Anecdote. Just an everyday conversation.

[Divernan]

4. I gave voter registration forms & a sheet of basic info on Bernie

to the young (to me anyway) 36 yr. old guy who led a team of guys replacing the insulation in my attic this week. I led into that part of our conversation by saying I worked as the local judge of elections and I knew that most people were not registered to vote but there was a candidate I was very impressed with and I'd appreciate it if he'd consider voting for him. The guy said, a little sheepishly that no, he'd never registered. I gave him 2 mail-in forms - one for him & one for his wife and one sheet I'd printed out re Bernie. I explained that they'd get voter ID cards from the county in about 4 weeks, and the very first time they went to their polling place, they'd need photo ID, but after that it would just be a matter of an election team matching their signatures. I started to tell him how to find out where his polling place was and he said, with some enthusiasm, that he knew where he'd go to vote - the polling place was at his son's school. (We'd also had a bit of conversation about travel to Alaska - I've been and he really wants to go, so I gave him printouts about the Alaska state ferry system. In other words, good personal rapport.) He'd never heard of Bernie Sanders before, but now he has, and I hope he'll be receptive to learning more.
In my decades of working on campaigns and going door to door canvassing and handing out materials and answering questions, I learned that
people really appreciate being personally & individually asked for their votes by the candidate or one of the candidate's supporters.

I've lived at my home for 33 years, and the lazy ass local Democratic committee man & woman (husband & wife) have NEVER gone door to door for any candidate, contacted people who have just moved in to get them to register, handed out materials at the polls on election day, or distributed/placed yard signs, or worked on phone banks. All they do is go to election night parties and the annual county and state Democratic conventions/gatherings. That is par for the course in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania (i.e., Pittsburgh & suburbs).