GOTV

With close election results in 2020, we targeted Democratic voters who showed their absentee ballot vote was in danger of not being counted due to their signature not being accepted for the 2020 General Election. They were asked if they knew about the issue and if they were planning on fixing it by the deadline. We had hundreds of people respond that they did not know about the issue until our call and they set up a time to make sure their absentee ballot would be counted to help win Democratic races up and down the ballot.

In October 2020, Stones’ Phones and a group consisting of the Washington Conservation Voters, Fuse Washington, and Our Votes Count created a vote-by-mail chase program in 7 legislative districts where progressive incumbents were in danger, or where there was a possibility of flipping the district red to blue. While Washington state is an entirely vote-by-mail state, delays in postal service deliveries made the urgency of returning ballots quickly all the more important.

The program included three rounds: the first just after ballots dropped, the second just nine days later, and the final two days before Election Day. All three rounds of calling urged voters to return their ballots ASAP, but with special emphasis on returning ballot in person at drop box locations. Rather than simply tell voters to return their ballots, we asked them to make a pledge to return their ballot in person or by mail before specific deadlines. In the end, more voters than ever cast a ballot in Washington, helping to ensure Democrats continued to control the state house and senate.

Knowing that voter turnout was likely to be high in Washington in 2020, we created an Adopt-A-Voter program targeting landlines and cell phones, realizing that we needed to push every voter to the polls. Calling into seven legislative districts, the results were astounding. Nearly 94% of landline targets pledged to get all of the members of their household to vote, and over 84% of cell phone users.

In the end, more voters than ever cast a ballot in Washington - more than 700,000 more than in 2016 - helping to ensure Democrats retained control of the state house and senate.

In an effort to turn out as many voters as possible in Georgia, ensure a run-off for Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff and boost Joe Biden’s odds of winning the state, we implemented a Convince Yourself to Vote program specifically aimed at low propensity voters.

Aiming to only call cells who might be missed by traditional volunteer dialer calls, we spoke to over 150,000 voters. While we knew these voters typically didn’t get to the polls on Election Day, we wanted to plant the idea in their mind. When we asked how likely they were to vote this year on a scale of 1 to 10, an astounding 73% told us they were a 10. Even better, almost 82% told us they were a 7 or higher.

The results speak for themselves. Georgia’s Democratic turnout was historic, sending Jon Ossoff to a January run-off and winning the state for Joe Biden - the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state in nearly 30 years.

Following the summer 2020 protests against police brutality, civil rights activists in Georgia and South Carolina knew a change in leadership was needed to stop police overreach at the local level. Working with the ACLU, Stones’ Phones called Black and Latinx households in Cobb County, Gwinnett County, and Charleston to inform voters about where each sheriff candidate stood on ending collaboration with ICE and no-knock warrants, establishing an independent community advisory board, and training police officers in de-escalation to prevent excessive use of force. The incumbent sheriffs were hardliners who would not commit to making any changes; while the challengers did call for change. We simply asked each voter if they pledged to make an informed decision when voting for their sheriff. After the initial round of IDs, we called back all of the voters who said yes to remind them about each candidate’s stance in the upcoming sheriff’s race and asked them what their plan was to vote. Each incumbent lost their re-election bid for sheriff allowing for more community oversight of local police.