Vote Tripling: Using Hustle for Relational Organizing

Your Supporters have friends. Will you turn them out to vote?

Looking for a fun new way to engage supporters? As we inch closer to the election, your supporters may be all too familiar with traditional asks to volunteer, attend events, or donate to the campaign. This year, over a dozen campaigns are using Hustle to implement a new relational organizing tactic called Vote Tripling, which is simply nudging your supporters to turnout three friends to vote.

With voter turnout below 50 percent in non-presidential elections, every one of your supporters knows someone at-risk of not voting in 2018. And as a supporter, there’s nothing simpler than being asked to encourage the politically-likeminded people you talk to everyday to vote.

Through Hustle, campaigns ask supporters to pledge to encourage three friends to vote, and send reminders to these supporters when it’s time to head to the polls! We call those supporters Vote Triplers. Of the campaigns using Hustle for Vote Tripling, we’ve seen 5–10% of supporters pledge to turn out three friends to the polls. For a campaign with a list of 10,000 supporters, that means over 500 Vote Triplers mobilizing up to an additional 1,500 likely Dems. In tight races, the boost this tactic provides could be enough to tip the election.

So how does it work?

There are two steps to Vote Tripling:

1. Pledge: Ask supporters to pledge to turn out three friends to vote

2. Remind: Remind Vote Triplers during early vote and GOTV to mobilize their three friends

Hustle Tips for Vote Tripling

1. Notes: Save the names of their three friends in the Notes section of the supporter’s profile in the app
2. Save List of Vote Triplers: Create a “Vote_Tripler” tag under settings. Apply this tag to each supporter who provides their friends names
3. Upload List into Group/Save Names as Custom Fields: Export your contacts data (see group settings); Filter down your list of contacts by the “Vote_Tripler” tag; Upload this list of Vote Triplers into your existing group of supporters. Your CSV will have a “notes” column - treat this column as a custom field when you upload this list into your group. This will allow you to include the name of their three friends in your reminder text.
4. Create Reminder Goal: Create a goal during early voting and GOTV to remind Vote Triplers to turn out their friends. Create a new goal within your existing group of supporters; Under targeting select the “Vote_Triplers” tag. In your initial message, include the custom field which contains the names of their three friends

Extra Tips:

You’ll have your occasional conversation where a supporter will pledge to turnout three friends, but won’t respond to your follow up-question. Since they opted in to receiving a reminder from the campaign, it’s important to message them as well. Their reminder, however, can be a generic, “get three friends to vote” message without including their friends’ names.

To figure out which voters should receive this message, download the list of everyone marked as “RSVP Yes” or “Interested” and subtract from this list the supporters with the “Vote_Tripling” Tag.

More Info

This tactic was designed by VoteTripling.org, a non-profit that designs and implements free relational voter turnout programs for progressive campaigns. For more information, visit votetripling.org or email Robert at robert@votetripling.org.

Happy Hustling!