Voters Writing to Voters

A Reason to Believe

By Robbin Warner – Co-Founder, Postcards4VA

Election after election grassroots activists pour their heart and hope into writing postcards and letters to voters asking them to vote…and it works. 

According to political scientists Donald Green and Alan Gerber, authors of Get Out the Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout, “handwritten postcards generated an average of one vote per seventy-one postcards.”

Voters often throw glossy campaign flyers directly into the trash, but they will look at and save a handwritten postcard. Lisa Corn of Downtown Nasty Women was canvassing in NY 3 for candidate Tom Suozzi when a person she met at the door showed her the postcard he received. Julie Stern was working at the polls on Election Day when a woman arrived with a postcard Julie recognized from her Vienna Postcard Group. 

Postcard writing grew as a grassroots tactic after the 2016 election of Trump. Shocked and feeling compelled to do something, newly-minted activists over 50, mostly women but some men, wanted a way to get involved. Uninterested in the traditional political volunteer offerings of canvassing or phone calling, these concerned citizens found an activity that worked for them: handwriting postcards to voters. 

Letter writing has a long tradition in women’s history. In fact, much of what we know about women’s history comes from it being chronicled in letters. What is new about this grassroots tactic is how it is forging a conversation between voters. These are cards handwritten by one voter to another voter.

This purposely tactile and old-fashioned approach brings an authentic voice in a time when communication is impersonal, not curated, and unrelenting. 

Postcard writers should be a prized asset for all campaign managers. They use their own money to purchase postcards and stamps (whose price has gone up 41% since 2017). They are willing to write year-round. And they recruit friends and family. 

And yet, postcard writing was seen as the bottom of the engagement ladder when it began in 2017. Campaigns tried to get these writers to canvas or phone bank instead. It didn’t work. These are not volunteers to push and mold as a campaign sees fit. Postcard writers like to write. Most would not be involved in campaigns without postcarding.

Some do get invested in a candidate and want to do more after they mail their cards. For example, volunteers with Postcards & Politics expanded their involvement to include working at the polls, canvassing and serving on the local Democratic committees, all because of their initial involvement in postcarding. 

The power of postcards and their writers is finally getting the recognition it deserves. This recognition goes beyond the sheer volume of postcards being sent -- millions per election year. Candidates and campaign staff are acknowledging and appreciating the skill, dedication, and determination postcards bring to a campaign. 

Virginia State Senator Danica Roem, an early adopter of grassroots postcards, looks at these handwritten cards as having a very special purpose in today’s contentious political climate: “They give voters a reason to believe.”

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Robbin Warner is one of the badass women of Network NOVA, producer/director of the Friday Power Lunch, event coordinator of the annual Women’s Summit, and Co-Founder of Postcards4VA.