Election Day · Tuesday, November 3

Be the reason they vote

A text from a campaign is easy to ignore. A text from you isn't.

Start with your own plan to vote: where, when and how. Then pick five friends or family members and send each of them a plan made for them, with their polling place, the hours and a reminder on their phone. It takes a few minutes per person, and it might be the reason they show up.

Early voting is already open in many states.

Start here

Relational organizing

People listen to people they know

Campaigns spend months calling and knocking on the doors of strangers. Most people don't pick up, and the ones who do have little reason to trust the caller. Relational organizing works the other way. People who care about voting reach out to their own friends and family with a specific ask.

It works for reasons anyone would recognize. You answer when your sister texts. You trust a friend's advice more than a mailer's. And you know things no campaign does: who just moved, who works a double on Tuesdays and should vote early, and who is voting for the first time.

Relentless has run paid relational programs since the 2021 Georgia Senate runoffs, and we have independent researchers measure them. Here's what they've found.

Making the ask

Five people, two things

You don't need a script. You need a short list of people and a clear ask for each of them.

Who to ask first

Start close to home and work outward.

  • Everyone in your householdMake sure each of them knows when and where they're voting.
  • Family who live somewhere elseParents, grandparents, siblings, cousins. Their rules and polling places differ from yours.
  • Anyone who moved recentlyTheir registration may still list their old address.
  • First-time votersYounger siblings, nieces and nephews, anyone who just turned 18.
  • Your group chatsCoworkers, teammates, people from your gym or congregation.

What to cover

Make sure each person knows two things.

Why it matters to themTalk about the issue they care about, not just the one you care about.
When, where and how they'll voteEarly, by mail or on Election Day, with a specific place and time.

Rally fills in the plan for each person and gives you short explainers on the issues, so your message can be two sentences long.

How Rally helps

Making a plan in Rally

Looking up registrations, polling places, early voting hours and ID rules for five people in different places can take an evening. Rally does it in minutes, so you can spend that time on the conversations.

  1. Make your own plan

    Enter your name and address in the form above and confirm your voter record. Rally fills in a plan for you: early, by mail or on Election Day, with a place, a day and a time. It covers your state's deadlines and ID rules too. Keep it or change it.

  2. Add five people

    For each one you need a name, city, state and age range. Rally finds them in the voter file and shows whether they're registered, which recent elections they voted in, and their districts. It saves your place, so you can come back between people.

  3. Build a guide for each of them

    Rally suggests a plan for each person, the same way it did for you. Adjust it if you know better, then pick the issues most likely to resonate with them.

  4. Send it and log it

    Share each link by text, email or any app. Then jot down what you said, so you know where things stand when you follow up.

Sharing

Send it like any other text

Every plan has its own link. Send it one-on-one or drop it in the family group chat, and it shows up as a card with your name on it. They tap it and get a guide made for them. After that, their phone does the reminding.

1 You text it
2 They open it
3 Their phone reminds them

Example conversation · names are made up

  • Their own voter recordThey can see they're registered, and where.
  • A plan they can changeThey can pick a different place, day or way to vote. What's on their ballot comes with it, plus the issues you picked.
  • Reminders that keep upA Wallet pass nudges them the night before, the morning of and before polls close. If the plan goes out of date, the pass updates. Calendar events alert an hour ahead. Once they say they voted, the reminders stop.
  • A way to join inThe guide ends with an invitation to make plans for their own friends, so the list grows past yours.

Questions

Before you start

Can I stop partway through?

Yes. Rally saves your progress. Come back later and pick up with your next person.

Will Rally contact my friends?

No. For each friend, Rally asks only for their name, city, state and age range. It never asks for their phone or email. You send each guide yourself.

What do I need?

Your name, home address and email, plus a few minutes for each person on your list.

Where does the voter information come from?

From the public voter file that each state publishes. It can lag a few days behind, especially right after someone registers or votes.

Running a relational program?

Relentless builds Rally to run relational programs at scale. Organizers sign up, add the people they know, match them to the voter file and follow up until they vote. Organizations can see all of it as it happens.

The form at the top of this page is an embed. You can put your own program's sign-up or vote-plan form on your website with two lines of code, styled with your logo and colors.

Organizers who come back tend to do more. In Georgia, returning organizers finished our 2024 program 95% of the time, compared with 68% of first-timers, and many brought new organizers with them.

Talk with the Rally team →

  • Embed sign-up and vote-plan forms on your own site
  • Match the forms to your logo and brand colors
  • Set the goal, like five plans per person
  • Write your own questions, issue explainers and ballot content
  • See every plan made and every outreach logged