oregon bus project

Ian from the Oregon Bus Project writes in to let me know that in just a few short years, Oregon has gone from having the largest gap between youth vote turnout and general turnout to one of the smallest:

In 2004, Oregon saw the second largest gap in turnout between older and younger votes in the nation. In 2008, Oregon's youth took Oregon from the back of the pack to near the front. Just one presidential election ago, Oregon's 18 to 29-year-olds turned out at a 25 point lower rate than those 30 and over. In 2008, we shrunk that gap to just over 10 points.

In terms of shrinking that gap, Oregon was #1 with a bullet. (Obama effect was nationwide … this is something that makes Oregon special.) Pretty frickin' cool.

This really is a testament to the work, and creativity of the youth vote community in Oregon, and the larger Bus Federation as a whole, which has done pioneering work with programs like Trick or Vote and Candidates Gone Wild.

Loaded Orygun has more.

More legislative news, this time at the state level. Today the Oregon State House passed an online voter registration bill by a bipartisan vote of 45 to 8. The legislation moves on to the Oregon State Senate soon and is expected to have broad support.

Rep. Ben Cannon, the Chief Sponsor of the bill released the following statement after the House vote:

SALEM – The House today voted in favor of HB 2386, which would allow Oregonians to register to vote online. Online voter registration creates a new avenue to register that is simple, hassle-free and, above all, secure.

"Oregonians pay bills online, check bank accounts online, rent movies online, pay taxes online. We can change our address with the US Postal Service and DMV online. With this bill, we will move our voter registration system into the 21st century by allowing people to register to vote online,” said Representative Ben Cannon (D-Portland), who is the Chief Sponsor of the bill. "This bill takes a significant step toward a secure, hassle-free system of voter registration."

House Bill 2386 would allow eligible voters with valid Oregon Driver Licenses or ID cards to register to vote online through a secure connection on the Secretary of State website. A registrant’s signature from DMV will be used to match against the signature on the ballot. A registrant would first have to indicate under penalty of law that they are a citizen and that they are 17 years old, just like on the current form.

“Oregon needs laws that make registering to vote accessible and easy for every eligible voter,” said Secretary of State Kate Brown. “This is simple, stable and will bring more voters, especially younger voters, into the process of shaping Oregon’s future.”

HB 2386 would model Oregon’s online voter registration system on those of Washington and Arizona, where the programs have proven extremely popular. In 2003, the first year of Arizona's Online Voter Registration program, 25% of all new voter registrations were done online. In 2007, that percentage jumped to 72%. After Washington implemented online voter registration, 1,634 online applications were recorded in the first three days and 38% of all Washington voter registrations in 2008 were done online.

“The passage of this bill represents the culmination of a lot of work by folks who are passionate about access to democracy,” said Representative Jefferson Smith (D-Portland). “The passage of this bill is part of a necessary movement around voter access – democracy works better if more people do it.”
HB 2386 now moves to the Senate for consideration.

For the text of the bill, visit here.

What do you do when the lights go out the night before the election? Break out the glowsticks.

At least that’s what the Oregon Bus Project did last night when Portland’s east side was plunged into darkness after a terribly timed substation failure. Using nothing but glowsticks and finger flashlights left over from Trick or Vote, dozens of volunteer phonebankers pulled out their cell phones and kept right on making get out the vote calls.

Over 3,000 reminder calls came from the (now legendary?) “Glowstick Phonebank,” begging the question: who needs electricity when you’ve got kick-ass volunteers?

The glowstick phonebank came right on the heels of the Magical Mystery Tour, the last Bus Trip of the year, during which Bussers knocked on their 60,000th door for progressive candidates across Oregon this year.

Speaking of down-to-the-wire, there’s a few hours left before the election, and there are more calls to make, more doors to knock, and more folks left to drive to the polls.

Get out there, get out the vote, and Get On The Bus!

Yoink. Stolen from Loaded Orygun. The Oregon Bus Project's innovative "Trick or Vote" canvassing program is going national this year:

While ghouls and goblins roam the streets, volunteers in 21 cities and 12 states will distribute voter guides and vote reminders in what will be the nation’s largest non-partisan get-out-the-vote canvass.

Trick-or-Vote is going nationwide this year with the help of youth advocacy partners like 18 in ’08, Rock the Vote, United States Student Association, League of Young Voters, Forward Montana, New Mexico Youth Organized, New Era Colorado, Washington Bus, Change the Game and Generation Vote. “What’s the one day of the year we culturally are ready for a knock on the door?” asks Trick-or-Vote National Coordinator, Alex Aronson. “Halloween conveniently falls a few days before the election every year. You may be too old to trick-or-treat, but you’re never too old to trick-or-vote.”

The Best Way on the Best Day: Studies show that face-to-face contact is the most effective method to boost voter turnout—increasing participation by as much as 8–12% (“Getting Out the Youth Vote: Results from Randomized Field Experiments,” by Donald Green & Alan Gerber, Yale University, 2001), and nonpartisan contacts further increase the likelihood of electoral participation. “It’s important that we engage young volunteers,” explains Bus Project Executive Director Jefferson Smith, “Not left, not right, but forward.”

That's awesome. It's so great to see a best practice like Trick or Vote move outside the organization that spawned it and become a nation-wide best practice for youth outreach. Halloween is the one day of the year that people expect to have strangers knocking on their door. And who can resist earnest young volunteers in costume encouraging you to go to the polls? If you and your organization aren't already using Trick or Vote in your neighborhood, it's time to hop on that bandwagon.

The author prepares for Trick or Vote in 2007

Pop Quiz Time:

1. What is the single most effective way to mobilize voters?
   a) Visibilities
   b) Sitting on a couch and bitching
   c) Talking to ‘em face-to-face
2. What holiday always immediately precedes Election Day and has a built-in tradition of door-knocking?
   a) Halloween
   b) The 4th of July
   c) Festivus
3. What does everyone love?
   a) Rick Rolling
   b) Costumes!
   c) Voting
   d) All of the above

All of us who work in the field of youth engagement face big competition. The biggest competition we face – for volunteers, for attention – is not from one another’s organizations either. It’s from the Wii (which is sweet) and the bar scene and friends and loved ones. Our biggest challenge is overcoming that noise and building a politics that is fun and exciting and relevant to people’s lives.

That’s what makes Trick or VoteTM so freaking sweet. It’s the Best Way on the Best Day.

It’s actually such a sweet idea it doesn’t even really need an explanation. But here it is in a nutshell: Get some people who are a bit too old to trick or treat (go as young as high school and as old as the retirement home for your recruitment), rally ‘em in costume, meet in a centralized location, train these folks to canvass effectively, and knock some doors.

In short, we combine a cultural more (knock doors on Halloween) with hard-minded political research (knocking doors is an effective voter mobilization tool).

The result?

• More volunteers. In Portland in 2004, 850 canvassers assembled for the largest mass canvass in the history of the state. By all accounts, this year will be even bigger.
• More virgin volunteers. Out of that same crowd in Portland, more than one-in-three were first-time political volunteers who came out of the woodwork for a program well-suited to help our fellow citizens lose their voter virginity.
• More conversations. On Halloween evening, people are home – either waiting for trick-or-treaters or getting ready for their parties. They’re even prepared to open the door. And they’re definitely ready to engage in a conversation. All of which means that we don’t just hit more doors, we hit more doors in a more effective manner.
• More voters. Do the math -- more canvassers, more conversations, and more doors? More people are hitting the polls.

The Bus Federation wants to take Trick or VoteTM national this year – and we can do it with your help. If you’re part of a local or national organization that is serious about doing Trick or VoteTM, get in touch soon so we can coordinate our efforts. Contact Alex Aronson at the Oregon Bus Project @ 503-233-3018.

Just looking for a project for the fall and think you could pull off a kick-ass Trick or Vote in your hometown? Or even just want to assemble 15 of your closest friends and friends-of-friends and friendly-friends-of-friends’-friends and go hit some doors? Drop us a line. I swear to you, you’ll be glad you did.

Major props, by the way, to our friends at the Bus for this innovative program -- Trick or Vote is their brainchild.

Answers to the pop quiz: 1-b, 2-c, 3-a

Matt Singer is the CEO of Forward Montana, dedicated to training, mobilizing, and electing a new generation of progressive leaders. Forward Montana is a charter (get it?) organization of the Bus Federation.

Five really great, state-based youth organizations have decided to join forces to create a loose, national federation that can leverage economies of scale to the benefit of all organizations. In other words, the Oregon Bus Project, Forward Montana, New Era Colorado, The Washington Bus, and New Mexico Youth Organized just formed like Voltron to create the Bus Federation.

From their website:

The 2008 election marks the beginning of a historic opportunity, where young, progressive voters in Western states can fundamentally reshape the political landscape on a local and national level.

The Bus Federation, comprised of grassroots youth political organizations in five Western states, will draw upon its proven models of youth organizing to activate young progressive voters, develop the next generation of progressive leaders, and mobilize for immediate term electoral impact – laying the foundations for local and national breakthroughs in the 2008 election cycle and beyond.

You'll also note that some of these orgs come from important battleground states where the youth vote will be a key constituency up and down the ticket this cycle. If you're in those states, you should get involved or at least be aware of what your local Bus Fed org is doing and make sure that your own work is complementary.

...

While the Federation structure enables the different state organizations to tailor their programs to their states' unique political landscapes, it also enables the member organizations to share core programs – such as Bus Trips, the Trick or Vote Halloween Canvass, and Alternative Candidate Debates – as well as organizational best practices, common branding and messaging, joint purchasing, and key metrics of performance.

The website is pretty sparse now - just a shingle on the web, really. But if by creating a national federation, these local organizations can spread/share best practices, and save money on swag, polling, voter file subscriptions, etc., then this is a hugely important step in scaling up good work in youth organizing.

Hey all, here's one more training opportunity to add to the post I made last week. PolitiCorps, the training arm of the Oregon Bus Project, is accepting applications for their summer institute from now until early March:

About Politicorps:
PolitiCorps strives to create the future generation of progressive leaders. PolitiCorps has 3 goals:

• Make an impact in the short term.
• Develop leaders for the long term.
• Incubate creative and innovative ideas.

Summer Institute, Fellows:
PolitiCorps Summer Institute is a political bootcamp consisting of hands-on skills training, innovative public policy intensives, and real-world applications of leadership skills and campaign savvy.

PolitiCorps Fellows learn new ways of thinking about the world. But PolitiCorps is not just a school of thought. PolitiCorps is a place where Fellows learn by doing: they register voters, organize communities, vet public policy white papers, launch media campaigns, and, at the end of the day, make an impact. It’s the only program of its kind—a political immersion and leadership training program designed to engage and prepare college students and recent graduates for a broad spectrum of progressive leadership activities.

More after the jump:

The Washington Bus has just left the station. According to an email announcing the launch of their website, the recipient of the west coast Go Grant, has taken to stirring up trouble by getting young people involved in politics.

Modeled off of their sister to the south's org the Oregon Bus Project, the WA Bus is offering similar programs including Trick or Vote, Rebooting Democracy, and enacting young people powered politics.

"The Bus exists to inject some of what is found in other volunteer opportunities into politics: fun, friends, festivity and the sense that everyone matters.

And it makes a huge difference: when 60 Washington Bus volunteers drop in on a county council race that has never seen so much support, the energy is palpable. And that feeling builds on itself. People who start the day as volunteers end it as agents of change. We see it happening. It’s magic. "

Candidate Derbies and Ballot Parties, the WA Bus is bringing young people together across the state to help register voters and get out the vote for 2008.

The website is fantastic, browse around according to the release email

" it was made right here in the US of A by Americans, guaranteed lead free and kosher for Christmas."

Though I'm sure Karl Rove will still find something to bitch about. Fantastic site for a fantastic organization!

Happy New Year and Happy Iowa Caucus! Talk to you next from the great state of Iowa!