Door Hangers for Democracy!

LWV La Crosse Area Voter Service Members Chris Haskell and Peter Nelson ran with an idea shared in a LWVUS webinar last fall about how to market nonpartisan voter information during COVID-19. Under their leadership, LWVLA produced voter information door hangers and distributed them in low socio-economic and low voter turnout districts in La Crosse before the November 3 election. Although it is difficult to prove cause and effect, there seemed to be correlation between neighborhoods they canvased and voter turnout in those areas, which inspired them to repeat the process this spring.

With the support of a local grant, LWVLA printed 5,000 hangers locally for the November election and have doubled that number to 10,000 for the April 6 election. Their get-out-the-vote slogan, “Vote for Your City, Your Schools,” emphasizes the importance of voter participation in local elections. Accordingly, their spring hangers will target south side districts with city council races on the ballot. Fifty distribution routes were mapped to split up the enormous work of covering all residences and volunteers have stepped up for door-to-door distribution of the hangers before early voting begins.

“The great thing about door hangers is that volunteers are happy to do something that gets out the vote while walking their community on their own schedule. It’s also a great effort to collaborate on with our partners," said Haskell.

If your League would like to learn more about LWVLA’s impactful “Door Hangers for Democracy” campaign, please contact Chris at cshaskell [at] gmail.com.