As MoveOn.org and other groups begin reassessing future plans, topping the “to do” list should be the launching of a massive partisan voter registration drive. While the Republican Party spends millions registering only Republicans, groups aligned with Democrats rely on foundation funding and must register voters in a strictly non-partisan manner. The difference in these approaches may have swung the Florida Senate race, if not the Presidency, to the Republicans.
Following the 2000 election, the national Republican Party invested millions registering the evangelical and rural voters whose appearance on November 2 swung the election.
The Republicans were not engaged in a good government exercise of broadening the franchise—they were openly building their base of voters loyal to the Party.
In contrast, foundations funded community-based nonprofits in Florida to register voters on a non-partisan basis. This resulted in at least one major Miami-based group registering a large number of Latinos, nearly half of whom registered and voted Republican.
In a few cases-such as the registering of African-Americans-nonpartisan voter reg drives are certain to overwhelmingly enroll Democrats. But while there are pockets of other constituencies that are substantially likely to register Democratic, in most cases nonpartisan registration drives are likely to register a good minority of Republicans.
So we have one Party only registering those who will vote for its candidates, and the other Party relying on a hit or miss approach that can build voter turnout for its political opponents. We learned on November 2 which approach is more effective.
The Republican voter registration strategy is expensive, as people were paid as much as $5.00 for every new Republican registrant. The national Democratic Party in 2001-2003 may not have had the resources to match this effort, but with all the money raised by MoveOn, ACT and other 527’s this fall, the funds necessary for a drive to register new Democrats could be obtained.
Kerry supporters were encouraged when the New York Times and other media reported that over one million new voters had been registered in 2004, and that most were in Democratic areas. But one article I do not recall reading is the number of new registrants in 2001-03, the period when Republicans focused on registering their base.
The point is that Democrats cannot wait until 2006 or 2008 to begin registering new voters. The drive should begin in January 2005 and maintain its intensity through the October registration deadline for the 2006 elections.
In the 1980’s the San Francisco Democratic Party paid people $1.00 for every new Democratic registrant. But as the Party’s money dried up, registration in San Francisco became subject to the whim of individual candidates willing to kick in funds for registering likely supporters.
The value of new voter registration in the city was also diminished by an excessive focus on registering voters in public locations—the St. Anthony’s food line was a favorite-in which the vast majority of those registered could not be targeted for get out the vote efforts on election day. The effective Republican reg drive in Florida was door-to-door, and that must be the model for the new Democratic effort.
Think for a moment about the difference in registering people at their home as opposed to a public location. In the former, new registrants are automatically organized by precinct and have already undergone the persuasion that Democratic-allied groups did not engage in until one or two months before the election.
ACORN (the Associated Community Organizations for Reform Now) sent crews out to contact new registrants and ask them to sign a form stating that they could be “counted on” to vote. Multiple visits were often required to reach the new voter, and in some cases the voter was never home.
If ACORN had been funded to go door to door to secure new Democratic registrants, the group would have secured thousands of “Count on Me” signatures several months before the November electon. This would have dramatically expanded the target population for the group’s voter outreach campaigns.
It seems that Democrats begin focusing on elections in even-numbered years, and are forced to play catch-up to Republicans who have used the odd-numbered years to full advantage. Since many Democrats are already focusing on 2006, there is a great opportunity for the Party to break from its tradition of assembling its voter lists a year later than its opponents.
Increased Democratic registration will not alone turn the Republican tide, but it is an essential component of a more pro-active electoral strategy.
A major voter registration drive is a concrete activity that can harness the unprecedented energy of the Democrats 2004 campaign. Republicans are already working toward the 2006 elections, so launching a nationwide Democratic effort in early 2005 to expand the Party’s base is imperative for success in the next national campaigns.
