LOS ANGELES – One-thousand grassroots leaders and organizers from California Calls, an alliance of 31 statewide, grassroots organizations, will fan out across the state and encourage up to 100,000 new and occasional voters to enroll into the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
The outreach campaign, one of the largest such coordinated activities in the state, will consist of calling voters and knocking on doors in an effort to reach out to unlikely voters in rural, suburban and urban precincts in the Bay Area, Central Valley, Central Coast, Los Angeles County, the Inland Empire and San Diego County.
Enrollment for the new healthcare coverage plan began on October 1, 2013. California Calls, with additional funding from the California Endowment, will also be experimenting with new ways to make organizing smarter and more effective. Grassroots leaders will use smartphones to canvass door-to-door and text messaging will be used as a method of staying in contact with younger voters, in particular.
“Engaging with voters around good government two to three times a year, even on non-election years, is a part of our strategy to change the face of the electorate so it more closely matches reality and to create a base of supporters who become active citizens and vote in every election,” said Anthony Thigpenn, president of California Calls. “This issue in particular resonates with our community, especially as it is being negatively impacted by the recent government shutdown. It is our priority that we educate and motivate these voters to sign up for healthcare and not get left out in the cold.”
Members of the media are invited to accompany volunteers on door-to-door walks.
WHAT: Door-to-door voter outreach conducted by 1,000 volunteers in neighborhoods throughout the state.
WHO: 1,000 grassroots leaders from our 31 member community-based organizations will fan out across the state educating and encouraging voters to enroll in Obamacare.
WHERE: Santa Clara, Alameda, San Francisco, Kern, Tulare, Fresno, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego Counties.
WHEN: October 14 to November 10, 2013
###
California Calls is a growing alliance of 31 grassroots, community-based organizations spanning urban, rural and suburban counties across the state. We engage, educate and motivate new and infrequent voters among young people, from communities of color, and from poor and working class neighborhoods to make California’s electorate reflect our state’s diverse population. Through our bottom-up approach, we are organizing voters most impacted by budget cuts and deteriorating public services in support of systemic, progressive solutions to our state’s fiscal crisis. Working together, and including those who are often left out of policy decisions, we believe we can reclaim the California Dream of equality, opportunity and prosperity for all Californians.
