The Absentee Voter Plan is virtually a separate "plan within a plan" to reach a group of people who vote days, sometimes weeks, before Election Day. Depending on the district, they can represent a large block of voters, have a fairly consistent demographic (seniors) and are identified by the clerk who provides the voter lists. Absent voters (AV's) need to be contacted and AV ballots need to be monitored as carefully as possible.
1. Obtain the list of AV voters from previous elections from the clerk.
2. Send out a First Class or "address correction requested" (introductory) campaign piece.
3. Update your AV list based upon returns, and take the returned envelopes back to the clerk for them to remove deceased or moved voters from their list.
4. Find out when AV applications for this election will be mailed.
5. Determine deadline for applications to be returned and when this list will be available.
6. Update your list using list of returned applications.
7. Find out when AV ballots will be mailed.
8. Time your final mailing piece to arrive the same day or the day before their ballots arrive.
9. Find out procedures for AV ballot counting and signature verification and plan accordingly.
10. Familiarize yourself with the laws governing AV ballots in your district.
11. Flag AV voters in your master voter data base so that they do not get non-targeted mailings from your campaign.
There are two very important things to remember about absentee voters:
They are mostly senior citizens who are highly likely to vote. Target your outreach pieces accordingly!
This is an area where voter fraud is most likely to occur. Large percentages die between elections, but somehow manage to vote anyway. The laws about counting AV ballots vary from state to state, but if verification of signatures and ballots is the responsibility of an appointed or an elected city or county clerk, the possibility of tampering remains a concern. |