Get Out the Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout

Front Cover
Brookings Institution Press, Sep 1, 2008 - Political Science - 225 pages

The first edition of Get Out the Vote! broke ground by introducing a new scientific approach to the challenge of voter mobilization and profoundly influenced how campaigns operate. In this expanded and updated edition, the authors incorporate data from more than one hundred new studies, which shed new light on the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of various campaign tactics, including door-to-door canvassing, e-mail, direct mail, and telephone calls. Two new chapters focus on the effectiveness of mass media campaigns and events such as candidate forums and Election Day festivals. Available in time for the core of the 2008 presidential campaign, this practical guide on voter mobilization is sure to be an important resource for consultants, candidates, and grassroots organizations. Praise for the first edition: "Donald P. Green and Alan S. Gerber have studied turnout for years. Their findings, based on dozens of controlled experiments done as part of actual campaigns, are summarized in a slim and readable new book called Get Out the Vote!, which is bound to become a bible for politicians and activists of all stripes." —Alan B. Kreuger, in the New York Times "Get Out the Vote! shatters conventional wisdom about GOTV." —Hal Malchow in Campaigns & Elections "Green and Gerber's recent book represents important innovations in the study of turnout."—Political Science Review "Green and Gerber have provided a valuable resource for grassroots campaigns across the spectrum."—National Journal

 

Contents

Why Voter Mobilization Matters
1
Evidence versus Received Wisdom
12
Shoe Leather Politics
26
Walk Dont Talk
46
Postal Service as Campaign Staff
55
Politics Meets Telemarketing
74
Fast Cheaper but Does it Work?
97
Using Events to Draw Voters to the Polls
108
What Works What Doesnt and Whats Next
135
Technical Results of DoortoDoor Canvassing Experiments
165
Technical Results of Direct Mail Experiments
175
Technical Results of PhoneCalling Experiments
188
Notes
201
Index
219
Back Cover
226
Copyright

Using Mass Media to Mobilize Voters
120

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About the author (2008)

Donald P. Green is a professor of political science at Yale University, where he has taught for more than a decade. An expert on elections and campaign finance, he has written widely on public opinion and political behavior and is coauthor of Partisan Hearts and Minds: Political Parties and the Social Identities of Voters (Yale, 2000). Alan S. Gerber is a professor of political science and director of the Center for the Study of American Politics at Yale University. He has published extensively on campaigns and elections and is coeditor (with Eric Patashnik) of Promoting the General Welfare: New Perspectives on Government Performance (Brookings, 2006).

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