Who are the voters on my list?
PARTISAN LEAN. As with all FLIP NC voter outreach, we are targeting left-leaning voters – both registered Democrats and Unaffiliated voters – with a partisan score of at least 70, which means if they vote, they have a 70% chance of voting for Democrats. Most voters on our list have a higher score, but these lists include everyone 70 and above.
So why don’t we target voters with, say, a 60% chance of voting for Democrats?
Our analysis back in 2018 found that, while we had a significant effect on turnout among those with a score of 70 or above, we really had no effect on turnout among those in the 50 to 70 range. And when these voters do turn out, they’re less likely to vote for Democrats, so we focus our efforts on those with a score of 70 and above.
LIKELIHOOD OF VOTING. For this campaign, we’re targeting everyone from those very unlikely to vote to very likely to vote.
For sporadic voters, we know that this specific style of lit is effective at increasing turnout, and sporadic voters are much less likely to answer their doors when we canvass, so this is a great way to reach them. And sporadic voters are much more likely to drop off as they move down the ballot. If we can get them to vote down to our critical state court races, they’ll vote up the ballot for our many important Council of State (such as Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, etc.) races.
For reliable voters, even most very engaged voters don’t know about the far-right takeover of our state courts last year. Providing the information to engaged folks who talk about politics with their people will spread the word!
CONTROL GROUP. The last thing to keep in mind is that we run analysis on all of our voter outreach, and for this campaign we’ve held back a 5% random sample, so if you’re lit dropping in your neighborhood and you’re thinking that’s weird – this person I know is very left-leaning and they’re not on my list, there’s a good chance that they’re in our control group.
How effective is lit drop?
The short answer is that we know from analysis of past FLIP NC voter outreach that flyers using this design (the red side) left at voters’ doors were effective at increasing turnout among left-leaning voters, especially middle- and low-propensity voters.
On a per-contact basis, of course the most effective thing you can do is always going to be to have a real, person-to-person conversation. And the most effective conversations we can have are with the people we know, so, first and foremost, we all need to be talking with our people. But we simply can’t reach everyone we need to through our personal networks – or through canvassing.
Other important considerations are scale and reach. Of course, leaving a flyer is not going to have the same effect on a per-contact basis as a conversation, but we can reach a lot more doors per hour, and low-propensity voters are MUCH less likely to answer their doors, so most of the time when we’re canvassing, those voters are just getting a flyer anyway. It’s great when we have an opportunity to talk with them – those are the people we can have the greatest impact with when we do have a conversation – but they’re much harder to reach in person.
Why don’t we use door hangers?
Based on our analysis of past voter outreach, we found that this particular style of flyer was more effective than traditional door hangers and mailers and more effective than flyers that focus on positive candidate information (which is why we ask volunteers to leave the red side out).
Intuitively, it makes sense that people might pay more attention to a flyer personally left at their door than they would to one of many perhaps nicer looking campaign materials.
This is not to say candidates should follow this model! Certainly, a campaign would want to use more professional-looking, higher-quality materials, but as a grassroots group, this style works very well for our purposes.
How can I make my lit dropping as effective as possible?
Here are three things you can do:
First, make sure the red side of the flyer is facing out. This is the side that we know helps increase turnout. Positive candidate information just doesn’t have the same effect, but we’ve included it on the back to help inform voters and increase name recognition for our fantastic Democratic candidates. Note: We’ve updated the candidate side to reduce the amount of text and included this message: “Please spread the word to vote the full ballot!” But we will finish using what we have on hand first.
The second thing you can do is to add a personal note either directly on the flyer or on a sticky note – just something that draws more attention and adds personal touch – like this was delivered by a person who cares. You can add a thank you and sign your first name for a more personal touch!
Third, if you feel comfortable engaging in conversations, you can choose to go on a weekday evening or on the weekend when you’re more likely to encounter voters along the way. That certainly doesn’t mean it’s not worth going out other times – whenever you have the time and energy, go, go, go; every door helps! But if you’re thinking should I go this afternoon versus this evening, that’s one factor to consider.
When is the best time to drop lit?
The earlier the better! We found that we had the greatest effect on turnout among lower-propensity voters earlier, well before the traditional GOTV period when voters are getting so many messages about candidates/voting and when there is so much focus on the presidential race. The earlier we can get out there and the more doors we can hit now, the better!
But we can still have an effect right up until the election, so we’ll be lit dropping until election day!
If you have any other questions about our lit drop program, shoot us an email!
Thank you for dropping lit!