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Mobilizing Youth Voter Registration: Rock the Vote Campaign Insights

The Rock the Vote initiative led by Chris Kennedy and Michelle Mayorga aims to mobilize young voters ahead of the June 19, 2008 election. With goals to register 2 million individuals aged 18-29 online through partnerships with AT&T and grassroots efforts, the campaign utilizes street teams, concerts, and events. The innovative use of text message reminders and voter education has already reached over 650,000 young voters. The study assesses the effectiveness of text reminders, demonstrating a 4% increase in registration among target demographics.

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Mobilizing Youth Voter Registration: Rock the Vote Campaign Insights

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  1. Text Message Registration Reminders Chris Kennedy and Michelle Mayorga Rock the Vote June 19, 2008

  2. Rock the Vote in ‘08Mobilizing Young Voters • Register 2 million 18-29 year olds. • Online via Facebook, website • Partnerships (AT&T, grassroots) • Street teams, concert tour, events • Artist Advisory Council • Increase turnout for 3rd major election in a row. • Peer to peer turnout reminders • Text message reminders • Voter education Already, more than 650,000 18-29 year olds have used our online tool to register to vote, and nearly one million voters of all ages!

  3. RTV Mobile Programs • Registration Reminders • GOTV Text Messages • Event Alerts • Short Code - txt “VOTE” to RTVOTE • WAP Site (English & Spanish) • Wallpaper • Ring Tones

  4. Mobile List Demographics Total Opt-Ins: 70,000+

  5. Experimental Design • Randomize our mobile opt-in list (ages 18-29) into treatment and control groups. • Treat with a text message reminder 0-3 days before state’s registration deadline. • Validate registration status of participants via Catalist voter file match back and compare treatment to control group.

  6. States

  7. Example Messaging - Pennsylvania 1A. This Monday is PA’s voter registration deadline. Register at rockthevote.com/PA or call 877-868-3772 to check status. Please fwd. 1B. Are you registered to vote? If not, do it at rockthevote.com/PA or call 877-868-3772 to check status. PA’s deadline is this Monday. Please fwd. 2A. Today is PA’s voter registration deadline. Register at rockthevote.com/PA or call 877-868-3772 to check status. Please fwd. 2B. Are you registered to vote? If not, do it at rockthevote.com/PA or call 877-868-3772 to check status. PA’s deadline is today. Please fwd.

  8. Results: Registration Up 4%

  9. Effect Concentrated in Recent Form Downloaders

  10. Why Might It Have Worked? • Low awareness of state registration deadlines. • The contact rate of text messages is essentially an instant 100% - this makes it ideal for deadline notification. • Text messages normally come from close friends and are presumably a highly trusted information source. No spam.

  11. Caveats • Results apply to young people who were already motivated to download registration form • Excluded 17 year olds from analysis • Requires large mobile list to increase registration in a significant manner • Presidential primaries may be different from other elections

  12. Additional Analysis • NC, KY, and WV Results Pending • Net Votes in Primary and General • Which day is most effective? • Check if this is mainly re-registering movers. • Would text message reminder work without a primary deadline? TBD. • We still don’t know the best messaging to use.

  13. Other RTV Mobile Experiments • GOTV Testing • Email vs. Mobile vs. Email + Mobile • Short Code List Building • Converting opt-ins to registrations • Direct Mail Registration + Text Reminder • List Engagement Strategies • Determining what percentage of list is active

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