State Dems sending 1M text messages urging people to vote
The next marketing message on your phone might be a text message from the Florida Democratic Party.
The push: vote by mail in 2020. Nationally, there’s growing interest in expanding voting by mail.
The state Democrats, along with the Democratic National Committee, plan to announce Monday that they’re launching a “massive texting campaign” to urge registered Democrats to sign up to vote by mail. Recipients will get a link to sign up to receive a mail ballot.
The party said Democrats are enlisting hundreds of volunteers to text more than 1 million Florida voters. The messages won’t be coming from robots, a spokeswoman said.
The context is the spread of the new coronavirus, which could make people uneasy about voting in neighborhood polling places on election day or at regional early voting sites leading up to the election.
As coronavirus concerns built in advance of Florida’s March 17 presidential primary, voting by mail was up significantly. In-person voting on primary day was down.
“Vote-by-mail is a reliable and safe method for Floridians to vote during this time of uncertainty,” the Democratic Party said in a statement.
During a visit to Oakland Park last month, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said the party had bought tens of millions of cell phone numbers nationwide.
Emma Vaughn, Florida press secretary for the Republican National Committee, said by email that “Florida Democrats are scrambling to modernize their outdated ground game.”