How to Boost the 18-29 Youth Vote, Guaranteed

[parocks]

How about this one.

We give people something. It's something we create. And it's scarce.

And then we set a value for that thing.

Like a competing currency. Which we know we like.

We could give people pizza, beer. We could give someone a fancy laminate.

We know that those fancy laminates are being given out for a reason.

And then people can be proud they have a fancy laminate.

Or they can

sell them on Ebay to us, who understand what they mean.

Give them "Ron Paul Bucks".

 

[parocks]

Still seems better to keep away from that accusation, especially if it's someone that's a Youth for Ron Paul member or College Republicans member that's heading it up.

Don't really see the problem with just using marked Paul stickers or something.

The specific details are not that important to me, so, yes?

 

[Crotale]

Money is being funnelled from the ground to the USPS currently by RPP.

It would be better if the money stayed on the ground.

If anybody on the ground anywhere has a good idea, typically it's not going to happen, because of a lack of money.

The grassroots is focused, wrongly, on advertising and persuasion. Everything is set up to do that.

Nothing is set up to move our voters to the polls. Very few of our plans involve actual interaction with our people 18-29 men and getting them to the polls.

Yes, these are good ideas.

We have a core of enthusiastic people. This is an advantage we have. But we never use this advantage.

Romney's Super PAC could not duplicate what we could do (but aren't).

Romney's Super PAC could easily duplicate any of the most common grassroots efforts just by writing a big check.

Superbrochure? All that takes is money.

And because of the superbrochure, we have people giving on the ground money that they could use for their projects and taking it out of the area.

Your idea, these ideas, etc are good. These are the ideas I've been in favor of. But the loudest voices, the ones who are winning, only want advertising, and want to centralize things. That's pretty much that.

You make some very good points there.

 

[kill the banks]

ideas like this need to be done ... we know the problem of getting out the youth vote ... this could improve our turnout greatly

 

[tsai3904]

I hate to rain on the parade, but in most states you cannot do this. Some states have restrictions on who can vote absentee. Some have ID restrictions when it comes to voting, both early and at the polls. Most that allow early voting only allow it at the town clerk's office.
I suggest before trying to proceed with any plan, you get familiar with the state laws. I suspect it may only be a couple of states in which this might work. In some states, you may be able to get students to fill out requests for absentee ballots to be mailed to them, but then you will just have to hope they fill it out but at least it is a way to get the ballot in front of them.

There is great info at vote411.org

+rep for thinking outside the box though and for your enthusiasm

The states listed in the OP allow NO EXCUSE IN PERSON early voting.

I listed ALL the specifics for each state here back in December but it never got any traction:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?340545-Early-Voting-Information-State-by-State

 

[Snowball]

run 3rd party to max young vote.

 

[Peace&Freedom]

The states listed in the OP allow NO EXCUSE IN PERSON early voting.

I listed ALL the specifics for each state here back in December but it never got any traction:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?340545-Early-Voting-Information-State-by-State

The research is all there. Now there's 'no excuse' to not pursue 'no excuses' early voting.

 

[SaulPaulinsky]

I was just about to post the link to that TERRIFIC tsai post.

Can we get that stickied...and get rid of some stickies that no one ever looks at?

This couldn't be more important.

PArocks, I like a lot of your ideas. We're a caucus state here but I'll definitely be passing along some of your ideas to our local YfRP2012 leader.

 

[SaulPaulinsky]

Oh one BIG issue is that any organized event with beer as part of the event is probably going to carry with it added risk with regards to the police, given the age of the audience we're targeting. I imagine people would be more likely to make a big deal out of it in a situation like this than on a Friday night.

Not saying don't do it...just saying be smart about it. Different if there's a party and people just happen to bring beer than "providing alcohol to a minor" or some such.

 

[parocks]

The states listed in the OP allow NO EXCUSE IN PERSON early voting.

I listed ALL the specifics for each state here back in December but it never got any traction:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?340545-Early-Voting-Information-State-by-State

Most of the best ideas aren't getting any traction.

What is getting traction

1) RPP mailing superbrochures to everyone. Sure, that's exactly what the campaign does, does better, does cheaper. Sure, the campaign says that the superbrochures actually hurt. But that's what's getting traction.

2) Revpac tv ads. Sure, that's exactly what the campaign does, and super pacs typically have their own money and they don't try to compete with the campaign for money.

 

[SaulPaulinsky]

The specific details are not that important to me, so, yes?

Even better, pictures of a ballot marked for Ron Paul!

What about a Ron Paul voter party bus? Might not work in some states that vote on a weeknight, but might have been a great idea in SC.

The big idea to me is to make it cool not just to support Ron Paul but to vote Ron Paul!

 

[Peace&Freedom]

Early voting efforts of this sort, combined with the other grassroots activity, has implications for liberty candidacies in general, not just for Paul. Perhaps many local races can be realistically won by an appealing pro-liberty candidate who 1) runs for an open seat, 2) runs in the party primary the district leans towards (e.g., run as a Ron Paul Democrat if the district is 80-90% Democrat), and 3) combines the money bomb with the voting bomb, et al alternative grassroots tactics in order to win.

Liberty supporters have mostly lost races so far, trying to beat entrenched incumbents with a proven base, by running unknowns with no base and insufficient traditional resources. Running a candidate with actual local name recognition in open seat races (to circumvent the incumbent machine), who concentrates on money bombs (to circumvent media shutout), door to door canvassing and local events (proven to create high-bond connections leading to votes), and early voting drive activity (to maximize the pro-liberty youth vote) may be the way to more victories.

 

[lynnf]

Whoa!

revision on Texas date:

primary as of this time will be April 3, but tentative due to court action, may change yet again.

 

[beardedlinen]

Bump. So how do we go about implementing these ideas?

 

[SaulPaulinsky]

Open to suggestions. I've got a few ideas for what to do here locally and I think I've shared most of them. I'm not a college student so I'm going to present several to my local Youth for Ron Paul 2012 contact, and offer to bankroll up to a reasonable point.

If the local CRs have a budget, maybe try to lean on them as well if they have some Paul support.

I guess that's the key, getting people, effort and money all flowing the same direction to make it happen.

 

[gb13]

This is an excellent idea! +rep to you, my friend. Wow. Seriously, GREAT thinking!

 

[Peace&Freedom]

Bump. So how do we go about implementing these ideas?

Well, the ideas are about implementation, and depend on the state procedure, the size of the vote, the deadline for early voting, and so on. Suggested starting points:

1) Share this thread with the active RP meetup or grassroots groups in your area.
2) Review the state procedures, and modify the tactics here for what is relevant for your state.
3) Check the previous presidential contest results, to analyze how many votes total should be needed for victory/success.
4) Concentrate first and foremost on young voters who are already registered, already Paul supporters. You want as many as possible as quickly as possble, to complete the early voting process. If you run into independents and older voters who also want to early vote, good, but focus on the main demographic.

 

[dbill27]

Genius idea. This should become rpf grassroots priority number one!

 

[LibertasPraesidium]

We can get this done by a single person getting educated within your respective state and disseminating the information. Then, once 2-3 people are willing the pick a date and start canvasing to get people to attend a gathering. Once the gathering has started you spring this idea of early voting on them. THEN and only then after all the ballots are delivered you can pass out beer and cornnuts or whatever. I will be contacting a few RP supporters at the UofMinnesota to see what they think and if they need any assistance with GOTV.

 

[SaulPaulinsky]

Libertas -- you realize Minnesota is a caucus state, right?

So you need to find out what if any registration must be done prior to the caucuses, and other than that just provide incentive to get there! My state is a caucus state as well, so this thread should give a good idea of the kinds of things I'm thinking -- feel free to add to it!