I got Voicemail. That’s a GOOD thing. Phone anxiety go fuck yourself.
5calls.org/issue/national-vote-by-mail-2020
This site doesn’t JUST have you call about voting booths! You can ALSO call about other things:
- Police on school campus!
- Investigating the new Postmaster General, who has no experience and a whole bunch of money in USPS competitors!
- Coronavirus relief!
- Kids going back to school during coronavirus!
- Police brutality!
On the left, put in your location. That’ll tell you what phone numbers to call and their names.
Choose an issue. On the right, information about that issue will appear, including who’s involved, bills about the issue, and some background. It’s short and to the point, a brief summary. Read up!
Write a short script. Condense it. Needs to fit on a post-it note, spoken needs to be coherent and about 1 minute 30 seconds or less.
Include: Your name, Zip code or city (to tell the rep that you’re their constituent). Hello, (Rep Name. Use their title: ex. Congresswoman Castor.)
Please support (bill name/number or cause)
or
Please investigate (person because)
Short anecdote time! This is your “elevator pitch”- an elevator pitch is a marketing speech that can be given in the time someone in on the elevator with you, a holdover from the 60s. We’re talking like 30 seconds of that 1:30 of the message. This is about how the message affects YOU or a close friend. I tailour mine to what each party tends to focus on- what each party values more, responds to more.
This sometimes requires you listening to people you might not like, people you probably have on your block list.
For example, when I call Republicans, I focus on family, my grandparents, children, savings, hard work, Christianity.
When I call Democrats, I focus on small businesses, whistles for racial equality, regulations, investigating corruption, fairness.
BOTH OF THESE SIDES ARE TRUE. I actually do have friends and relatives across the country that I will no longer be able to send birthday cards, Easter cards, Christmas presents, etc. if we have to use UPS or FedEx. It costs way too much, even for just a card. Some of these people are 70+ years old. They get little contact in rural, depopulated areas. Do Republicans just fucking hate old people and Christmas? Because that’s what the fuck this looks like. I actually do have an Etsy shop that is getting packages returned, lost, not scanned, routed around the whole ass country before being delivered two cities away, delivered to the wrong address, etc. and guess what? I have to give refunds for lost and broken shit! Some of these things are very expensive! I might have $0 in profits at the end of the month- I ran a low profit shop to begin with because I catered to low income and disabled people before factories started competing with me! If USPS fails, guess what? I can’t just “convert” to UPS. People won’t be able to pay that.
In the end, the whole speech on ONE TOPIC AND ONE TOPIC ONLY should be ~1:30. It should fit on a post-it note. You can type it in Word if you need a larger font, or if you have a difficult time speaking. If you need a speech reader, tell the voicemail that FIRST so it doesn’t get deleted, or get someone else to read for you. You can email a friend to read the script.
CALL AGAIN on a seperate topic! You can call as many times as you want, but keep each topic seperate!
