“Get out the Vote” is Different for UFT Retirees

Get out the Vote (GOTV) is a cool idea. You figure out who might vote for you and not the other side. And you remind them to go vote. If they listen, +1 for you. If they don’t listen, 0. GOTV does not change peoples’ minds. It just cashes in votes that should be yours.

Figuring out who your voters has gotten harder. Once, Republicans would call Republicans, knock on their doors. Democrats would call Democrats, knock on their doors. Unions would call all their members. But think about it – randomly calling Democrats in Staten Island – how many are actually Republican voters? And calling Republicans in Fairfield County? You get a lot who vote for Democrats. Making a call and earning -1 is a bad deal.

So the clever people in the parties, and fancy consultants too, have figured out ways to rate voters, to ask about previous patterns, to dig deeper than the party label, and end up with call lists that are pretty reliable your voters, if you can get them to vote. By the way, there’s big money in being able to assemble and process that sort of data. What about people who have never voted before, or where the data is missing? Consultants and data folk can predict those, too. Young people overall vote more Democratic, but lean into demographics, state, race, income… and those lists are pretty good.

When the government tries to get everyone to vote, that’s lots of +1s and -1s, in general, a wash. Good government groups like that. But for partisans, that is not GOTV. GOTV is about collecting +1s.

Compared to the political parties, unions have it even harder. Can you set up a phone bank and call all your members and tell them to vote for Biden? I bet you motivate some to vote for Trump. Plus people don’t pick up their phones. I think union phone banks are just about done.

Anyway, that’s for political campaigns. This post is not about a political campaign. It is about the election in the Retired Teachers Chapter (RTC) in the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). Retiree Advocate / UFT, “the opposition,” is running a pretty good campaign. And Unity, the party that has controlled the union and the RTC for decades, stumbled. Badly. They messed around with Retiree healthcare.

Get out the Vote? GOTV? For Unity, this is a problem.

• The biggest issue is healthcare, and they can’t talk about it.
• Their natural group of voters are people who have always voted for Unity, and kept voting after news about Mulgrew’s secret negotiations to force retirees out of Medicare kept the news. This is a group that is not growing.
• They can’t campaign on personality.
• Achievements to campaign on? I don’t think so. There was one win for paras around pension, but no other victories for retirees in decades.

Instead, Unity is struggling to keep the vote they have. They have slipped badly from what used to be a huge advantage. Before the Medicare sell out-their margin was so big that they used to win 5:1 or 6:1. Even after Mulgrew and Murphy’s self-inflicted wound, they will still get a large number of votes. But they have lost a significant number of votes – some to non-voting, some to opposition. And they will never get those votes back. Anecdotes has Unity struggling to retain even those who voted for them in 2021. There is no new constituency for them to reach out to. Their major path to victory does not consist of a successful GOTV campaign – but maintaining the status quo, not losing current voters, and bringing back some of their lost voters.

And Retiree Advocate? The opposition?

Well, our task is different.

• Our base, our floor, those who always have voted for us – that’s a much smaller group. One or two rounds of emails or calls should get them all to vote.
• But recent converts? There’s a lot. Our vote jumped from 15% to 30%. Our recent converts, we need to get them out. GOTV. A campaign. A real campaign. A lot of one to one contacts and confirmations.
• New voters. This is cool. Someone who has never voted before, if they vote this time, it will be to vote against Mulgrew/Murphy. Between 70% and 90% of that vote is ours. And among recent retirees that number will be at the high end. And there’s implications…

How does Retiree Advocate / UFT win?

We could just say “GOTV” – but that misses an important detail – RA does not need to activate our voters – we need to activate all voters, any voters. Because if we activate 10 voters, and we get 7 of those votes (and that is very low), 7 – 3 = 4. That’s a +4 for us (or +0.4 per new voter). And I think it will be more like +0.6.

In the past, Retiree Advocate campaigners mostly targeted likely supporters. But this campaign, every retiree is a likely supporter (unless they actually have a Unity job), if we can just get them to vote.

Who do our campaigners need to reach? Everyone. Neighbors. People you are friendly with. People you are not friendly with. Cousins, in-laws, even those you don’t normally talk to. Former colleagues, including those you don’t normally talk to. Literally every UFT retiree you know.

Message can be detailed, but it can be simple:

• You have a chance to vote against Mulgrew’s people (red flag you’ve just convinced a few people) (for some people, saying Unity might work, but Mulgrew generates more anger, and I would rather only use the name of one slate – ours)
• You can vote for the people who want to keep Medicare (and against Mulgrew’s Medicare Advantage)
• We want you to be able to vote on important issues, like healthcare (but you have to vote for Retiree Advocate / UFT for that to happen)
• The ballot is coming in the mail – look for it – open it
• Vote for Retiree Advocate / UFT. Just check the box. And mail it in the same day.

Wonder if everyone who marched to extend the vote – actually still votes. I hope they do. The more who vote, the better the chances for change in the Retired Teachers Chapter.