Philadelphians Against Santorum, a group independent of the Democratic City Committee, has over 200 unpaid volunteers working in over a hundred divisions to turnout new, young, and infrequent Philadelphia voters today. According to the first poll report of the day, volunteers are noting higher than usual turnout.

PAS volunteer JR King says, “The Judge of Elections I spoke to in the 30th Ward says they thought they’d be lucky to have as many voters all day as they have already had this morning.”

Full release after the jump.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
November 7, 2006

Philly Against Santorum Field Volunteers Report Higher than Usual Turnout

Philadelphians Against Santorum, a group independent of the Democratic City Committee, has over 200 unpaid volunteers working in over a hundred divisions to turnout new, young, and infrequent Philadelphia voters today. According to the first poll report of the day, volunteers are noting higher than usual turnout.

PAS volunteer JR King says, “The Judge of Elections I spoke to in the 30th Ward says they thought they’d be lucky to have as many voters all day as they have already had this morning.”

Study after study in recent years has proven the effectiveness of face-to-face contact in motivating infrequent voters to get out the polls. Alex Peltz, a PAS volunteer in Northern Liberties had already knocked on over 30 doors by the time he checked with HQ at 9 AM. “Not everyone likes having their door knocked on at 8 in the morning, but it works: we definitely have higher than usual voter turnout in this division because of the conversations I have had”

Despite the effectiveness of door knocking and neighbor-based personal contact, the city, state, and national Democratic party have done little to organize in-person door contacts with voters in Philadelphia.

“I’m tired of politics as usual in this city, which I why I got involved with Philly Against Santorum,” says Sherry LeFevre of Society Hill. “I wanted to help beat Santorum, but I wanted to do it on my terms: which is talking to as many people in my neighborhood as I can.”

PAS has organized four regional headquarters to dispatch volunteers to University City, center City, Mt. Airy, Germantown, Northern Liberties, Grays Ferry, Bella Vista, Queen Village and other neighborhoods to knock on doors and make phone calls to unlikely voters today.

Philadelphians Against Santorum members and volunteers will celebrate the success of their campiagn at a victory party tonight: 8:30 PM at Lucy’s Hat Shop, 247 Market in Old City.

PAS is a political action committee with six full-time staff and 7000 members. PAS is independent of the Democratic Party and the Casey campaign and has been funded by over 700 small local donors.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 7th, 2006 at 1:17 pm.