Most campaigns use phones as an afterthought.  Candidates at times have money unspent at the end of a campaign and occasionally no one is sure who is winning, it is too late to do another mailing, all the radio and TV that can be bought is up, so someone will say, “Let’s put out robo calls.”  (A call placed by a dialing computer using the prerecorded voice of the candidate or someone of note asking for the voter’s support and reminding them to vote.) 

Unfortunately, five other campaigns did the same thing, and some even left a message on an answering machine and called back again to get a live body.  Not only did the phone call annoy the voters—it actually had no effect.  Studies have shown that type of call does not increase turnout of favorable voters nor does it persuade undecided voters to pick a side.  The campaign almost certainly wasted the money.  Even at the end, other approaches are better.  For more information read, Green, Donald P. and Gerber, Alan S. Get Out the Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout. Brookings Institution Press: 2004.   

On a scale, the best kind of phone call is from someone the voter knows who calls in person to talk about a candidate they know a lot about, enough to answer questions and give assurances; next would be someone from the community, someone like the voter, with a tightly worded message and a well briefed background and supervisors who could answer tough questions.  Included in this are callers from unions or other organizations calling their members to tell them who the preferred candidate is from their perspective.  Then there are trained paid phone banks with callers who have accents like local voters who call from a script and are monitored by supervisors and the campaign staff.  Lastly there is everything else including prerecorded robo calls.

The best way to use phones is to plan for it early and use the program to get information, send voters a message, ask them to do something, or remind them to vote.  Early in the campaign, calls can be made by the senior volunteers and staff to lists of known voters, perhaps identified favorables from a past campaign, party workers and friends of the candidate, to ask them to volunteer in the campaign, do a house party, put up a yard sign, come to an event or donate money.  Follow up calls can be made to favorable people to sign nominating petitions or to register members of a household to vote.  Favorable voters who may need absentee ballot applications can be called to help them vote; in tight campaigns, this can be an extensive program.  Occasionally, even robo calls can be used early to get out specific targeted information or rebut an attack quickly.

Later a program to ID all potential voters can be started to find out who is favorable or leaning to each candidate, how strong that feeling is and which voters are genuinely undecided.  In each instance, you will want to know why so you can do something about it in a call or in the direct mail program, possibly even in the TV and radio campaign.  You can make targeted issue persuasion calls to soft opposition and undecided voters, with follow up re-identification calls.  And last, you can call the favorable voters to remind them to vote and help they get to the polls.  Remember, live bodies are best, the closer to the voter the better, and the information is tracked on the targeted voter files.

Candidates in reasonably contested communities should make sure that their voter file is annotated all along the way with information not only to maximize the persuasion campaign and turnout of favorable voters, but also to be saved for the next campaign.  When running for reelection or for higher office calling a favorable voter from a previous campaign that was contested can be very valuable in building a new organization.  Direct mail fundraising to previously IDed favorables is much more efficient, especially if it is matched against other people’s donor lists, and a must in communities with matching funds programs.    

Targeting is the best way to approach any type of phoning.  In many areas, blind pulling party members is often ill advised.  Check your polling, usually IDing voters first and pulling a smaller list is advised.  

If voters are called infrequently, purposely and targeted there will be more favorables, and your turnout will be higher.