HOME / the chat room: Real-time discussions with Slate writers.

Knock, Knock!It's Christopher Beam, taking readers' questions about the most effective kinds of political volunteering.

Posted Thursday, Oct. 9, 2008, at 1:56 PM ET

(Continued from page 2)

RSS

So, I know you mean well, and it must be frustrating to see people wasting their votes. (As they say, not voting makes everyone else's vote count more.) What you can do, though, is give a lot of money. Better yet, give Australian dollars. Leverage that exchange rate!

_______________________

Volunteering long-distance?: I have a friend from a swing state who temporarily lives in Mississippi. She is volunteering for the Obama campaign here despite the redness of this state, and I applaud her for that. But would she be better off making telephone calls for the campaign in her home state and reaching swing voters there? Her cell phone still has the old area code. Just wondering...

Christopher Beam: The Obama campaign says they're contesting every state, but frankly Mississippi is still far from a toss-up. If she's a tragic hero kind of person, let her stay there. But if she wants to maximize her time, she's much better off calling people in her home swing state. Especially with that area code—looks less suspicious on the caller ID.

_______________________

Washington: More about poll monitoring: I was considering taking the day off and becoming a poll monitor in Virginia. I imagine there may be long stretches of time with nothing to do. Do you know if poll monitors can bring books? Laptops? If not, I might fall asleep and embarrass myself and my candidate.

Christopher Beam: If you want to be responsible for mass disenfranchisement in a key Virginia swing district, be my guest! Just don't bring a copy of How to Rig an Election.

_______________________

Hampton, Va.: There are new revelations of a huge, multistate scandal with ACORN's registration of poor voters (read: Democrats). The feds raided offices in Nevada and subpoened voters in Ohio who have registered up to 90 times(!) There are reports that the Dallas Cowboys starting lineup all registered to vote in Nevada. Are we seeing the nationalization of Chicago politics? Will graveyards be voting in November? Does all this lead back to Obama?

washingtonpost.com: ACORN accused of submitting false voter registration forms again (Kansas City Star, Oct. 9)

Christopher Beam: It's an ugly situation, but it seems to be partly the result of giving volunteers registration quotas. If there's incentive to register a certain number of people every day—or a punishment for failing to—you get this kind of fraud. Again, registration this year is disproportionately Democratic, so it's tempting to see it as a partisan issue. But I think it's more an institutional problem than a partisan one.

_______________________

Fairfax County, Va.: I know it's a perennial, but I think yard signs (you call them lawn signs) really are more important than you say. They boost morale for me as a volunteer about 1,000 percent. I also like the way the signs tell my neighbors who I stand for; when I do the neighbor-to-neighbor canvassing, people actually say (happily), oh, you live in the house on the corner with the signs. Plus, all this annoying talk about Obama needing "validators" is certainly served by all of us having visible signs in our yards. It's also an arms race in our neighborhood. I would hate to have the McCain signs up, and no Obama signs. People look for signs and they assume it's like reading a local poll result. We don't want a false bandwagon effect for the person with more signs.

Christopher Beam: Agreed that in neighborhoods where Obama might have some skeptics, it helps to "validate" him publicly. But in general, I think yard signs and sign-waving are more for the people doing the planting and waving than for the people who see them.

_______________________

Northern Virginia: Is it legal for an Australian to donate to an American campaign, as you just advised?

Christopher Beam: Good point—you have to be a U.S. citizen [or permanent resident, i.e., a green card holder] to give money to a campaign. If our Australian friend is not, then he's out of luck.

_______________________

Southern Maryland: Personal contact works. In my experience, the people who claim it made them vote against a candidate would have done that anyway—they just wanted an excuse. In any event, those numbers are minuscule. I've knocked on thousands of doors in campaigns and it is an overwhelmingly positive experience. I've spent six hours phone-banking this week already and will spend the weekend door-knocking in Northern Virginia.

Christopher Beam: That's what most people say. It's rare that someone will change their mind about a candidate based on something a supporter says. It's like with music—every band has some terrible, embarrassing fans. You can't let that cloud your judgment of the tunes.

_______________________

Christopher Beam: Thanks, all, for the great questions. Now get out there and knock on doors! Except mine.