Thousands of letters from San Luis Obispo County Democratic Party voters flooded the United States Post Office on Dalidio Drive on Oct. 15.
Their aim: to wash sporadic voters in key swing states in a wave of awareness about voting for Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race against former President Donald Trump.
“The whole purpose of the letters are targeted specifically toward voters that don’t always vote,” Swing Left SLO leader Patrick Dill said. “So, they have a history of voting, but they don’t always vote. We’re trying to get these occasional voters to actually show up and vote that year.”
Swing Left is a national informational resource platform launched after Trump became president. The website allowed people to find their nearest congressional swing district. Dill joined the SLO County chapter in 2020 and witnessed a mass letter-writing effort then too.
In the lead-up to the 2020 presidential race, he said, people around the country mailed up to 20 million letters through the nonprofit Vote Forward. This year, voters have sent out more than 8 million letters so far. SLO County’s bounty included more than 16,000 missives from the Progressive Women’s Forum, more than 8,500 letters from El Morro Democratic Club, upward of 5,000 messages from the South County Democratic Club, and more than 2,000 letters from the Atascadero Democratic Club.
Letter-writing volunteers access a pre-printed template from Vote Forward, Dill added.
“At the very top of the letter, it’ll say, ‘I vote because …’, or ‘I want you to vote because …’, or ‘I’m encouraging you to vote because …’, and it requires the volunteer to write one or two sentences about why it is important to them,” he said. “Then at the bottom, the letter tells you where you can vote, how you can register to vote, and all the things that are local to the voter that we’re writing to.”
The letters are mailed to “occasional voters” in swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Montana. Any party can use Vote Forward to send letters focusing on mobilizing potential voters. The templates can still be accessed through votefwd.org and mailed until Oct. 29 to voters in other states.
Dill said he isn’t aware of whether the local Republican Party was organizing a letter-writing campaign. Republican Party of SLO Chair Randall Jordan didn’t respond to New Times‘ request for comment by press time.
For Nipomo resident Linda Brody, writing the letters not only fulfilled a civic duty for her but also presented a social event.
“Many people are concerned about democracy moving forward in our government,” she said. “I believe that so many people just wanted to do something to help. … Writing letters to get out the vote felt like a very easy thing to do, so I reached out to many of my friends and neighbors.”
Together, the group of 35 has written roughly 4,000 letters since early summer. Brody—a lifelong Democrat who hasn’t missed voting in an election since she came of age—said she felt renewed energy when President Joe Biden stepped aside from running again for president.
An unusual amount of divisiveness makes this election cycle different, according to Brody.
“People want to do something, and they want their voice heard. I think this year is certainly unique,” she said. “We’re all a group of older, retired folks. We’re concerned for our children, for our grandchildren. We want hope for the future.” Δ
This article appears in Oct 17-27, 2024.