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Friday May 16, 2008

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Past Event

A Governance Studies Event

Get Out the Vote: Understanding Voter Mobilization

U.S. Politics, Campaigns, Elections, Voter Turnout

Event Summary

The Brookings Institution Press hosted a discussion of voter mobilization based on the findings of the book Get Out the Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout, Second edition. Since the publication of the first edition of this book, more than 100 new studies have been conducted in real electoral settings across the United States. Co-authors Donald P. Green and Alan S. Gerber summarized the latest findings and explained how they affect organizing the grass roots and getting out the vote.

Event Information

When

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Where

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Directions

Contact: Brookings Office of Communications

E-mail: events@brookings.edu

Phone: 202.797.6105

The event shed new light on the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of campaign tactics—door-to-door canvassing, e-mail, direct mail and telephone calls—as well as tactics that were not discussed in the first edition, such as Election Day festivals and radio and television ads. Professors Green and Gerber examined the challenge of voter mobilization and the effectiveness of mass media campaigns and events. Their analysis questions much of the conventional wisdom about what works and what does not in political campaigns.

More information about Get Out the Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout, Second edition >>

Transcript

MR. GERBER: The basic question that Don and I have been attempting to address is a very simple one but also a very subtle one which is, How do you know what works? People will make many causal claims, but it's obviously extremely difficult to verify the accuracy of those claims. In geek language, if a movement in X causes an observed change in Y, how do you know if a movement in X causes the observed change in Y? Your volunteers knocked on a thousand doors before the election and turnout in your town reached a record level. Your candidate gave a great speech. Your candidate won. Your candidate had a great ad. Your candidate won. Your candidate had an ad and lost. Did the ad win? Did the ad lose? It's very hard to know. But it's easy to fool yourself into thinking that you do know.

Participants

Introduction and Moderator

Thomas E. Mann

Senior Fellow, Governance Studies

Featured Speakers

David M. Carney

Principal, Norway Hill Associates

Donald P. Green

Co-author of Get Out the Vote, Director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University

Alan S. Gerber

Co-author of Get Out the Vote, Director of the Center for the Study of American Politics at Yale University

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