The Ground War (The Digital Front)

Takingpitches, Election Day edition.

After a long campaign of getting out the message, elections come down to making sure your voters get to the polls.  As the Economist puts it:

The parties have both embraced research showing that nothing beats a personal appeal from “trusted peers”—friends, neighbours, relations or those with shared interests—either on a doorstep or by telephone. The psychology of shame has been scoured for tips about the importance of securing an “affirmative” pledge to vote.

The old school proven way is knocking on doors and ringing the telephone.  If the key aspect of that is “a personal appeal from trusted peers,” then perhaps there is a place for the social network as a GOTV tool.

The Obama campaign has embraced this point.  After thousands of emails received from the Obama campaign, the last one I received was from Michelle Obama.  It said in part:

The polls are closing in a few hours.

If you’ve got any nervous energy, there’s plenty you can do right now to have an impact on the results tonight:

2) Then, forward this message to everyone you know to make sure they vote, too. And remind your friends in battleground states on Facebook to go vote:

After the election, it will be interesting to see what the results will say about the impact of Facebook, Twitter, etc as a third method of GOTV in addition to the phone and shoe leather.