Remote Activism: Get Involved from the Comfort of Your Home

The Digital Ground Game Newsletter

In this edition of The Digital Ground Game Newsletter, we continue exploring ways for readers to get involved in politics. This time, we'll focus on remote efforts for those less inclined to surround themselves with strangers or who just have a tight schedule and want to work on their own timeline. With rates of social anxiety rising steadily ^[1], people are seeking out new forms of political participation that don’t require knocking on a stranger’s door. Seeing this demand, organizers and activist groups have devised a number of ways a volunteer can contribute to a political campaign from the comfort of their own home. Our plan is to introduce some of the most popular methods, lay out the pros and cons that each one presents, and offer a guide for readers who want to volunteer using these tactics. Before we get started, our team at Digital Ground Game wants to repeat the reminder from our previous newsletter regarding the August 24 Supreme Court ruling on mail-in ballots ^[2]. Although the court blocked the executive order’s implementation in advance of the midterm elections ^[3], the risk of further interference is a serious enough issue that our team still recommends that those who plan to vote by mail ship their ballots two to three weeks before Election Day, where possible.

Phone Banking

Likely the most widely known practice we’ll cover is phone banking. While phone banking started in the 1960s in a format similar to call centers run out of campaign offices, its modern iteration usually consists of staff or volunteers calling voters to ensure they’re registered to vote and to supply information about candidates ^[4][5]. Strategies vary by organization, but by using digital phone lines, most phone banking operations allow volunteers to sign up and make calls from home on their PC. Generally, only moderate training is required to get started, and volunteers mostly use script-based conversational frameworks or surveys to simplify interactions.

The impact that phone banking has on elections has been somewhat controversial over the years. Although one of the earlier experiments done on the tactic by Alan Gerber and Donald Green in 2001 ^[6] found that phone banking made minimal to no difference in get-out-the-vote efforts, their findings have since been called into question a number of times. One of the more commonly cited rebuttals of their findings is that of David Nickerson’s 2006 research article, which estimated the impact at around a 3.8 percentage point increase in turnout ^[7]. Nickerson’s research also found that when the price of running a volunteer phone banking operation is taken into account, its cost-benefit is roughly on par with traditional door-knocking efforts. Despite widespread recognition of phone banking’s effectiveness, the method has encountered a growing set of challenges in recent years.  First, though not directly relevant to this article, an FCC decision in 2024 ruled that utilizing AI-generated voices in automated “robocalls” is illegal under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act ^[8]. The more impactful issue for volunteering efforts is the ever-improving nature of spam filters and caller ID on cell phones ^[9]. The exact impact these will have as the technology advances is still unclear, but the potential threat this issue poses is significant enough that organizers are already devising possible workarounds.

For those interested in volunteering in this way, there are a few simple ways to get started. If you have a specific candidate or cause in mind, visit their campaign website or your state’s party website; most have volunteer portals, often labeled things like “Get Involved” or “Volunteer” and will take your information to get you started. People who are less picky about the candidates they support can also go to the websites of federal campaign organizations like the DCCC or the DSCC, where your efforts can be allocated wherever the national party needs more labor. Once you are signed up, you will be scheduled for a brief training session; these generally last around 30 minutes over Zoom and cover the basics of operating the group’s calling software, navigating preferred conversation outlines, and logging call outcomes. Once your sign-up is complete, you should be ready to start making calls from your phone or home computer.

Text Banking

Text banking can be sort of a mixed bag in both purpose and execution ^[10]. Some groups keep strictly to automated text distribution, but a more engaging practice is having volunteers present to address responses in real time. This strategy allows for a more personal interaction and lets campaigns clarify any confusion from voters about the distributed information. On the volunteer side, text banking also offers a lower-stress experience with less of a time commitment compared to phone banking’s real-time verbal exchanges. Often, text banking is done from a messaging app on a cellphone, but this can vary depending on the platform used. It also has a broader use case than phone banking because the text format allows organizations to place links directly in front of constituents. This means the practice can be used to solicit donations and increase campaign website traffic in addition to the benefits offered by phone banking ^[11]. Text banking software websites generally cite roughly a 20% click-through rate for links included in campaign texts when recipients open them.

Similar to phone banking, the practical impact of text banking varies based on constituent demographics and project goals. While an early study of the practice in 2009 by Allison Dale and Aaron Strauss ^[12] found a shocking 3 percentage point increase in turnout from “impersonal, noticeable” text reminders, subsequent experiments have failed to replicate such an impact. One such follow-up conducted during the 2018 midterms ^[13] and touted as one of the largest-scale GOTV experiments in academic literature, found that although the impact of impersonal cold-call style text outreach was actually closer to a 0.25-point impact, this effect could be increased with more personalized or specific message content. The presence of volunteers engaging respondents in real time would likely help address this by offering a more personalized touch to the outreach. Even assuming the lowest increase found at 0.25, such an impact has the potential to be outcome determinative in some of the extremely competitive races we’ve seen recently; the low relative cost of text banking operations is almost certainly worthwhile in said races.

Sign up for text banking looks nearly identical to the process laid out for phone banking. Generally, the option will be offered through volunteer portals on either candidate or party websites. Training for text banking is very brief, covering how to operate the messaging platform your preferred group uses, and how to navigate texting scripts. Training sessions will rarely last more than 30 minutes for first-time volunteers. From there, volunteers are ready to start messaging voters.

Postcarding and Letter Writing

Likely, the most accessible of these methods is postcarding as it lacks any requirement for technological know-how. Postcarding involves volunteers receiving message templates and address lists from an organization, filling out postcards or letters, and bringing them to the organization to be shipped to voters ^[14]. Because of the one-way nature of the communication medium, postcarding as a strategy generally focuses on reminding voters of upcoming elections or highlighting the policy focus of certain candidates. Although the founding era practice had long since fallen out of fashion, it seems to have experienced a significant revival initiated by the surge of activism around the 2017 Women's March ^[15] protesting the election of Donald Trump. Starting as a modest team, the founder of one of the largest postcarding groups, Postcards To Voters, reported having more than 70,000 volunteers in March of 2020 ^[16]. Its simple, analog nature makes this tactic especially appealing to older or more health-compromised volunteers who might not otherwise be able to participate in campaign efforts.

Although the surge in volunteers is appealing to activist groups, more extensive study needs to be done before the efficacy of postcarding can really be determined. Studies have found it to improve voter turnout by anywhere from 0.4 to 2.1 percentage points, but the context of the postcards really seems to matter. Studies that returned more favorable results largely looked at postcards aimed at encouraging or reminding voters who already favored the sender’s party, and were conducted during lower-attention races like primaries or off-year elections. Research from Sister District Action Network ^[17] indicates that, when targeted and executed properly, postcarding has the potential to make a significant difference in elections.

Unlike text or phone banking, campaign and party sites generally don't offer postcarding as a volunteer option, so interested readers will need to seek out organizations specifically dedicated to the strategy. Some of the top postcarding groups to try are Postcards To Voters ^[18], Progressive Turnout Project’s Postcards to Swing States ^[19], and Vote Forward ^[20]. Unlike the previously mentioned forms of activism, these groups allow for little to no live training before volunteers can get started. Most organizations will give you everything you need: writing materials, shipping supplies, a list of addresses, and a simple outline of what to write. One last thing to watch out for when signing up is whether stamps will be provided to you or not; whether volunteers are expected to pay for postage varies between programs.

September 11 Fundraiser Stream Review

The Digital Ground Game team would like to offer a gigantic thank you to Destiny and the incredible community of viewers, donors, and participants who made the September 11 fundraising stream an unforgettable success. DGGL!!! In total, we were able to raise over $160,000 to fund our ongoing and future projects. For those who missed the stream, the full VOD will be available on Spotify, and smaller portions can be found on Destiny’s YouTube channel. An article breaking down the event in more detail will be released soon; once it’s out, you can find it here.

Closer

I’m always looking for reader feedback, so feel free to send your suggestions to sstonewrite@gmail.com. If you want more immediate, real time updates on Digital Ground Game, be sure to keep an eye on our website or join our Discord, where you can talk to our staff directly about news and upcoming projects.