We all listen to our friends, but word of mouth can matter more in communities that have historically not trusted the establishment. “The way Black people have gotten information about politics or social issues — those are churches, sororities and fraternities, neighborhood block clubs,” said Adrianne Shropshire, the executive director of BlackPAC, which seeks to facilitate Black activism. “These social structures are longstanding.”
Many relational organizing tools are apps that allow campaign activists to find and reach key contacts in their address books. Mr. Reynolds points out that 97 percent of voters are non-activists. They won’t download an app. But they’ll text three friends — and those unexpected nudges will carry more weight. Ordinary voters are also more likely to have friends who need a reminder. to vote.
Vote tripling away from polling places works throughout the campaign. When a volunteer reaches a supporter — by canvassing, text or phone — she asks him to promise to nudge three friends to vote. The campaign writes down the friends’ first names: Rachel, Ross and Chandler. On Election Day, the campaign texts the supporter and says: “Hey, remember to nudge Rachel, Ross and Chandler to vote.”
Many campaigns and state Democratic parties, in addition to liberal get-out-the-vote groups like MoveOn, use this kind of vote tripling, It can work with early voting and with vote-by-mail. Mr. Stanley recently spent several hours calling people who had requested absentee ballots to thank them — and to ask them to reach out to three friends to get them to request ballots. “I think there’s opportunity to vote triple at every step in the absentee ballot process,” he said.
Vote tripling is a substitute for what campaigns usually ask supporters: Please pledge to vote, and tell us your plan for voting. A lot of people find this condescending. “Effectively, you’re saying, I don’t trust you to vote,” Mr. Stanley said. But asking them to recruit friends says that you do trust them, and that they’re important.
Vote tripling is most effective at the polling place, when people feel moved by the good feeling of voting. But polling place vote tripling may not be widely used this year.
Why? Not because of Covid — talking to people outside is not that dangerous if everyone is masked and at a good distance. It’s because campaigns are slow to adopt new ideas. “There’s so little time, and it’s so scary to experiment that most people don’t,” Ms. Gallagher said. “So we do things the way they’re always done.”
