Scott Powers
Fresh off a primary election that was overshadowed by the beginnings of a coronavirus stay-at-home ethos, national and Florida Democratic Party leaders plan to send text messages more than 1 million Florida voters encouraging them to sign up for vote-by-mail.
The already rising trend of vote-by-mail could be supercharged by everyone’s experiences this spring with the need to avoid going out and avoid crowds as the COVID-19 pandemic takes hold in Florida. Florida Democrats contend they have long invested in boosting vote-by-mail and see it now as increasingly important, including a $1 million program in 2018 that encouraged 578,000 new Democratic voters to vote remotely.
This week, the Florida Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee are partnering to launch what they vow will be a massive texting campaign to encourage Floridians to register to vote-by-mail. Hundreds of volunteers will text over 1 million Florida voters asking them to vote-by-mail in the upcoming election.
The party also touted its efforts to build up a new campaign infrastructure adapting to function digitally. The DNC states that it bought tens of millions of cellphone numbers across the country, in cluing in Florida, in January, to improve voter contact.
The Florida Democratic Party contends it already has registered 54,000 voters this cycle and completed 45,000 volunteer shifts.
“We need to modernize our voting systems to protect voters, and our partnership with the DNC to enroll Floridians in vote-by-mail does just that,” FDB Executive Director Juan Peñalosa stated in a news release.
“The DNC is proud to partner with the Florida Democratic Party and state parties across the country to implement innovative tactics like this one that allow us to continue communicating with voters during this time,” David Bergstein, DNC Battleground state communications director, stated in the release. “Some of our methods have changed, but our work to defeat Trump and help Democrats win at every level is advancing strongly.”
