Today’s tip is a two-for-one special involving GOTV (Get Out the Vote) strategy and the popular social networking site Twitter:

1. Every campaign should dispatch volunteer poll watchers to as many voting locations as possible (especially strategic ones). The poll watcher should note how long the lines are, writing down the names of voters and reporting back to campaign headquarters throughout Election Day. Campaign HQ monitors the reports from the poll watchers to see if turnout is high or low in the various precincts, checking off supporters’ names in the campaign database along the way. In this way, the GOTV operations director (whether he or she is the official campaign manager or someone else) has a 30,000 foot view of Election Day turnout and knows when and where to dispatch other volunteers helping with GOTV efforts. The traditional way of doing this is by phone at regular intervals during the day: morning, mid-day, and afternoon reports. This is where Part 2 of the tip comes in…

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