Vote Pledges and Why They Work

Over the weekend Michael wrote about the vote pledge and peer-to-peer program kick-off at the Young Democrats of America conference in Nashville. During the conference there was a lot of excitement about the program and I had great attendance at my trainings on using the internet to collect vote pledges. However, as Michael stated earlier, not everyone is sold on the idea of vote pledges, but I am going to show why they should be.

The concepts of peer-to-peer and vote pledges were developed after extensive research on marketing behavior and social psychology. Social psychologist Dr. Robert Cialdini from Arizona State University explains the power of commitment and consistency in Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion:

Once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment.

The process of a young person signing a pledge to vote for a Democrat in November is a commitment to take that action, and they will be much more likely to actually do so in order to be consistent: "Once a stand is taken, there is a natural tendency to behave in ways that are stubbornly consistent with the stand."

The power of word-of-mouth and peer-to-peer will lead young people to take the commitment of pledging to vote. The ability to use peer influence to encourage action in places where young people live and hangout, both on and off-line, enables the Young Democrats to reach a large number of potential young voters and have them take an action that dramatically increases the likelihood that they will vote in November and that their vote will be for Democrats.

The vote pledge itself provides a great deal of value. The Young Democrats are able to collect the information from those that sign the pledge in order to follow up and remind them of their commitment. With the difficulty finding good contact information for young voters due to increased mobility and exclusive use of cell phones, this data is extremely valuable.

During the YDA Conference state chapters and caucuses set goals for the number of vote pledges that their organizations will collect by the election. Research shows that groups are much more effective when they are seeking a specific goal as opposed to a vague or generic goal. Instead of just having the goal of YDA chapters being the very vague "increase youth turnout," they have a concrete goal of "collect X number of vote pledges." This combined with the strength of commitment and consistency explained earlier will result in a successful coordinated volunteer program across the country with metrics that will allow the organization to judge success.

Sold yet? Go to www.yda.org/votepledge and sign the pledge yourself, and don't forget to spread the word to your own social network encouraging them to do the same.