Every year, more and more Americans choose to cast their ballot ahead of Election Day, but why?
The team behind Vote Early Day wants to hear your story!
This year, Vote Early Day will highlight video testimonials from partners and voters about why they choose to vote early and the stories behind their early voting experiences. By sharing why you vote early and the challenges it helps you overcome, more people will hopefully decide to cast their ballots early as well. This is also a great opportunity to highlight your partnership with Vote Early Day and your continued commitment to civic engagement.
SHARING YOUR STORY:
Vote Early Day is looking for video testimonials from partners that are no longer than 90 seconds long, highlighting:
- Why do you vote early
- The challenges that early voting allows you to overcome
- A story from the time you voted early
The videos should be positive, upbeat, engaging, and nonpartisan. The goal of these videos is to offer personal insight into why you vote early so others can see themselves in your story.
As you explore your ideas about why you cast your ballots ahead of Election Day, here are a few ideas informed by our research partnership with the University of Maryland for you to review to see if any of these spark a story:
- Some voters find early voting to be more logistically convenient than Election Day voting: How many and what kind of people have chosen to vote early because of logistical convenience?
- Is there an instance where voting early created a specific convenience for you? For example, you were able to volunteer on Election Day because you voted early, or you were able to help a family member or friend vote because you had already cast your ballot?
- Some voters are mobilized by campaigns to vote early: As campaigns have sought to “bank votes” before Election Day, many voters are mobilized by campaigns to shift their voting habits. Who is reached and persuaded by this kind of messaging?
- Have you (or someone in your life) voted early because of a change in your state’s voting process? For example, several states send mail ballots to all voters. Maybe you’ve received a ballot for an election you had forgotten about, but you were still able to vote early.
- Some voters choose to vote early for individual emotional reasons: Many voters report voting early because of anxiety about the election or a feeling of wanting to “get it over with” or “cross it off their list” as soon as possible. Other voters tend to put off tasks until the last minute. As voting options have increased, how have these options interacted with a neurodiverse electorate? Do prevalent conditions like anxiety or ADHD lead to people feeling more comfortable emotionally with certain methods of voting?
- How does voting early help you reduce Election Day stress?? Maybe you’re concerned that a work commitment or an unexpected emergency could impact your ability to vote on Election Day, and voting early helps you eliminate that source of stress.
- Some voters choose to vote early for social or cultural reasons: At CDCE we have studied efforts to use culturally significant locations like stadiums as early voting sites and found some evidence of voters choosing to come to these locations to have a special, unique, or meaningful voting experience. Other efforts like Souls to the Polls programs embed voting within a communal religious experience. Other “Parties at the Polls” and community celebrations of voting try to create a more celebratory environment at certain voting locations, especially during early in-person voting. How many voters are choosing to vote early in order to participate in a social or cultural voting experience of some kind?
- Do you have any positive stories from a past experience voting early?
- Some voters simply are in the habit of voting before Election Day: We know voting is habitual. How many voters simply built a habit of voting by mail or voting early in the pandemic and now continue to vote that way simply because of familiarity?
- When was the first time you voted early, and why did you continue to do so?
FILMING LOGISTICS
Here are a couple of tips for filming to ensure you create the best possible video for the Vote Early Day team to display across social media and to thousands of partners nationwide.
- Film vertically (the camera pointing up and down, not side to side)
- Make sure you are in focus
- Make sure your face is entirely in the frame
- Get close enough to your phone so the audio can be easily heard
- Use a teleprompter app if you need help gathering your thoughts
- Keep the video to 90 seconds or less
SUBMITTING YOUR VIDEO:
Please send your video to info@voteearlyday.org and share your social media handles for Instagram, TikTok, and X. We’ll respond to let you know when the video should go live. We will likely send you a request for a collaborative post so your followers and ours can both see the incredible video you created.
EXAMPLE:
Sample Script:
Hello! My name is [YOUR NAME], and I’m a Vote Early Day partner with [YOUR ORGANIZATION]. This year, I’m voting early because [YOUR REASON]. Every time I vote early, I can [YOUR STORY OF SUCCESSFUL EARLY VOTING IN PAST ELECTIONS AND THE CHALLENGES YOU OVERCAME]. That’s why I’m voting early again in 2025, and I hope you will too!
Sample Video: