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LWVBC Member Actions in the 2020 Elections

Monica Elliott
President, LWVBC

For the 2020 Elections, LWVBC members have worked like never before to register voters, educate voters and get voters to the polls, even if the poll location was the voter’s home.  Our suffragist predecessors would have been proud.  We didn’t give up, even in the face of a global pandemic!

I want to thank all of our members and make sure you are all patting yourselves on the back for a job well done.  We should be very proud of our roles in helping Broward County vote!

While the LWVBC has always cooperated with other local, nonpartisan groups regarding voting, a special effort was made this year via the R.E.V. Coalition (R=Register, E=Education, V=Vote), which ultimately included the ACLU, the Voter Participation Project, Young Professionals Network and the Florida Voter Mobilization Project (FVMP), which includes the NAACP, Urban League, Devine 9 (black sororities and fraternities), black pastors and others.

Below is a brief summary of our actions, which actually started a year ago with Back to School Fairs in August 2019.  Please note, these aren’t final numbers, as people are still viewing forums, Facebook posts and Vote411!

• Membership: Just being a member of the League of Women Voters is an important action in itself!  Your action of joining means you are supporting the League at the national, state and local level, providing strength in numbers.  Not everyone has the time to do anything else but be a member, and that is perfectly acceptable.  We have added 59 new members since the beginning of 2020.  Thank you to all members for supporting the LWVBC!
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• Live Events for Voter Registration and Education were conducted prior to the Presidential Primary Election and the Covid-19 lock down in southern Florida. If there was a fair or a festival, we showed up – from the Plantation Art in the Park to the Miramar Multicultural Music Festival to the Sistrunk Festival to our last event, the Butterfly Festival.  We provided a trifold brochure on the 2020 elections (2,500 English and 1,000 Spanish) and postcards providing reasons to vote (2,000 English and 1,000 Spanish).  We also had 1,000 business cards asking people to check their voting status, with the three 2020 election dates and voter registration deadlines.

 

• 2,700 Postcards were sent to returning citizens (1,700) and the general public (1,000) encouraging them to register to vote. The postcard team added an encouraging message, addressed and stamped the cards.  Contacts were provided by the LWVFL.  The list of contacts for returning citizens were returning citizens who had been determined to have no outstanding fines or fees preventing them from registering.

 

• 35,000 Door Hangers were distributed, before the August primary election (10,000) and the general election (25,000), with 5,000 of the latter in Spanish and English. These were distributed door-to-door and at food distribution sites by our members and with lots of help from our partners:  Voter Participation Project, Florida Voter Mobilization Project and Young Professionals Network (group associated with the Urban League).  We were able to develop our own walk lists once we learned that, via the LWVFL, we could access State Voices’ database of registered voters in Broward County.  State Voices is a nonpartisan 501(c)3 organization.  We could efficiently use volunteer time by only going to houses with registered voters, and as time progressed, only houses with registered voter(s) who had not yet voted.

 

• The Speakers Bureau presented some version of our Decision 2020 PowerPoint 41 times to almost 800 attendees, via internet platforms such as Zoom. In many cases we acted as the Zoom host for the organization.  Presentations ranged from the full version to just the state amendments and county charter questions.  We made these presentation to diverse groups, from John Knox Village, who recorded the presentation for internal replay, to the Libertarian Party.  The presentation was recorded and is available on our Facebook page and YouTube channel.

 

• Candidate Forums: We held one live candidate forum in December 2019 for the public defender and state attorney races.  However, with the Covid-19 virus preventing large gatherings, the League switched to online forums using the Zoom format.  The League hosted 9 forums for county-wide candidates running in the August election and 7 forums for the general election (3 for county-wide offices and 4 for municipal commission offices).  The Zoom format allowed us to automatically record to our Facebook page, allowing people to either view the forums live or to view or review at a later date.  The county candidate forums were also livestreamed to the ACLU Facebook group page.  Partners in the forums included the ACLU, Young Professionals Network of the Urban League, Gwen S. Cherry Black Women Lawyers Association and West Ken Lark HOA.  Using this format, we reached 80,247 unique users on our Facebook page, resulting in 42,000 views and 26,780 engagements.  The recordings were also available on our YouTube channel.

 

• Vote 411.org Website: Our voters’ guide for the general election contains complete information from the top of the ballot to the bottom.  The state League obtains information for the state legislators (Senate and House) and Congressional candidates and inputs the information on the state constitution amendments. 
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• LWVBC entered and tracked 167 candidates just in Broward County for the November ballot:  16 county-wide candidates and 151 city candidates.  Also included were 2 county charter questions and 32 city questions, provided in 3 languages.  As of early October, 63% of countywide candidates responded to our questions.  Keep in mind that these candidates either won or did not have opponents in their primaries.  Regarding city elections, 53% of candidates participated by entering biographical information and this increased over time. 
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• This year we were pleased to post city candidate Climate Change Action Plans on VOTE411.  These were solicited by the Broward Climate Alliance of which the League is a member.  It was a great way to publicize candidates’ thoughts on the subject of climate change and to educate the public.

 

• Voter Guides: Probably the most important change in this election year concerned the newspaper-like version of the Florida LWV Voter Guide. We have normally requested thousands of copies that we distribute at our speaking engagements and the libraries.  Since none of the libraries were open to the public and our presentations were virtual, we only requested 1,000 English and 100 Spanish copies.  These were primarily given to voters when we participated in food distribution programs.  Instead, we had links to the Voter Guide, in both English and Spanish, on our website, along with a one-page summary of the state amendments and a summary of the county charter questions.

 

• Social Media Posts: 379 Facebook posts were made between June 1 and October 31, with the majority related to voting.  The total reach (unique users who had the post on their screen) was 204,326.  The number of engagements (comments, shares, etc.) was 10,539.

 

• Poll Workers, Watchers and Monitors: Members are doing all three, and I would love to know who is doing each of these activities.

 

• Texting and Phone Banking: Members are doing this also, and, again, I would love know who is doing each of these activities, be it with the League, other nonpartisan organizations or one of the parties.

 

• LWVBC Website: In October alone, our website received 17,257 visits for an average of 556 visits a day, with visitors looking at 1,340 pages a day. 
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• The most popular election-related pages:
• Broward County Charter Questions: 7,664
• Broward County General Election 2020 FAQs: 972
• LWVFL Amendments Summary: 656
• Vote-By-Mail in Broward County Step by Step Instructions: 442
• Candidate Responses to Broward Climate Alliance Question: 245
• Broward County Primary Election 2020 FAQs: 147
• Spanish Version of LWFL Voters Guide: 105

 

• WSFL-TV (the CW station in south Florida) reached out to the LWVBC and the LWV of Miami-Dade County, offering to develop Public Service Announcements in English, Spanish and Creole regarding voting and the availability of Vote411.org website. How could we refuse?!  These PSAs were running all day and night.  In addition, they had a “Vote 2020” page, with links to Vote411 and the LWVBC websites.  Their “Rebound” program regularly included interviews with a League member about the voting process and important dates.

 

• Newspapers: Two Viewpoint articles in Sun Sentinel and one informative article in The Westside Gazette

 

• Phone Inquiries to our Google Voice number and Email Inquiries to our Gmail address were handled in an efficient and timely manner.

 

• Canvassing Board Meetings: These were monitored for the August primary election (videos and minutes were downloaded to external hard drive).  For the November general election, they are being monitored and will continue to be monitored until the election is officially over for Florida.  Again, audios, videos and minutes are downloaded to external hard drive.

 

• Campaign Skills Webinar: A Primer for Local Candidates, which dealt with campaign ethics and legal requirements for municipal candidates. This was hosted by Weiss Serota Helfman Cole + Bierman and co-sponsored by LWVBC and Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust.  The webinar is available on our YouTube channel.