Increasing Voter Participation in Local Elections

The Arkansas Party is primarily about local elections, so we are providing election training for our membership on how to do several things to increase voter turnout.

Sometimes, elections, particularly local elections, come down to only a handful of votes. While all the moral support in the world is excellent, a political candidate cannot win an election until they get their supporters to cast a ballot.

So, how can a campaign get more supporters in their election training events to inspire more voters to turn out on Election Day?

One way is to ask, “Will you vote in the next election?“

Simply asking potential voters to predict if they will or will not vote on Election Day and having them provide a reason for their prediction can increase voter turnout. This was the conclusion of a study by social scientist Anthony Greenwald. When his team performed this experiment on potential voters on the eve of an election day, those who were asked to predict if they would vote had an actual turnout rate 25% higher than those who were not asked the question.

This technique is based on two psychological principles.

The first is the person’s compulsion to agree to the ‘socially desirable’ activity.

The second is that because the person has publicly stated that they will perform the behavior, they will be more motivated to act consistently with their commitment. (And vote.)

So, how do you put this technique to use?

During your election training event, campaign volunteers call known supporters and ask them if they will vote in the next election. Once they get a ‘yes’ answer, the volunteer should tell the supporter that they will mark the person down as a ‘yes’ and let others know.

During your election training event, having the voter make a public, voluntary declaration helps cement the voter’s commitment to show up at the polls to cast a mail-in ballot.

This tip can help motivate voters for both primaries and general elections.

This post is part of our election training series. Sign up for our newsletter to get updates.