REACH OUT! THE ELECTIONS EDUCATOR NEWSLETTER 7/3/25
This week we discuss elections outreach and education news, rhetorical theory and strategy useful for engaging voters, and other resources helpful to election admins, 501(c)3s and GOTV volunteers!
INTRODUCTION
Hello everyone! Welcome to the 6th edition of REACH OUT! The Elections Educator Newsletter. I’m happy you’re here.
I’m happy I’m here. Last week in the middle of writing this, life threw a huge curve ball at my family. We had to rush my father to emergency surgery at the ER due to a possible brain bleed and definite eye swelling. The hospital we were at didn’t have the specialist needed so we then followed an ambulance ride to a secondary hospital through hours of bumper to bumper traffic for a potential second surgery in downtown Seattle. It has been a CRAZY week.
All that being said…what would have been last week’s issue is now this week’s issue. I appreciate your grace for there being an unexpected break in posting.
Keep reading for:
News stories from the past [two weeks] about election offices doing voter education and outreach work.
A mini-essay/crash course of my thoughts of applying rhetoric for elections communications
Highlighting research relevant to Elections Outreach rhetorical strategizing. Showcasing articles contributed to by Prof. Costas Panagopoulos (one of my favorite academic writers to cite from)
ANNOUNCEMENTS
I’m going to try switching my publication day to Thursdays. Having Wednesday be both my writing day AND my publishing day has made life a wee bit difficult.
Some good news on the building-a-resource-hub front. I’ve found an interactive spreadsheet application which is compatible for integration with my personal website hosting platform. We’re one step closer to having an easily searchable one-stop-shop for all election outreach and education resources! Huzzah!
Make sure to subscribe to the newsletter to get weekly inspiration for your voter engagement endeavors AND to stay up to date on when I get the REACH OUT! Resource Hub launched.
On to the content!
IN THE NEWS
OUTREACH
Black church leaders in Detroit are launching a new voter engagement campaign called "Lift Every Voice and Vote” as a nonpartisan initiative of the 501©3 National Black Empowerment Council - Tracy Samilton, 6/22/25
Note: I am EXCITED for this! What a phenomenal example of a community organization engaging those they serve to become community leaders and civically participate. Seriously, check out the initiative at their campaign website https://www.liftdetroit.org/
After lawsuit, about 200,000 North Carolinians to be contacted by North Carolina State Board of Elections through direct mail campaign in order to seek out missing voter identification information - By Christina A. Cassidy and Gary Robertson, 6/24/25
Winners of Lee County, FL, Supervisor of Elections Arts Vote contest announced - 6/24/25
Note: This is really cool! An original art contest that isn’t stickers!
Shasta County, CA, asks local voters to participate in survey about possibility of filming ballot ballot processing - By Joe Lanane & Annelise Pierce 6/24/25
Note: The purpose is “to help understand whether [the new Chief Election Official ]Curtis’ idea to “film everything” during ballot processing increases or decreases [voters’] sense of security in the election process.” Survey closes July 5th.
Help choose the 2025 Tompkins County “I Voted” and “Future Voter” stickers. -6/19/25
With stickers designed by k-12 students for the community to vote on, the contest closes July 4th. Cast your votes here.
7th Grader Olin Jepsen Recognized at Dallas County Supervisors Meeting for Winning Inaugural “I Voted Sticker” Competition - By Shi-Quan Nettingham, 6/18/25
Madeline Strain, Keshequa High senior, wins Livingston County ‘I Voted’ sticker design contest -6/19/25
EDUCATION
Guam Election Commission recommences its College Poll Worker Program on July 4, offering two-credit course Special Studies: Elections Administration -By Walter Ulloa, July 1, 2025
City of Northport, AL, to send out postcards with clarifying list of polling locations to residents -6/30/25
Denver County, CO, Elections gives press release specifically highlighting disability accessibility services offered to community on election day -By Ian Harper, 6/24/24
UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, for the Nonprofit Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, conducts poll, finds 70% of California voters want expanded language options for ballots beyond current options - by Phil Willon 6/23/25
RECOGNIZING ELECTIONS WORKERS
Note: The awards are for the Elections Security Enhancement Program; Voting Access at Your Library; Public Transit Partnership for Voter Access; and Your Neighbors, Your Elections.
Thurston County Elections is my neighboring partner county office and I love their team! They are rockstars and absolutely deserve the awards. Phenomenal work you guys!
Pasquotank County, NC, Board of Elections honors 45 poll workers and board members for service - By Kesha Williams, 6/18/25
Gary Brown honored by the Surry County, NC, Board of Commissioners for 50 years of service with the board of elections - By Ryan Kelly, 6/21/25
A MINI-ESSAY ABOUT RHETORIC AND ITS USEFULNESS TO OUTREACH ENDEAVORS
We are narrative and social beings. Our brains receive data input from the world then analyze subconsciously for patterns and connections to try to give meaning to what we experience in order to make sense of the world. Our ideas of how things work, our biases, and our ideologies are all narratives. Our ideas influence our actions. People with similar internal ideas tend to socialize together and make collective actions/decisions based on collective narratives they build together.
Rhetoric is a mechanic of social interaction. Rhetoric= persuasion.
Rhetorical theory is understanding and analyzing the who/what/when/where/why of how humans go about in all manner of communication types convincing other people (whether intentionally or not) to engage with and adopt a version of narratives which can impact behavior.
We convey ideas to other people, whether verbally, visually, physically, or with our written language. Studying rhetorical theory can help us comprehend why people choose to believe in certain facts and narratives but reject others. Then, we can build strategies for different communication mediums and alter our approaches to producing our message to have the best possible chance of being effectively persuasive for the rhetorical purpose and outcome we’d like.
There are so many applications of rhetorical theory to doing elections outreach. For some examples, rhetorical theory can inform the strategies you use for
how you set up your outreach booth tents to be visually interesting
what information you put up on a powerpoint for a presentation
adapting your non-verbal body language when speaking
word and emoji choices you use in social media posts
visual design choices like colors and sight lines for flyers/posters
textual content tone in direct mail and press releases
When it comes to rhetoric as an overarching system that you can analyze your outreach programming structure through, there are five parts of the theoretical system to keep in mind.
Rhetorical Communicator: Person doing the information sharing
Your Rhetorical Audience: Person(s) intended to receive and listen to your information
Your Rhetorical Purpose: Why the communicator is sharing information
Your Rhetorical Context: The format/forum in which the communicator is connecting with the audience
Rhetorical Strategies: specific actions you can take to format your information to make it more palatable to your audience to accept it
CONNECTING WITH IMPERFECT PEOPLE. IT’S OUR JOB!
Here are some standards to keep in the back of your mind as you are thinking about how your organization or group can cater your activities to your community’s communication needs.
Humans are inherently social creatures.
Focus on building relationship and being interested in a voter first. If they are comfortable with you, they’re more likely to consider you a trusted source of information, reliable, and someone they can got to for help if they need it.
We make decisions based on impulse emotions first, logic last. First impressions matter.
Focus on building relationship and being interested in a voter first. If they are comfortable with you, they’re more likely to consider listening to more complex information. Ease voters into learning and action-taking with positivity and familiarity. Negativity breeds contempt.
Our brains are efficient machines but biased in our thought processing. We inherently look for information that supports
information that we’ve heard before (even if it is incorrect)
pre-conceived notions (because it is less energy to re-write beliefs/re-learn world-views)
our feelings of security (even if the sense of security is grounded in a false belief or ideology that could result in unfair/hostile/othering of fellow humans)
the status of other humans (or groups) we aspire to be like and have already aligned our identity and sense of self worth with (we want what others have, and going against our aspirational figure is admitting our core values need some tlc)
The general public of Americans are not good readers. Whether due to educational system negligence the past 50 years, large swaths of learning or cognitive disability, disinterest, or other reasons- it doesn’t matter for the execution of your voter outreach. What matters is that you must be simple, concise, and plain with your voter materials. Use federal plain language guidelines for your written communications. Always.
54% of adults read below a 6th grade level (12 year olds)
1 out of every 5 adults read under a 3rd grade level (9 year olds)
It takes a lot of work for an individual to do the work to both recognize and overcome unintentional biases. It can sometimes be genuinely scary and a lot of cognitive effort to learn new information and then adapt it into our understanding of how the world works!
If and when people are ready to engage and learn, they will do so. When they are ready to jump on your call to action, they will take that step! I want to emphasize, however, that no matter how much we want to see the rates of election participation go up, no matter how pristine our rhetorical strategizing is, forcing voter behavior is not our job.
Our job is to lower as many barriers as possible so that voters don’t have to come to us searching and confused. Sometimes, a barrier is having contradictory notions to truth about the elections process based on mis-information that prevent a voter from successful process understanding and engagement.
Outreach and rhetoric go hand in hand. We go to community members directly- whether it be in person or through media they use- to communicate with strategies that gently work with the messy human brain. We empower voters to make their own informed decisions through providing the promise of correct information to be the foundation of their own idea building and provide support and encouragement for their civic engagement action taking at the ballot box.
And if they happen to follow through on a call to action we strategically were angling at the whole time (like registering to vote, updating their registration, or attending their correct polling place)? It’s the little wins on the individual scale that tally up to long term community change. Do a little happy dance.
RESEARCH ARTICLES APPLICABLE TO OUTREACH RHETORICAL STRATEGY- WORKS CONTRIBUTED TO BY COSTA PANAGOPOULOS, PHD.
Dr. Panagopoulos currently teaches at Northeastern University and is prolific in collaborating with other researchers and churning out quality co-authored content! I discovered him and his breadth of publications back in 2022 when I started out as a brand new Elections Outreach Specialist. He has no idea who I am, but I know who he is and I appreciate his contributions to elections science! Below are a some of my favorite co-authored papers.
Read through these research findings and consider how the main finding can be adapted into rhetorical strategies for your own outreach communication projects and in-person voter interactions.
Thank You for Voting: Gratitude Expression and Voter Mobilization (2011)
Main Finding: “thanking voters for voting in a previous election boosts participation levels in subsequent elections… the gratitude expression effect… appears to be distinct [different] from social pressure and is robust across subgroups of voters, including minorities and women, and both low- and high-propensity voters.
Main Finding: “English-language appeals were effective across the board for Latinos in our sample, whereas Spanish-language outreach was only effective among low-propensity voters and participants whose primary language was Spanish.”
takeaway: English is okay. But targeted language materials would be even better for lowering accessibility barriers for certain sub-demographics of the latino population. One size/mailer does not fit/support all.
best practice might be a mailer that is always bi-lingual if your region is already bilingual instead of sending multiple batches of mailers with different languages. May save money.
Life-cycle effects on social pressure to vote (2014)
Main Finding: The older voters get, the more susceptible they are to peer pressure.
Emma note: this explains A LOT when it comes to partisan constituent engagement with news sources, social groups, and information sharing. How can you leverage that ethically?
Social pressure, surveillance and community size: Evidence from field experiments on voter turnout (2011)
Insight from Available Abstract: “Citizens participate in elections, at least partly, because they perceive voting as a social norm. Norms induce compliance because individuals prefer to avoid enforcement mechanisms—including social sanctions—that can be activated by uncooperative behavior. Public visibility, or surveillance, increases the likelihood of norm-compliant behavior and applies social pressure that impels individuals to act.”
takeaway: use language that promotes participation as the positive social expectation to fit in to the community. Imply it’s what the majority of people do.
Main Finding: “I report the results of three field experiments… designed to test whether voters are more effectively mobilized by appeals that engender feelings of pride (for reinforcing or perpetuating social and cultural values or norms) or shame (for violating social and cultural values or norms). The experimental findings suggest shame may be more effective than pride on average, but this may depend on who the recipients are. Pride motivates compliance with voting norms only amongst high-propensity voters, while shame mobilizes both high- and low-propensity voters.
takeaway: taking pride in voting is not the messaging that will motivate inactive voters, presidential-only voters, and new voters to become active habitual voters. It does reinforce continuation of good voting habits already established, however.
Emma’s note: Shame rhetoric is a short term boost to participation but it makes voters distrust you more and decreases participation over time.
Social Pressure, Descriptive Norms, and Voter Mobilization (June 2013)
Main Finding: “subjects were randomly assigned to one of six conditions, in which they receive no mailing, a mailing with individual vote history only, a mailing with individual vote history and a message emphasizing high [or low] community-level turnout from a previous election, and a mailing emphasizing high [or low] community-level turnout only…We find that only messages that included information about subjects’ own voting histories effectively mobilized them to vote.”
“Friends-and-Neighbors” Mobilization: A Field Experimental Replication and Extension (2019)
Main Finding: localism cues in candidate mailers referencing collective County identity can stimulate voting in elections
Emma note: Could non-partisan references to collective county identity being civically engaged as the community norm boost turnout?
Quote: “place of residence as a social identity…localism cues operate much like party, race, and other heuristics in affecting voting behavior in part because voters maintain and value attachments to their places of residence and take these attachments into consideration when evaluating candidates and voter turnout.”
Street Fight: The Impact of a Street Sign Campaign on Voter Turnout (2008)
Main Finding: Nonpartisan get-out-the-vote street sign campaigns boosted voter turn out for polling place locations.
Stay safe and have a civically engaged 4th of July everyone! Don’t forget what we’re truly celebrating!
Thank you for joining me this week! I appreciate you all and the work you do throughout our nation and world. -EWM