SOCIAL: Fwd: What gets out the vote

[adrian cotter]

interesting article:

>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/26/AR2008102601937.html
>
>
> "Alan Gerber, Donald Green and Christopher Larimer drew up a list of  
> more than 180,000 voters in Michigan. One group of 99,999 voters was  
> set aside as a control group -- these people just voted as they  
> usually do. The rest were divided into four groups.
>
> Members of one group got a letter each 11 days before a 2006  
> election exhorting them to vote because it was a civic duty. Members  
> of another group received a letter saying that the researchers were  
> studying their voting habits -- the mailing said, "You are being  
> studied."
>
> The third group got a letter pointing out that whether someone votes  
> is a matter of public record -- registrars maintain publicly  
> available lists of those who show up at the polls. (Whom they vote  
> for is a secret.) The letter went on to note whether people in the  
> recipient's household had voted in the 2004 presidential primary and  
> general election.
> ad_icon
>
> The fourth group got a letter showing not only whether they had  
> voted in the 2004 elections but also which of their neighbors had  
> voted. The letter said that after the coming election, the entire  
> neighborhood would receive another mailing that laid out --  
> household-by-household -- who had voted.
>
> ... The control group's turnout rate was slightly less than 30  
> percent. Among those who received the "civic pride" letter, turnout  
> was 6 percent higher than the control group's. Among those who were  
> told they were being studied, it was 12 percent higher. Among those  
> who were shown whether they had voted in the previous election, the  
> turnout was 16 percent higher.
>
> And telling people what everyone in the neighborhood had done the  
> previous Election Day -- and letting them know that they would be  
> similarly informed about the current election -- boosted turnout by  
> 27 percent."
>
>