The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated weaknesses present in democracies across the world. Freedom House reported that the condition of democracy and human rights has worsened in 80 countries, much of it tied to disinformation and a distrust in the national government. In America this can be best illustrated by polarization of the news cycles; a Pew Poll found that 47% of conservatives surveyed used Fox News as their main source of information and are more likely to hear political opinions similar to their own on Facebook. Beyond the data compiled by researchers, issues of ideological and polarizing bubbles can be seen on the ground in one MA State Senate race and ballot question respectively.
For my events in Democratic Participation, I attended a remote phonebanking session for a Democratic State Senator race followed by phonebanking for a state ballot question. Studies have shown that in-person canvassing increases voter turnout by about 7 percentage points because it allows for real, educational, and persuasive conversations. Particularly on more local races the role of a canvasser is often civic education of relevant local, state and national issues. Beyond town-halls held by the candidate themselves, in-person canvassing is the one consistent area for citizens to have a political dialogue; this is especially the case when a list includes unenrolled/independent voters, or concern less partisan matters such as political primaries or ballot questions (such as the one I was working on). Canvassers tend to have information of a potential voter’s age, size of the family, party registration, and even frequency of voting that allow canvassers in order to tailor effective dialogue to them. These in-person conversations allow canvassers to hear concerns from the voter themselves, and report back to the campaign who (scale of the race depending) have the ability to adjust policies to fit the need, just as a democracy should be!
Social distance has forced most campaigns to forgo in-person canvassing in lieu of phonebanking; the same study cited about phonecalls only increased voter-turnout by 2.6 percentage points. Already less personal and less effective, these particular phonebanks made use of a auto-dialer, a system that automatically connects you to answering numbers taken from information on a list to emphasize the speed-in-between calls. This focus on speed and numbers was emphasized in our encouragement speech by the organizers who told us to broadly discuss the values and try not to engage too much with naysayers. For the candidate phonebank, this meant conversations mostly with registered Democrats reminding them to vote and how to do so. The ballot question we were similarly told to explain briefly, and ultimately direct potential voters to the website for greater clarity if we could get them interested enough. An already selective campaign process was becoming less conversational, and more about getting lucky or finding people already engaged on party lines in particular for State Senator.
For the ballot question that is non-partisan, those who answered the phones still tended to do so on partisan lines with some conservatives I called refusing outright because it was endorsed by the Massachusetts Democrats (a case that happened a few times in our phonebanking chat). Even those who supported or were unsure were never on the phone for too long; the autodialer noted that the average length of my phonecalls were about 41.4 seconds in between the hangups, refusals, and those who simply didn’t want to call for long.
While many campaigns are wisely forgoing in-person canvassing in favor of contactless “lit drops” (“lit” standing for campaign literature; postcards, door hangers, etc.) and phone calls to minimize the risk of COVID-19, the decline in conversations and meaningful consumption of news is troubling. In Svolik’s Polarization Versus Democracy observes that “When faced with a choice that pits democratic principles against partisan interests, voters appear to be willing to trade off the former for the latter” in finding that voters were more lenient to candidates with anti-democratic values so as long as those views aligned with their own. Neuroscientists have confirmed that people are more likely to change their political opinions when viewing only conflicting reasons or both sides of an issue, while also finding those whose position on a particular stance did not change their opinion tended to become more confident in their previous assertions, polarization as we might call it. Without meaningful access to alternative information, the ability to converse and share ideas, and the ability to trust information different than your baseline opinion (which in this case is a particular issue with conservatives), the less people are to discuss and be properly informed to defend against democratic erosion. The less conversations the greater the divide occurs, with ultimately the growing majority people who can vote and choose not to. This divide can be seen within parties as well, particularly with Massachusetts which is known for long-term incumbents and stagnant primary elections and it’s still an issue even when a particular state is solidly Democratic or Republican.
There is some hope for our democracy and political canvassers, and that’s the revitalization of digital campaigning. Within the phonebanks I attended, the attitude was positive and communication amongst fellow supporters frequent. Many reporters in campaigns cite the historic victory by Senator Ed Markey in 2018 that relied heavily on relational digital campaigns (including its own Marvel-style political universe titled The MarkeyVerse) lead by youth and completely ditching in person-canvassing. The principles behind meeting voters where they are at with an emphasis on personal and conversational (rather than systematic and quick) methods will prove vital to the survival of candidates/ballot questions and democracy as we know it; a healthy democracy after all is an active citizenship that can both come together across ideological spectrums and be able to question those in power. The issues of distance and communication around COVID-19 has certainly exacerbated the current issues of partisanship within politics, with some creative methods it could be kick-starter towards the greater engagement of the voter-population and a new resistance against a growing, divisive hyper-partisanship.
Sources Cited:
Amy Mitchell, Jeffrey Gottfried. “Political Polarization & Media Habits.” Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project, 28 Aug. 2020,
www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/political-polarization-media-habits/.
Gerber, Alan S., and Donald P. Green. “The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout: A Field Experiment.” American Political Science Review, vol. 94, no. 3, 2000, pp. 653–663., doi:10.2307/2585837.
“NEW REPORT: Democracy under Lockdown – The Impact of COVID-19 on Global Freedom.” Freedom House, 2 Oct. 2020, freedomhouse.org/article/new-report-democracy-under-lockdown-impact-covid-19-global-freedom.
Rodrigo, Chris Mills. “’Markeyverse’ of Online Fans Helps Take down a Kennedy.” TheHill, The Hill, 5 Sept. 2020, thehill.com/homenews/campaign/515229-markeyverse-of-online-fans-helps-take-down-a-kennedy.
Stanley, M.L., Henne, P., Yang, B.W. et al. Resistance to Position Change, Motivated Reasoning, and Polarization. Polit Behav 42, 891–913 (2020).
Svolik, Milan W. 2019. “Polarization Versus Democracy.” Journal of Democracy 30(3): pp. 20-32.
Hi Lukas,
I enjoyed reading your piece, as it gave good insight into the ins and outs of phone banking and canvasing. You addressed a lot of the concerns that many people have had regarding the effectiveness of phone-banking over canvasing. It is unfortunate that during such an important election we are unable to create that in person dialogue between canvassers and constituents. It was also disappointing to read that phone-banking only increased voter turnout 2.6 precent. While that is certainly better than nothing, it could be better. While it may not ideal right now to be relying on phone banking, I wonder how it could change how canvasing occurs in future elections. With people working different hours and being less and less likely to want to entertain visitors at home, it seems likely that phone-banking and contactless methods will become more likely. It will certainly be interesting to see how it all plays out.
Hey Emma, thanks for the kind words! As to your point about how it could change, I would definitely agree that many of the issues we’re seeing are generational and political alike. Because the people that are mostly likely to vote and have voted (and thus be on lists for campaigns to find) will be older voters, who alternatively will be much less familiar with contactless methods beyond phone. I suppose once generations close to ours become “the older ones”, remote campaigning might have greater effect. But this too depends on the status of where and to what diversity of news sources we’ll be getting our information from; it’s the transitions in between these periods that will be most tricky
I really enjoyed reading this blog post. I do think the pandemic has forced us to re-adjust so many norms and has had a huge effect on the way political campaigns are strategizing and campaigning. Having political conversations with new and different people/ perspectives is a great way to build knowledge and when that is not available, it is hard to find an appropriate substitute. This is the first presidential election that I have been able to vote in so I don’t have any past experience to compare it to but my parents have said that they have received more political calls and texts this election than in the past. This could be due to improved technology but I think it also has a lot to do with the corona virus. Some of the adaptations are going to improve the interactions that people have with politics in their area. For example, I got a call over the summer to join a state wide meeting with our state representatives. There were people from all over the sate of Colorado listening in on that meeting.
What I wonder is, are there ways to effectively reach more people virtually without calling their phones or sending out text messages that people are just going to ignore? Are online town halls a good supplement because more people might be able to attend from their house?
Hey Greta, glad you enjoyed the article and wowza what a time to formally enter politics! I think a big question that arises from your comment is reach “who”, because I think online town halls can be a good supplement; but only for those who are tech savvy enough to use it and passionate enough to care voluntarily join (it’s a lot harder to ignore a person knocking on your door, or even a text message or phonecall at times). Now these sort of “come if you’d like” methods with virtual town-halls can be great for candidates with a large enough base to begin with (or even gathering of volunteers to make calls/texts), but will be a lot trickier for less entrenched challengers looking to cut into existing voter blocs. My real question to add to your own is, are there virtual methods that can drastically increase the reach to non-voters and/or untapped demographics of likely voters, or is it doomed to only to attract those already sort of interested? A method that is able to figure out that equation would be quite the delight!