WASHINGTON TURNOUT: Phones ringing off the hook!

Our partners in the field are working hard to get out the vote!

Washington CAN! and its partners just registered over 25,000 voters in Washington - many of which are young, low-income, people of color, and women.

Joshua Welter, Lead Organizer for Civic Engagement & Health Care with Washington CAN! says:

"Now when we're calling these new voters to remind them out to vote, our phone is ringing off the hook with folks calling us back. For several hours this weekend, we couldn't count to 20 seconds before our phone rang (seriously, we tried!).

Our phone was still ringing with folks calling us back as late as 10:30 pm on Saturday night. That's when we looked up the polling location of Irma Lopez, a 28 year-old first time voter.

They see our number on their caller ID and wonder why we're calling them so much. We tell them we're getting out the vote. We look up their polling location if they need it. 97.1% commit to vote or tell us they've already voted.

These new voters are under the radar of pollsters and political pundits. Many have given us their cell phones when they registered. Most political polls don't include cell phone users in their poll data.

If our rate of phone ringing is any judge, there will be a groundswell of voter participation from the grassroots. Watch out!"