Is handing out sample ballots as awful as it looks?

November 5, 2023 11:11 AM

My local Dems want me to hand out sample ballots (the kind of sample ballots that are already filled in) at a polling place. I like door-knocking, but always thought giving out sample ballots looked miserable. Is there a way to do this volunteer job well, stay cool, and keep my self-respect?

You're stuck in one place. You're making an offer that gets rejected, over and over, because most people don't want a sample ballot even if they're Democrats. You're standing next to the Republicans, so there's live status rivalry. And it feels ... vaguely sleazy? I guess I could focus on people I think might need extra help translating their wishes into marks on paper, but that seems hard to get right, and rife with possibilities for offense.

posted by feral_goldfish to Law & Government (9 answers total)

Former campaign staffer here. If you really don’t want to do it, it’s totally fine to ask for another job. They often need phonebankers on Election Day to remind people last-minute to vote.

If you want to give this a go, ask if you can be assigned to a precinct with at least one other volunteer, which I find makes it less daunting.
posted by lunasol at 11:31 AM on November 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

Hmmm. In 2008, I stood outside the polls and handed out lists of judges and maybe some other candidates that the Democratic party was supporting. These were offices that were not marked by party on the ballot, and a fair number of people wanted to know which ones had the approval of the Dems. That felt completely OK to me. Not everyone is going to take the time to look at all of the offices up for election, and even when you do, unless someone truly awful is on the ballot, it can be hard to differentiate among candidates.

So I'm thinking your sample ballots maybe aren't just, "Here's how you put an X next to Joe Biden's name." If that's the case, can you offer them with different words? Maybe "in case you want to know which non-party candidates the Dems are supporting." (Maybe someone else has better wording.)

(I spent most of the day standing next to some huge Palin supporters. I also had a Black family ask to take a picture with me because I was wearing an Obama shirt. There were a lot of ups and downs.)
posted by FencingGal at 11:35 AM on November 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Are you allowed to hand people a sticker or something instead? Then the pitch becomes, "Would you like to see the sample ballot for what candidates the Dems are supporting? No? How about a cool sticker?" Then, a No is still a positive interaction.

I would generally approach this as a "seems silly, but OK" situation. Would I take a sample ballot? No, I would not. I already know who I am voting for. But the people at HQ think it's important that someone is there to give people sample ballots, and someone has to do it, so I guess that's me. This is me helping them even when I don't understand the task. I have been in many situations where I'm supposed to sell a thing I think is stupid, and then find that a lot of people will actually buy the thing. Takes all kinds. At worst, you will spend time smiling and chatting with people at the polling place, which is not the worst.

Then again, I spent 16 hours in a polling place with my one job being handing people a pen and pointing at the door that said "restroom" on it, so I have a high tolerance for boredom in the service of democracy. Maybe ask for a different job.
posted by blnkfrnk at 12:48 PM on November 5, 2023

I've slowly come around on sample ballots and similar things. When I was younger, in the relatively information-poor 1990s, I would vote in every election but only for the races where I was able to recognize a candidate, which frequently led to leaving downballot stuff blank. My attitude at the time was that the top of the ballot was where Important Political Things happened, and the rest was only worth my attention to the extent that I organically heard about it in the news or from my more politically active peers.

Now, I recognize that the virtual opposite is the case, and this sort of attitude is how groups that are far from representative of general public consensus can run and win with extreme (if hyperlocal) candidates. So I go out of my way to find a trustworthy voting guide online, and I fill out the whole dang ballot. And I can't overemphasize how hard this is. It's way more information than I can keep in my head, often several dozen names and issues/initiatives, and I usually wind up in the booth with a multi-page sheaf of printouts and notes. (I'm in Chicago, so this is a situation like FencingGal describes: I'm voting on races where there often isn't even a political affiliation to lean on, so it's not like I can just vote a straight ticket and call it a day.)

What are my guides and notes if not the slightly snootier, non-party-affiliated cousin of a sample ballot? If my notes were blown away in a squall while I was standing in line at the polls I'd take your sample ballot in a heartbeat. I also have to keep in mind that many people don't have the luxury of time that I enjoy to do this sort of research. If sample ballots help people who wouldn't otherwise be exercising their franchise in downballot races, what's the issue?
posted by pullayup at 1:22 PM on November 5, 2023 [5 favorites]

I think so many elections are focussed on the big ticket races and a lot of people forget that the lower level positions that are fundamentally entries to politics are super, super important, if not as much as the well-known races. These lower-level elections are the places where new people enter politics and often work to move up the levels to the well-known races. Keeping horrible people out of those positions is so crucial and is fundamental to the future of your chosen party.

Unfortunately, this isn't a well-recognized reality and a lot of people know who to vote for in the big ticket races, but for the smaller ones, often don't vote at all because they haven't had time to research. Handing out a sample ballot that helps them make those decisions, even if it results in just a handful of additional votes, can make or break those elections. Doing that work to get attention on those more obscure election processes is super super important, including for any ballot measures.

I think a lot of people who volunteer for campaigns often have big optimism and only want to do the easy things thta feel like they're making a difference, but doing this kind of hard boring thing is much more of a contribution; otherwise, you tend to often just be preaching to the choir. Handing out sample ballots and engaging people in conversations about those less flashy elements of the election is also sort of preaching to the choir, but teaching them that there are other songs in the songbook that they should learn.
posted by urbanlenny at 3:15 PM on November 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

You can think of it as free exposure therapy for rejection - after this you’ll be able to do necessary asking without flinching from a no. And you can gamify it in your head - what’s the typical acceptance rate? If you’re calm and neutral do you get more taken than if you’re super cheerful and smiling, switching up every hour so you can compare what works better.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 4:17 PM on November 5, 2023

I agree with the above comments pointing out how sample ballots are useful.

I don't consider myself loyal to the Democratic party and I'm not aligned with them on every issue. It does feel a bit psychically wrong to just vote for who they tell me to.

However, I've tried to do my own research and it can be really difficult for the down-ballot races. Politicians like to avoid actually saying what their policies are and instead talk in vague platitudes. I've been hours trying to fill out a ballot before and just ended up still guessing. Most people won't be that dedicated. I feel slightly guilty that I wasn't MORE dedicated.

When the choice is between the candidate favored by the Democratic party and someone farther to the right, as it often is in my area, voting for the recommended candidate will be the best choice for me most of the time. It's an imperfect proxy, but a very useful one, and is better than not voting at all or voting based on the lesser amount of information I've been able to learn for myself.

I can't help with the door-to-door aspect. I've done cold-calling for university research centers and that's the closest I've gotten to this kind of thing. But I think that for not feeling sleazy, it might be worth focusing on the fact that you're giving people a tool they can choose to use or not.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 4:19 PM on November 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

Have you ever worked the polls before? It's not bad, especially as someone mentioned upthread if there's at least one other volunteer and if the weather doesn't suck. Thank people for voting, regardless of whether they take your info or not! Make sure you have snacks and your hot beverage of choice, and sometimes nice people from the party or campaign HQ will swing by with a donut or something. I like to think of the polling place on election day as ultimately being a celebration of participatory democracy and keep my tone similarly upbeat.

And to nth what others have said, I find sample ballots legitimately helpful. Some people will genuinely want them. One of the reasons I'm so grateful that vote by mail has become easier where I live is because it is such a pain to figure out how to vote downballot, for ballot initiatives, nonpartisan races, etc. Sometimes there's a lot to vote on, and it's hard to find good information! So knowing how different groups (such as the local party) are endorsing is genuinely very helpful. Mr. bowties and I literally sat down yesterday to fill out our ballots and spent a lot of time looking at the slate the local urban development blog endorsed. And in a lot of places you aren't allowed to take out your phone in the polling location, so if you want to look something up at that point, too bad so sad.

Good luck and thank you for volunteering!
posted by bowtiesarecool at 7:21 AM on November 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Speaking as someone who has done it a ton, I think caring less about what random strangers think about you would help not only in this task but in general.

Put on your best customer service smile and stop caring so much. They will take the flyer or not. Some will find it helpful and some will not. The nots don't matter. The ones who use it might make a difference in the election outcome.

You won't know if you made a difference until the results come in but those few times in which a race is close enough that the sample ballots probably did make a difference will make up for all the other times.

The physical aspects are the worst part. Wear comfortable shoes with thick socks, dress in layers for the weather (rain jacket if any chance of rain!), and alternate Tylenol and ibuprofen every 2 hours. If it's very cold, use those chemical toe warmers and hand warmers.

A good campaign will have someone periodically coming around to check on you and bring you warm beverages and restock your literature. If you absolutely hate volunteering the polls and want to do something to make it less miserable for the people doing it then you could volunteer to be the warm beverage bringer.
posted by Jacqueline at 9:45 AM on November 6, 2023