Wellstone Action about the League's precinct-based voter contact program, "Rep Your Block", and how it helped her engage voters and increase turnout, and what she learned.
The League of Young Voters endorses progressive candidates that demonstrate a commitment to involving young people in the political process, and organizes on key social justice issues, such as a ballot measure to increase the minimum wage in Ohio. Lorraine built local leadership by targeting ten local areas that trended progressive and had a large concentration of young people.
The "Rep Your Block" program began by building relationships with neighbors in these young, progressive areas. "Many of our volunteers are well-known in their neighborhoods as progressive political activists," Lorraine said, "They attended community meetings, worked as poll workers, and made an effort to be general ‘good neighbors'."
Rep Your Block super volunteers accompanied the League's endorsed candidates when they went door-knocking in their neighborhoods, making a personal connection between a neighbor they already had a relationship with and the progressive candidate. And because these volunteers were working in their very local neighborhood, they were able to reach a greater number of voters - Rep Your Block volunteers delivered the message of the campaign to every door in the targeted areas, either by door-knocking or dropping off a piece of literature.
Lorraine explained the League's strategy this way - "we believe that with a compelling enough message, and peer-to-peer, neighbor-to-neighbor trust, we can engage voters in the electoral process and turn them out to vote."
And the strategy worked - based on their analysis, the League of Young Voters were able to influence voters in their targeted areas and get them to the polls by communicating with them on a neighbor-to-neighbor basis. But that wasn't the only mark of success for this program - they also thought intentionally about building a volunteer infrastructure that would develop leadership from the bottom up.
"Regarding our volunteers," Lorraine explained, "we feel the neighbor-to-neighbor approach has been a huge success. Like many organizations, we have at times experienced burnout in our volunteer base after an election or a big event. This time, our volunteers actually stepped up their commitment to our organization after the election. Not a single volunteer dropped out. They are taking a more active leadership role as we develop our field plan for the fall 2006 election. They're recruiting more neighbors to help with canvassing, they're spearheading plans for precinct-based early voting parties, election-day outdoor parties near polling locations, and more. Our volunteers report feeling more investment not only in our organization and its goals, but also more investment in their own neighborhoods."
You can learn more about Lorraine's work and the League of Young Voters at http://columbus.indyvoter.org/