Here at Daisychain, we think and read a lot about how to boost voter turnout.
As we write these words, there’s less than two weeks until election-day. And many states have already started early voting — which means GOTV season has begun.
Here’s how Daisychain can help make your GOTV Campaigns a success:
- Use Daisychain’s native integration with the iwillvote.com API. Just supply your supporters’ addresses, and our integration can pull in the nearest polling location, early vote center, or ballot drop off box. This makes it easy to send out accurate and updated information to voters – including early vote info, ballot drop details, and their election-day polling place.
- Let our team manage your entire GOTV texting outreach from top-to-bottom. We'll handle loading your data, writing scripts, and sending your messages — and your team can focus on everything else.
- Use Daisychain “Charms” to send out eye-catching, personalized GIFs that break through the noise. These GIFs can include the voter’s name, personalized vote history, polling place address and hours, and even a map.
If you have any questions about using Daisychain for your GOTV campaign, just drop us a line: hello@daisychain.app
And in the spirit of the season, we put together a list with a few more general best practices if you’re hoping to use texting campaigns to help boost voter turnout:
1) Don’t Wait Until the Last Minute
Timing is everything, and you want to make sure to reach out to voters when they still have time to make a plan – not when they are scrambling at the end of the day. And remind voters to take advantage of early voting and vote by mail options if available, so they can avoid the last-minute rush.
2) Use “Social Pressure” to Boost Turnout
“Social Pressure” reminds voters that voting is a social norm, and makes voters feel accountable to that norm by signaling monitoring. Dozens of rigorous experiments confirm that using social pressure reliably increases turnout. Here’s some classic social pressure techniques:
- Mention that their friends, neighbors, or community are voting – or that “voter turnout will be high.”
- Let voters know that you might follow-up with them after the election to make sure they didn’t have any issues voting.
- If you have access to the voter file, you can remind them of their own voting history from past elections.
- Remind voters that: “Who you vote for is a secret, but whether or not you vote is a matter of public record.”
3) Send Two Rounds – but probably not more than two
One message might get ignored, and more than two messages can be seen as nagging with significantly diminishing returns. For election-day turnout, we recommend sending two GOTV messages: one just before election day to give voters a bit of time to make a plan, and another the morning of election-day as a final nudge.
4) Include Basic Voting Info
Keep it simple: where to go, when to go, and how to get more info if they need it.
5) Personalize Your Messages
So long as you have a reliable data source, we recommend using the voters name and including their polling location. This makes the message feel personal — voters are more likely to engage when it doesn't feel like a generic reminder.
6) Don’t Overwhelm Voters
Voter fatigue is real. Stick to the essentials and respect their time, or your message might end up in the trash with all the other noise.
7) Be Ready to Answer Questions
Your voters might need a quick clarification and a small percentage might reply with questions about the voting process. The quicker they get answers, the quicker they can head to the polls.
8) Know that different voters vote different ways
In 2024, there are now 3 widespread ways to vote:
- Early in person
- Absentee/by mail
- On Election Day
Give your voters the tools they need to create the voting plan which works best for them, and encourage them to vote as early as possible.
9) Add Caveats and a Link
Just in case your data is incorrect or outdated, we suggest using language that contains caveats about the polling place information – and including a link where voters can get more info. Here’s an example message:
Hi {FirstName}, this is {Texter Name} with {Organization Name}, reaching out to make sure you have what you need to vote.
According to our records, your address is {Voter Address}. If that’s right, it looks like your voting location should be {polling place address}.
You can double check at https://iwillvote.com
Let me know if you have any questions about voting, and you can reply STOP to unsubscribe.
