The Working Families Party door-to-door operation is hitting the doors every day to elect Craig Johnson to the New York State Senate. In 12 days we've already knocked on 23,427 doors, including a one-night high of 2,501 doors this weekend.
You can join in too. This weekend kicked off with State Senator Liz Krueger meeting volunteers at the Mineola LIRR Train Station and sending them out canvassing. Sign up now and find out about more volunteer opportunities.
If it's to cold or wet for you to canvass outside then you can still help. A massive door-to-door operation like this is an expensive undertaking. Make a donation to support the door-to-door operation.
More after the jump.
15 days until Election Day!
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A Presidential election year is the high water mark for voter turnout. The non-stop attention focused on a Presidential race drives voter turnout up to 50% of eligible voters. That drops in non-Presidential year elections like the 2006 election. And it drops even more for special elections that aren't held in November, like the one Craig Johnson is running in on February 6th in the Seventh State Senate District.
To give you some numbers, around 7.5 million people voted in New York state in 2004. That dropped to 4.7 million people in 2006. For a low profile special election held in early February like this one, voter turnout drops precipitiously, to as low as 10%.
That means shoe leather decides who wins. The campaign that wins is the one that knocks on the most doors to identify the most supporters and turn them out to vote. A solid door-to-door operation is critical to winning a special election.
And that's why every day Working Families Party canvassers are going out and knocking on doors.
Here are some pictures of the people working hard out there from a recent briefing. I've been tagging these on flickr as NY-SD7 - add your pictures to the stream. Careful watchers will be able to pick out Aaron Hecht, the Johnson campaign Field Director, who came in to talk to the canvass before they went out into the field.
15 days until Election Day!
Volunteer | Donate