Seneca Doane wrote a magnificent live-bloggy diary yesterday, reporting on the experience of phonebanking for JoAnne Kloppenburg in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race coming up April 5 (TOMORROW!) called:
All 5 of her calls today before MY call came from PROSSER!
Now that diary has slipped off the Rec List, so I'm going to step up and see whether we can keep this front and center today as well.
As soon as I publish this diary, I'll start making calls for JoAnne Kloppenburg. Like Seneca Doane, I'll record some notes and impressions in the comments as I go.
You can do it too! You can phonebank from anywhere you have a computer & a phone, and you don't have to be in Wisconsin to do it.
Let's start out with a great big quote, originally from a Kloppenburg campaign e-mail, most recently posted to the site "This is What Democracy Looks Like in Wisconsin":
So, here’s how to get on the phones for JoAnne. You can log in from your own computer and you can make calls for as long (or short!) a time as you wish. If you have a free 20 minutes, get on the phones! With so many volunteers, every little bit adds up to a lot of calls! The phone bank will be open from 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. every day.
* Step 1: Go to our website at http://www.kloppenburgforjustice.com. Click on the “Call for JoAnne” button.
* Step 2: Click on “Create New Account” (under the “Log In” box).
* Step 3: Enter your personal data into the form and choose a user name password. * For the password, use at least seven characters, including at least one number.
* Step 4: Click the “Create New Account” button.
* Step 5: You will arrive at a screen that says “You have successfully logged in. Now click here to begin making calls!” Click on the words “click here”.
* Step 6: Next you will arrive at a screen with the name of the phone bank. Click on the words “Make Calls” below the grey box.
* Step 7: You are ready to make calls! The name of the first voter and their phone number will appear at the top left of your screen. Below the name are the scripts and boxes to record the call outcome.
* Step 8: Dial the phone number and follow the scripts provided – the first script is for live callers and the script on the bottom of the page is for answering machine messages. Please leave messages.
* Step 9: Record the Call Result:
-- If you leave a voice message, fill in the bubble next to “Left Message” on the top of the page.
-- If you speak to a live caller, please record their responses to the two script questions by using the drop-down menus under the questions.
* Step 10: Press Save/Next to finish and get a new caller.
* Step 11: When you are finished, click the “Logout” button underneath the JoAnne Kloppenburg logo at the top left.
For some background on the race, check out David Nir's front page post from today.
Re: the scripts... not all scripts work for every volunteer's voice, and that's OK. You can make tweaks that fit your voice, as long as you're not going off-message! Here's what Seneca Doane reported in the comments as a personal opening script:
Hi, I'm a volunteer with the JoAnne Kloppenburg for Supreme Court campaign.
You've probably heard that there's an election on Tuesday, right? [Wait for reply.]
You've probably been getting a lot of calls, right? [Wait for reply.]
Have they been robocalls? [Wait for reply.]
I hate those things. Well, I'm calling for JoAnne and I'm happy to let you know that I'm not a robot. [They usually laugh. Then start the pitch.]
Also from the comments, a sign-off suggestion for when you've had a friendly call:
"Thank you so much, and if you can make sure that your other friends know about the election come out to vote for JoAnne too, we'd really appreciate it!"
And finally, a suggestion if you're calling from out of state and get asked about it (I'm here in Wisconsin, so I can claim local myself!!):
Question: Are you calling from out of state?
Answer: Yes ma'am/sir I am because I believe what happens in Wisconsin affects us all including what happens in my state of Michigan (or whatever).
All right, time for me to publish and get underway.
Ready... set... GO!