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Hi there,

We have exciting news! After many months of analysis, we have results to share from our 2022 letter writing campaigns.

These results build on our extensive track record of letter writing experimentation, going all the way back to our very first randomized controlled trial, which Vote Forward’s founder, Scott Forman, conducted from his kitchen table in 2017!

We’ve now tested the effectiveness of Vote Forward letters on voter turnout more than 20 times through multiple RCTs over the past six years, and measured a positive impact nearly every time. And we’re really encouraged by the positive results we saw in our experiments from 2022:

- In partnership with the DNC, we saw that voter registration letters showed a positive impact on registration over and above several waves of direct mail, resulting in a 0.4pp increase in registration rate. Moving the needle on voter registration is notoriously difficult, and this is the first time we’re seeing solid evidence of the effect of Vote Forward’s handwritten letters on voter registration—so we’re encouraged and excited to explore voter registration further in 2024!
- In partnership with Stand Up America, we saw evidence to suggest that letters that provided nonpartisan information contrasting Nevada’s Secretary of State candidates increased overall turnout by 0.5pp and boosted the margin for the Democratic candidate by 0.4pp. These letters, which included information on elections and voting as well as the candidate contrast, also appeared to increase the vote share for the Democratic candidate in the top-of-ticket Senate race.
- Including voting-themed items inside an envelope along with GOTV letters was associated with a 0.6-0.7pp increase in turnout. This was a small study, so we’re looking forward to learning more before we scale this up.
- Climate-focused GOTV messages appeared to impact voter turnout slightly more than standard messages; we observed a 0.2pp increase in turnout associated with climate messaging. We tested issue-focused messaging again in 2023 and expect to share those results early next year.
- Letters that included a link to a candidate guide raised turnout among voters of color by 0.6pp in Wisconsin’s 2023 Supreme Court election.

If you’d like to learn more details about these experiments, [check out this recording from last night’s Data & Research webinar]([link removed])!

[Watch the webinar]([link removed])

Our team’s big takeaway from these results is that being more innovative with letter writing matters a lot! We’re seeing the most promising results with our more targeted sends and more novel campaign designs, and we’re already adapting our plans for future campaigns based on what we’ve learned.

We experiment so that we can gather more data, evaluate our programs and tactics, and work to make our collective effort more effective and more impactful. Generous donations from this community make it possible for us to execute our ambitious research agenda and do the year-round work that goes into designing these campaigns, analyzing results, and implementing findings into future campaigns.

[If you can, consider supporting our continued efforts to improve our letter writing campaigns and increase voter turnout by making a contribution to Vote Forward!]([link removed])

[Support this work]([link removed])

With all of these new learnings, we’ll be launching more experiments and testing even more in 2024. We don’t have specifics to share quite yet, but we’ll be back in touch early next year with details.

More soon!

Emily Wasserman and Phong Le
Data & Research Team
Vote Forward

 

 

 

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