Have Pen, Will Write and Write

Why I believe in postcarding

Dear Ms. Jones,

Every vote counts in VA. . .

Dear Mr. Kern,

Now is the time to get your Vote by Mail ballot in NC. . . 

The truth is that I know no one in Virginia or North Carolina. Yet I have sent more postcards to these states than are sent from the Grand Canyon in a given summer.  I have received no replies.  I have no proof that my postcards helped to swing a county, a state, let alone a single vote.  Yet again this election year, I will send identical postcards to hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters.

But does a single hand-written postcard from a stranger really help get out the vote?

I began postcarding in 2020, when the pandemic made mail-in ballots the key to a Biden victory.  The urgency of beating Trump and the novelty of massive mail-in voting made the job less tedious than I had expected.  Some cards were meant to be colorful, making them more time consuming but also more fun to write. And there was no shortage of grassroots groups offering postcard campaigns.  Swing Blue.  Swing Left.  Progressive Turnout Project.  Third Act. Reclaim Our Vote. . .

Once each big box of cards arrived by mail, I cleared off a table and began moving down a long, gray list of names, card-by-card.  Each took about 90 seconds, making my daily goal of 100 eat up much of an afternoon.  Wringing out my sore hand, plunging on, I wondered at all these names.  

What is Nick Doherty really like?  Is Lynne Smith, his neighbor on Birch Street, more progressive than Nick?  Is Birch Street, Titusville, FL 32780 as all-American as it sounds?  Will these people vote blue this year?  Will they vote at all?

Starting in July, continuing until October, my postcards flew fast and furious.  But not everyone postcards alone.  

Throughout America, groups meet for tea and talk, collectively pumping out hundreds of cards in an afternoon.  Even semi-social folks like myself often share the work by reaching out to friends, then turning a front porch into a pickup point for packets that include 50-100 cards, address sheets, stamps, and instructions.

As the 2020 campaign wore on, I decided to seek help.  I reached out to a dozen friends who began making regular pick-ups at my porch in Western Massachusetts.   With their help, my porch and pen were responsible for 2,000 cards in 2020, another thousand in 2022.  All I had to do was order the cards online, buy stamps (with money dropped in a jar on my porch) and stuff envelopes.

So does postcarding make a difference?  Several studies suggest it does.  Here’s one.

But even if postcards won’t make a long-time Republican voter swing blue, they are quick and efficient ways to tell hurried people A) where to get a mail-in ballot; B) what critical issues are at stake in their state; and C) that a total stranger and fellow American cares about democracy and cares about their vote.

Postcards are essential to grassroots workers because they foster the hope that simple actions, as basic as phone calls and cards, will ripple into county-wide, statewide, nationwide efforts.  We postcarders respond to the call to  – “think globally (or nationally), act locally.” And in this way the grassroots grow. 

Beyond the studies, postcarding definitely makes a difference to those of us who write them.  In 2020, terrified by the thought of a second Trump term, every one of my friends thanked me for inviting them to join the campaign.  All said they felt immensely better just for picking up a pen and sending hopeful messages beyond this blue state and into the distant Birch Streets of America.

So once again this year, I will take pen in hand.  I will clear the dining room table, put on some blues as background, and get to work.  My friends will, too, if they know what’s good for them. And yes, we will make a difference, to potential voters and to ourselves.

Dear Ms. Jones,

Every vote counts in VA. . .

_______________

Bruce Watson is the author of Freedom Summer, Sacco and Vanzetti, and Bread and Roses. His online magazine is The Attic -- for a kinder, cooler America.