HD51 recall - why did it succeed?

perhaps the poll helped turn them out (0.00 / 0)

PPC used to advise asking folks whether they planned on voting. Getting them to say yes gave them a bit of a push toward actually keeping their promise. Guilt?

OfA did the same thing last cycle, so there must be some data or literature supporting the idea.

In this case, did merely asking folks their position and whether they planned on voting actually improve turnout among those polled?

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by: William Allen Simpson @ Sun Jan 08, 2012 at 19:14:02 PM UTC

There's a lot of good data available. (0.00 / 0)

We've seen a flowering of good, science-based research on GOTV techniques in the past few years.  The most important change has been movement away from mere description and story-telling, toward theory-based interventions which can be tested by reference to randomly assigned control groups.  Get Out The Vote, by Gerber and Green, is the standard reference.

The most recent interventions will be the subject of The Victory Lab, by Sasha Issenberg.  (A couple chapters are already in print.  I don't know when the book itself will be available.)

The Analyst Group, associated with national progressive and Democratic organizations, has begun the process of translating theory into practice.  I'm sure OFA is working closely with them.  Unfortunately, I'm also pretty sure the MDP is not.

I'm pleased to say the PPC has played a role, particularly with our social-pressure "ETOV" methods.  

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by: Grebner @ Sun Jan 08, 2012 at 22:50:09 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Greb (0.00 / 0)

Kind of off topic, but I've been thinking about the marijuana legalization push going on at the moment, and had a few questions.  There is currently a debate going on whether you get get 50%+ legalization for it if it were to make the ballot given the medical part of it passed 63%.  It's my gut instinct that the vast majority of the 50% did vote for this as a trojan horse, or at least wouldn't mind legalization of small amounts, but I have no facts to back this up.  Was full legalization ever polled within asking about medical legalization?

I'm really torn on the chances of this iniative.  On one hand, I think it's going to be hard to get the signatures required simply because it takes a lot of money to get anything on the ballot in this state, and the backing looks more grass-roots and Detroit-focused.  On the other hand, I think that if it makes the ballot in a presidential year, it'll energize folks who may not be happy about Obama but are scared of the alternative given what we saw take place in 2010.  But, then my mind tells me that this would be hopeless seeing as how California couldn't even get this done, and then I flip back to the fact that things are changing so fast that California might as well have been 100 years ago.

How do you see this playing out, realistically, and with facts on your side?  

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by: MiddleGrandGuy @ Mon Jan 09, 2012 at 02:24:06 AM UTC

Marijuana initiative (0.00 / 0)

I have several thoughts on the general topic of legalizing marijuana by initiative.

First, there have been a number of previous announcements of such drives, which were supposed to be based on volunteers rather than money to pay circulators.  Some petitions actually attract useful volunteers, but it's been my (somewhat stereotypical) experience that legalizing dope attracts mainly dopeheads, who can't remember exactly where they parked, and who certainly don't get back to me with whatever information they promised would be in my mailbox tomorrow morning.  Legalizing marijuana using volunteers is like trying to organize an association of Alzheimer's patients.

Second, there often IS money for marijuana initiatives, which I assume emanates from some source like George Soros.  It wouldn't take a huge amount of money, but it would take some.

Third, there's simply no way to know how a proposal will do based on conventional polling.  As I've written at some length (see my Technical Politics diary "Conventional Polling and Ballot Proposals - A Bad Combination" - I wish I knew how to embed links in responses here) the only way I know to test ballot proposals is to actually dummy up a ballot and let several hundred people vote anonymously.  If the current proposal had been tested in that way, we might know whether you are right that limiting the question to legalizing possession of small amounts would be so much more attractive to voters that the issue should be whittled down to that.  But short of using what I call the "straw ballot" approach, the only way to know for sure how the voters will respond is to put it on the ballot and hold an election.

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by: Grebner @ Mon Jan 09, 2012 at 22:16:16 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Embedded Link (4.00 / 1)

Link to "Conventional Polling and Ballot Proposals - A Bad Combination"

For future reference, you need to use HTML to link things in comments. Here's a link to a tutorial on how to do so if you don't know how to already.

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by: Seth9 @ Tue Jan 10, 2012 at 00:49:05 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

With the GOPs attacking everything in sight, (0.00 / 0)

who would sign one?   They'll all end up on some watch list or end up raided.  

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by: dkmich @ Tue Jan 10, 2012 at 23:28:43 PM UTC