SEIU Will Deploy A Huge GOTV Effort Tomorrow- From Nov 1st

With the final polls ahead of the mid-term elections revealing races across Illinois coming down to the wire, voter turnout on Election Day may prove the difference between tight victories or narrow defeats for many candidates. To push Democrats up and down the ticket into the win column, the Service Employees International Union has organized what Jerry Morrison, the director of the Illinois SEIU State Council (which sponsors this website), described as a "record GOTV operation" for November 2.

In an email, Morrison wrote that SEIU will deploy at least 3,200 members and staff on the streets tomorrow, working to get registered voters to the polls. The team will primarily canvass Chicago's South and West Side neighborhoods, but will also reach out to voters in suburban Cook County and several downstate locations; more than 20 satellite offices are open right now. Morrison wrote that tomorrow's GOTV effort will more than triple the union's numbers from 2006, when around 1,000 members and staffers worked Election Day. (In 2008, most of SEIU's field operations shifted to Indiana to help President Barack Obama win the Hoosier state.)

Morrison wrote the GOTV team plans to deliver at least one phone call, one text message, and two door knocks to approximately 350,000 voters, including those who came out for the first time to vote for Obama. The group's "Hate vs. Hope" messaging will be used throughout. Asked how SEIU would measure the push, Morrison wrote that, "Our GOTV effort only has one metric and that is winning."