Today’s Action: Register new voters at your local benefits office

Our action today comes from Alice Marshall, author of The Precinct Captain’s Guide to Political Victory. She’s a retired PR consultant who served on Democratic Committees in Richmond, Arlington, and Fairfax, Virginia. Alice has a great strategy for registering and activating new voters:

Under Bill Clinton’s motor-voter law, people can register to vote at the same time and place that they apply for benefits. Every Congressional District, even the wealthiest, has pockets of poverty and food stamp recipients. By registering millions of food stamp recipients and persuading them to vote, we can shift the entire country.

So how would you go about this? Pick a weekday that works for you and a friend (benefits offices are closed on weekends), and get to your local benefits office early — at least 30 minutes before it opens, because the first arrivals are in line by 6 AM.

Print some fliers to hand out, encouraging people to register to vote when they apply for benefits and letting them know that it’s easy to do both at the same time — the simpler the better. Feel free to use this sample flier from OD Action.

Wearing your favorite candidate’s t-shirt will also help build awareness and instantly communicate to people why you are there. Be sure to wear comfortable shoes.

So find your local benefits office and make a time to head over with fliers. If we have activists doing this in every jurisdiction, as little as once a month during 2018, we can dramatically shift the entire country.