Summary of the steps necessary to set up your local Democratic Precinct Captains Program:
Build a Support Committee for your local Democratic Precinct Captains Program. Take this sign-up sheet everywhere you go, call friends, present the idea at Democratic clubs. You need at least a few people to get started: Someone good with data/computers, someone good at outreach to enlist Captains, and someone to follow-up with mailings of materials to new Captains.
Invite people to become more involved in our Party right in their own neighborhoods by becoming a Precinct Captain. Get a local official to write a letter of invitation to Democrats (sample attached).
Begin suggestions and information to each Precinct Captain. First, they must have a walking list. You can get paper copies at your County
Elections Dept. that have all voters. We customized our walking lists using MySQL and Access computer software programs
and the CD of voter data we get from the county elections dept. We are in the process of making all these web accessible for each
California county using software tools running on our new dedicated server.
This is a sample of the statistics on each precinct, which we now are able to derive from the CD of voter data we get from the County Elections Department. We provide these sheets in a packet to each new Precinct Captain. We analyze election data 4 times every election cycle to target:
- Precincts that have lots of Democrats but low turnout.
- Individual voters that need encouragement to make it to the polls.
Keep offering suggestions to Captains. Below is a sample "during election" letter to a Precinct Captain.
In Santa Cruz County, we set up a structure as a separate Club that is "smiled upon" by the Central Committee and the AD Committee, but not directly under them (to avoid some campaign finance law problems). Currently we do not spend over $1000 per year so we do not have to file FPPC paperwork.
Raise money to help support the program and other Democratic Party activities in your area. Create a flyer like this sample and use it
to solicit donations for Precinct Captains.