Here’s an update from Vote Forward. The final numbers are unbelievable. Just thinking about generating $9 million dollars in postal revenue, puts a big grin on my face…

Thank you!

Here at Vote Forward we wanted to take a moment to say thank you for volunteering with us this year, and for all your extraordinary efforts to make The Big Send a big reality. We are deeply grateful to have the privilege of supporting your work to help preserve and protect our democracy.

Reflecting…

For our part, last Saturday, October 17th, was exhilarating.

We watched our hashtag, #TheBigSend, reach as high as the #3 trending topic on Twitter, sandwiched between college football and European soccer. That’s pretty remarkable! On Instagram, Facebook, and in messages directly from all of you, we saw an outpouring of brilliant photos, videos, and stories.

Rental trucks filled with months’ worth of letters written by local groups; families that had been writing letters together over Zoom; strangers meeting in line at the Post Office; and much more. Seeing it all come together drove home for us that Vote Forward is now more than just a tactic — it’s a movement.

Some Stats and Stories

While we won’t know the full impact until some time after the election is over, we wanted to share some topline numbers now. Here they are, as of this writing:

Total letters written: 17,484,276
Total volunteers writing letters: 182,331
Value of stamps purchased, supporting USPS: $9.6 million
Percent of prepared letters confirmed sent so far: 93%

To put it in somewhat more dramatic terms, based on the average length of letter samples we reviewed, we believe you wrote approximately 643 million words.That’s enough letters, if arranged end-to-end, to reach from New York City to San Francisco.

As you may know, we use data to try to understand how many voters we’re nudging into casting ballots. But usually we don’t get to hear from those voters in their own words. So we were pleased to see this note from a letter recipient, and wanted to share it with you all:

Good afternoon, my name is Bria, I received one of your Vote Forward letters from Maria E and I must say this was a pleasant surprise. It was such an unbiased and positive reminder. I’ve voted once before, I didn’t vote the last election and felt absolutely horrible. This year I am registered to vote but haven’t sent my ballot in. This letter was the motivation I needed to do so. I’ve never heard of Vote Forward or this method of reaching out to voters but I feel it was effective so keep it up!
Sincerely,
A motivated voter

We’ll have more to say after the election, including new opportunities to participate, so stay tuned. But for now, take care, and thank you so much for all of your efforts.

Sincerely,
Adam, Chris, Emily, Kaileigh, Matt, Melissa, Sarah, and Scott
(The Vote Forward team)

P.S. Still looking for volunteer activities? We have some suggestions!

More Volunteer Opportunities

Start Virtual Phone Banking: The Last Weekends is an easy way to start virtual phone banking to increase voter turnout from home. Plug into this high impact high priority effort to elect Dems up and down the ballot organized by Swing Left.

Become a Poll Worker: Power the Polls makes it really easy to sign up to become a poll worker and ensure that there are enough people to staff voting locations across the country.

Stop Voter Suppression: ProtectTheVote.net is a national coalition of nonpartisan organizations focused on making sure everyone can vote. They offer a variety of volunteer opportunities.

Make sure your friends and family vote: When We All Vote has a set of recommendations for making sure your friends and family all vote this year.

http://voteforward.com/