1 00:00:00,12 --> 00:00:02,311 Hello. My name is Todd Rogers. 2 00:00:02,311 --> 00:00:07,320 I'm a professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. 3 00:00:07,320 --> 00:00:11,675 Today, we're going to be talking about a specific domain, voter mobilization, and 4 00:00:11,675 --> 00:00:16,95 how behavioral science can be applied to a specific problem, mobilizing voters, 5 00:00:16,95 --> 00:00:22,226 and the kind of progress that's possible after years of focus on it. 6 00:00:23,410 --> 00:00:26,758 I started as a political poster and I realized there was a science behavior 7 00:00:26,758 --> 00:00:30,150 change that we weren't really using in politics. 8 00:00:30,150 --> 00:00:34,506 So, I went to grad school, learned about this, and then I went back to Washington 9 00:00:34,506 --> 00:00:38,400 and started a research institute with others, co-founded it, where we 10 00:00:38,400 --> 00:00:44,873 translated the insights of Behavioral Science into political strategy. 11 00:00:44,873 --> 00:00:49,295 We focused on things like donation, volunteerism resource allocation, and 12 00:00:49,295 --> 00:00:52,715 voter mobilization. Today, we're going to be talking of just 13 00:00:52,715 --> 00:00:55,897 that one outcome. How do we maximize the impact of money 14 00:00:55,897 --> 00:00:59,850 spent on mobilizing voters? We're going to see the kind of progress 15 00:00:59,850 --> 00:01:03,126 that's possible as this field of Behavioral Science has been applied to 16 00:01:03,126 --> 00:01:09,184 this one problem. So, to begin, here's a picture of me 10 17 00:01:09,184 --> 00:01:13,772 years ago. I was volunteering for a campaign, I had 18 00:01:13,772 --> 00:01:18,60 a lot more hair, and I was making a phone call that was completely consistent with 19 00:01:18,60 --> 00:01:23,434 the norms of about a decade ago. I would begin the script by saying, 20 00:01:23,434 --> 00:01:26,360 hello, Mrs.Smith. It's easy to vote. 21 00:01:26,360 --> 00:01:28,980 The issues at stake are important, it's going to be close. 22 00:01:28,980 --> 00:01:33,420 So, your vote matters, and it's your civic responsibility to vote. 23 00:01:33,420 --> 00:01:36,960 Do you intend to vote? Now, of course, she says, like everybody, 24 00:01:36,960 --> 00:01:40,880 95% of people say this, yes, I intend to vote. 25 00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:44,710 So, I say, great, thanks. Have a nice night. 26 00:01:44,710 --> 00:01:47,655 So, that's the standard. That's the, the industry standard, the 27 00:01:47,655 --> 00:01:51,740 most common kind of message that was used up to about a decade ago. 28 00:01:51,740 --> 00:01:55,583 And if you unpack it, you can see that what we're really emphasizing are very 29 00:01:55,583 --> 00:01:59,256 rational variables. Things like, it's easy to vote, 30 00:01:59,256 --> 00:02:04,45 suggesting that the cost is low. It's important, the race is important, so 31 00:02:04,45 --> 00:02:09,869 if you have an impact, it's going to be high because the consequences are high. 32 00:02:11,210 --> 00:02:14,359 The, it's a close election, meaning you could be the pivotal voter, and it's your 33 00:02:14,359 --> 00:02:18,328 civic duty to vote. Now if you unpack this, each of these is 34 00:02:18,328 --> 00:02:23,710 part of the rational voter model. What's fascinating is, up until about 35 00:02:23,710 --> 00:02:29,510 2004, this was the most sophisticated kind of of voter mobilization message. 36 00:02:29,510 --> 00:02:33,570 And experimentalists like Don Green and Alan Gerber at Yale randomized controlled 37 00:02:33,570 --> 00:02:37,50 experiments in the field testing different elements of these to get out 38 00:02:37,50 --> 00:02:41,402 the vote scripts. They learned that emphasizing that it's 39 00:02:41,402 --> 00:02:44,735 easy has no impact of a voter mobilization message. 40 00:02:44,735 --> 00:02:48,540 Emphasizing that it's an important election, similarly, no effect. 41 00:02:48,540 --> 00:02:51,906 Emphasizing that you could be the pivotal voter, that it's a close election, no 42 00:02:51,906 --> 00:02:55,785 effect. Emphasizing that it's your civic duty, no 43 00:02:55,785 --> 00:02:58,252 effect. So, what they concluded in this 44 00:02:58,252 --> 00:03:01,788 meta-analysis of many of these studies is that the content of what you say doesn't 45 00:03:01,788 --> 00:03:06,446 matter, so much as the mode of contact. And what they found at the time was that 46 00:03:06,446 --> 00:03:12,602 the more personal, the more effective. Canvasing door-to-door is more effective 47 00:03:12,602 --> 00:03:18,10 than impersonal robocall and things like that. 48 00:03:18,10 --> 00:03:20,908 So, this was the, the work of behavioral scientists and psychologists like myself 49 00:03:20,908 --> 00:03:23,638 and, in fact, Alan Gerber and Don Green also moved into this direction where we 50 00:03:23,638 --> 00:03:26,326 start testing psychological elements, behavioral elements, that could be 51 00:03:26,326 --> 00:03:31,309 included into the, these scripts. We'll start with the project that I 52 00:03:31,309 --> 00:03:36,480 conducted with a collaborator named David Nickerson at Notre Dame. 53 00:03:36,480 --> 00:03:39,130 So, what we have is the state of Pennsylvania in the 2008 primary 54 00:03:39,130 --> 00:03:41,920 election. So, this is[UNKNOWN] Presidential 55 00:03:41,920 --> 00:03:45,715 election, Barack Obama versus Hillary Clinton, the presidential primary for the 56 00:03:45,715 --> 00:03:49,235 democratic party has not been resolved yet with a bunch of potential voters, 57 00:03:49,235 --> 00:03:53,926 about 300,000 of them. What we do is we randomly assign them to 58 00:03:53,926 --> 00:03:57,944 one of four different conditions. The first condition gets no contact at 59 00:03:57,944 --> 00:03:59,400 all. No phone call. 60 00:03:59,400 --> 00:04:03,95 They're the untreated control group. The second condition gets a standard 61 00:04:03,95 --> 00:04:06,313 voter mobilization script. It's important, please vote. 62 00:04:06,313 --> 00:04:11,278 You could be a pivotal voter. The next group gets the standard, plus do 63 00:04:11,278 --> 00:04:14,920 you intend to vote. Just eliciting a commitment or an 64 00:04:14,920 --> 00:04:18,326 intention. And now, the fourth gets the standard, 65 00:04:18,326 --> 00:04:23,396 plus the intention, plus a battery of questions designed to elicit a concrete 66 00:04:23,396 --> 00:04:27,791 plan. Do you intend to vote? 67 00:04:27,791 --> 00:04:29,340 Yes. What time will you vote? 68 00:04:29,340 --> 00:04:31,320 How will you get there? Where will you be coming from? 69 00:04:31,320 --> 00:04:35,810 This is a very concrete set of questions. Now, this is inspired by research in 70 00:04:35,810 --> 00:04:38,900 Cognitive Psychology, on implementation intentions. 71 00:04:38,900 --> 00:04:42,596 People like Peter Gollwitzer at NYU and others have worked on this for decades, 72 00:04:42,596 --> 00:04:46,124 and they found that as you unpack the concrete details of an act, it makes you 73 00:04:46,124 --> 00:04:50,762 more likely to follow through on it for two reasons. 74 00:04:50,762 --> 00:04:54,920 One, you're more likely to schedule it, it's pure mechanical scheduling. 75 00:04:54,920 --> 00:04:58,696 But the second more sophisticated interesting psychological piece is that 76 00:04:58,696 --> 00:05:02,708 when you unpack the concrete details, you say, oh, on Tuesday, I'm going to drop my 77 00:05:02,708 --> 00:05:07,140 kids off at school and then I'm going to go vote. 78 00:05:07,140 --> 00:05:10,788 That when you, when that time arrives, and you're driving home from dropping 79 00:05:10,788 --> 00:05:14,209 your kids off at school, it pops in your mind. 80 00:05:14,209 --> 00:05:17,800 It's just more likely because you've created the association between that 81 00:05:17,800 --> 00:05:22,570 context and the planned intention. So, what we're going to do here is study 82 00:05:22,570 --> 00:05:27,740 what's the impact of adding that to voter mobilization call. 83 00:05:27,740 --> 00:05:30,740 Whether you vote or not is public records, so this is the outcome measure 84 00:05:30,740 --> 00:05:34,36 we're going to be using. Many people don't realize that whether 85 00:05:34,36 --> 00:05:36,740 you vote, or whether you show up or not, is public. 86 00:05:36,740 --> 00:05:42,104 Who you vote for, not public at all, 1892 Federal Law, secret ballot. 87 00:05:42,104 --> 00:05:46,821 But whether you vote is public. So, we find when we graph here the impact 88 00:05:46,821 --> 00:05:50,526 of these calls versus no call, we find that the people who receive the standard 89 00:05:50,526 --> 00:05:54,835 call, please vote, it's important, it's important. 90 00:05:54,835 --> 00:05:59,302 No, no effect. Just like dozens of other experiments, 91 00:05:59,302 --> 00:06:03,718 reminding people of an election is, has no meaningful effect even though millions 92 00:06:03,718 --> 00:06:08,676 of dollars are spent on it. Asking them, do they intend to vote, 93 00:06:08,676 --> 00:06:14,550 eliciting a self-prediction, and this is the most sophisticated call as of 2008. 94 00:06:14,550 --> 00:06:18,460 Asking them to elicit a self-prediction, do you intend to vote. 95 00:06:18,460 --> 00:06:21,530 Everybody says, yes. Has a small effect, a two percentage 96 00:06:21,530 --> 00:06:24,650 point effect. It's a real effect. 97 00:06:24,650 --> 00:06:27,650 and other studies have sort of, are consistent with this. 98 00:06:27,650 --> 00:06:31,270 It's in effect but it's about 2 percentage points. 99 00:06:31,270 --> 00:06:34,534 This is in line with other kinds of studies on voter mobilization phone calls 100 00:06:34,534 --> 00:06:38,100 without anything psychologically sophisticated in them. 101 00:06:38,100 --> 00:06:42,289 It might even be a little bit smaller than that than those studies might 102 00:06:42,289 --> 00:06:46,8 suggest. But adding the plan making battery, more 103 00:06:46,8 --> 00:06:49,852 than doubles the impact of what was at the time the most effective get out to 104 00:06:49,852 --> 00:06:53,962 vote call. So, adding a plan making battery, this 105 00:06:53,962 --> 00:06:57,683 very small marginal cost addition can more then double the get out to vote 106 00:06:57,683 --> 00:07:01,15 phone call. So, when I was talking about woman I 107 00:07:01,15 --> 00:07:05,2 should have added, Mrs. Smith, please remember what time will you 108 00:07:05,2 --> 00:07:09,510 vote, how will you get there, where will you be coming from? 109 00:07:09,510 --> 00:07:14,225 That's one like of research that collaborators and I have worked on. 110 00:07:14,225 --> 00:07:19,43 Another looks at how do we emphasize, how should we emphasize the way turnout is 111 00:07:19,43 --> 00:07:22,730 going to be? Should we emphasize that not enough 112 00:07:22,730 --> 00:07:25,560 people are voting? You hear this a lot, not enough young 113 00:07:25,560 --> 00:07:29,120 people are voting, not enough low income people are voting, etc. 114 00:07:29,120 --> 00:07:32,305 Or should we have them say, lots of other people joining, voting so please join 115 00:07:32,305 --> 00:07:35,280 them. We, in 2004, I surveyed self-reported 116 00:07:35,280 --> 00:07:39,540 experts and voter mobilization, basically political consultants who work on voter 117 00:07:39,540 --> 00:07:43,507 mobilizations. And they were roughly split, 50/50, and 118 00:07:43,507 --> 00:07:48,586 which is more effective, emphasizing high turnout or emphasizing low turnout? 119 00:07:48,586 --> 00:07:52,734 Now, what we find across several experiments, this is with Alan Gerber at 120 00:07:52,734 --> 00:07:57,494 Yale, is that emphasizing high turnout is much more effective in motivating people 121 00:07:57,494 --> 00:08:02,800 to participate[COUGH] than emphasizing low turnout. 122 00:08:02,800 --> 00:08:04,950 We've, we've seen this with self-reported intention to vote. 123 00:08:04,950 --> 00:08:07,878 We've seen this with click through and e-mail and across a lot of other 124 00:08:07,878 --> 00:08:10,626 behaviors. We see that, that people conform to the 125 00:08:10,626 --> 00:08:14,308 behavior of others. And I imagine that that some of you are 126 00:08:14,308 --> 00:08:17,866 familiar with that. So, when I was talking to Mrs. 127 00:08:17,866 --> 00:08:21,226 Smith, I should have also said in addition to what time will you vote, how 128 00:08:21,226 --> 00:08:24,810 will you get there, where will you be coming from, I should have said, join the 129 00:08:24,810 --> 00:08:29,19 millions of others who are going to be voting. 130 00:08:29,19 --> 00:08:32,205 Turn outs are going to be high so please join the others, emphasizing high 131 00:08:32,205 --> 00:08:34,763 turnout. Even though ironically, more people 132 00:08:34,763 --> 00:08:37,463 voting decreases the likelihood that you're going to be pivotal but the 133 00:08:37,463 --> 00:08:41,300 likelihood that you're going to pivotal is 1 in 10 million anyway. 134 00:08:41,300 --> 00:08:43,225 The likelihood that it's going to be a tie and your vote is going to be the 135 00:08:43,225 --> 00:08:45,395 difference is less than the likelihood that you're going to get hit by a car on 136 00:08:45,395 --> 00:08:49,728 your way to the polling place. So, a third line of research explores the 137 00:08:49,728 --> 00:08:54,6 question of how do we deal with how, how should we emphasize, how should we refer 138 00:08:54,6 --> 00:08:58,206 to people? Should we refer to them as voters or as 139 00:08:58,206 --> 00:09:03,35 the kinds of people who can vote? And so, the underlying principle here is 140 00:09:03,35 --> 00:09:07,966 that people have multiple identities. I'm a father, I'm a Philadelphia Eagles 141 00:09:07,966 --> 00:09:10,572 fan. And when you elicit one identity, I'm 142 00:09:10,572 --> 00:09:14,415 more likely to behave in certain ways that are consistent with it than when I 143 00:09:14,415 --> 00:09:19,317 elicit another identity. So, in this case, with Carol Dweck at 144 00:09:19,317 --> 00:09:23,541 Stanford and Greg Walton at Stanford and Chris Bryan who is the lead author on 145 00:09:23,541 --> 00:09:27,237 this at UCSD, we did a series of experiments where we asked people to 146 00:09:27,237 --> 00:09:31,527 complete a survey, in which all that we varied was whether we, we said to vote or 147 00:09:31,527 --> 00:09:38,326 to be a voter. So, basically a verb or a noun. 148 00:09:38,326 --> 00:09:41,178 So, for example, we say, how important is it to you to vote in the tomorrow's 149 00:09:41,178 --> 00:09:44,216 election? In another condition, we say, how 150 00:09:44,216 --> 00:09:48,669 important is it to you to be a voter in tomorrow's election? 151 00:09:49,780 --> 00:09:53,928 So, what we find is that emphasizing the voter identity is remarkably powerful in 152 00:09:53,928 --> 00:09:58,230 making people more likely to conform to that behavior. 153 00:09:58,230 --> 00:10:01,317 And we see this across a series of studies both in this now in verb format, 154 00:10:01,317 --> 00:10:04,355 we also see it in other studies where it's, where we say as the kind of person 155 00:10:04,355 --> 00:10:10,892 who votes versus as someone who can vote. So, when I was talking to Mrs. 156 00:10:10,892 --> 00:10:14,552 Smith, I should have also said, as the kind of person who votes, please be a 157 00:10:14,552 --> 00:10:18,512 voter in the upcoming election, please be a voter, in addition to make a plan and 158 00:10:18,512 --> 00:10:23,872 join lots of others. And now, in very recent research, that we 159 00:10:23,872 --> 00:10:27,282 are just now be in the process to publishing and this is inspired by 160 00:10:27,282 --> 00:10:31,560 fascinating research, that I encourage you all to look into by Alan Gerber, Don 161 00:10:31,560 --> 00:10:38,222 Green, and Christian Larimer. that research showed that sending people 162 00:10:38,222 --> 00:10:42,574 their vote histories and their neighbors' vote histories and also sending their 163 00:10:42,574 --> 00:10:46,798 neighbors all that information, creating this sort of social pressure so that 164 00:10:46,798 --> 00:10:52,767 everyone knows who voted and who didn't. And then committing to after the 165 00:10:52,767 --> 00:10:55,929 election, we're going to send an update so everyone knows who voted and who 166 00:10:55,929 --> 00:10:59,760 didn't. Though it's incredibly creepy and elicits 167 00:10:59,760 --> 00:11:03,725 backlash and that people are very upset about it, incredibly powerful at 168 00:11:03,725 --> 00:11:08,104 increasing turnout. So, what we're trying to do in this next 169 00:11:08,104 --> 00:11:12,48 study is really tease apart, what is the impact of inducing accountability, the, 170 00:11:12,48 --> 00:11:15,528 the, the sense that you are going to have to talk with someone, and have to 171 00:11:15,528 --> 00:11:20,459 potentially justify whether you voted or not. 172 00:11:21,460 --> 00:11:25,294 And so, we have this most sophisticated psychological mailer which you can see on 173 00:11:25,294 --> 00:11:28,160 the screen. And it, and it basically uses all the 174 00:11:28,160 --> 00:11:31,170 principles. It has a pop-out box for make a plan. 175 00:11:31,170 --> 00:11:35,870 It emphasizes repeatedly as the kind of person who votes, as a voter. 176 00:11:35,870 --> 00:11:41,200 It emphasizes high turnout, all the sort, all the best practices. 177 00:11:41,200 --> 00:11:45,555 and what it also does for half the people, and there about 650,000 people in 178 00:11:45,555 --> 00:11:50,668 this experiment, for half of them, we send them this letter. 179 00:11:50,668 --> 00:11:54,574 And for the other half, and this in the 2010 general election, and the other 180 00:11:54,574 --> 00:11:58,858 half, we add them in the top right corner you may be called after the election to 181 00:11:58,858 --> 00:12:05,130 discuss your voting experience. Basically, this, this threat that you may 182 00:12:05,130 --> 00:12:09,418 be called, so it's supposed to create the sense that maybe you may have to explain 183 00:12:09,418 --> 00:12:15,302 to someone whether you voted or not. And we add a paragraph in which we also 184 00:12:15,302 --> 00:12:18,563 described that. So, what we find is that adding just this 185 00:12:18,563 --> 00:12:22,31 little call out box and a paragraph reiterating, basically saying we may call 186 00:12:22,31 --> 00:12:25,550 you after the election, look out for our call, increased the effectiveness of that 187 00:12:25,550 --> 00:12:30,23 mailer by more than 40%. So, we already have the most 188 00:12:30,23 --> 00:12:33,270 psychologically sophisticated mailer that we can develop. 189 00:12:33,270 --> 00:12:36,910 It uses all these best practices that we've learned from dozens or hundreds of 190 00:12:36,910 --> 00:12:39,823 experiments. And then we add, just add in the 191 00:12:39,823 --> 00:12:43,463 top-right corner, we may call you after the election, and we reiterated in the 192 00:12:43,463 --> 00:12:48,180 text, and that increases the effectiveness by more than 40%. 193 00:12:48,180 --> 00:12:50,342 So, let's pull it all together. So, when I was talking to Mrs. 194 00:12:50,342 --> 00:12:53,181 Smith, I should have said, what time will you vote? 195 00:12:53,181 --> 00:12:55,730 How will you get there? Where are you coming from? 196 00:12:55,730 --> 00:12:58,570 And also, lots of others will vote, you should join them. 197 00:12:58,570 --> 00:13:01,790 And also, you're the kind of person who votes. 198 00:13:01,790 --> 00:13:04,806 Thanks for being a voter. And also, this last bit about adding the 199 00:13:04,806 --> 00:13:09,84 prospect of accountability we may call you after the election, look out for our 200 00:13:09,84 --> 00:13:14,860 call. So, what we see now, in the 2012 201 00:13:14,860 --> 00:13:20,66 election, this research was widely used. We, we think, in total, this probably 202 00:13:20,66 --> 00:13:24,440 doubles or triples the impact per dollar spent on voter mobilization. 203 00:13:24,440 --> 00:13:27,806 So, there are tens of millions of dollars during the 2012 election spent on this 204 00:13:27,806 --> 00:13:30,684 activity. And what we're doing here is we're, 205 00:13:30,684 --> 00:13:34,39 we're, I'm now capturing as much of it as I can and I want to see and I'm going to 206 00:13:34,39 --> 00:13:38,999 show you, how some of it was used. So, here's a mailer that I actually 207 00:13:38,999 --> 00:13:41,990 received, saying, this is the voter report card. 208 00:13:41,990 --> 00:13:45,457 You were a voter in the past, please continue to be a voter. 209 00:13:45,457 --> 00:13:49,40 Be a voter this Tuesday, and it compares my turnout to others. 210 00:13:49,40 --> 00:13:52,680 So, it basically says, lots of others are voting, you should join them. 211 00:13:52,680 --> 00:13:56,337 Even though your past vote history, which we're now looking at appears that you 212 00:13:56,337 --> 00:14:00,624 have voted less than others. This, just so everyone knows, this is an 213 00:14:00,624 --> 00:14:04,162 artifact of having moved and the, the registrar had not updated my voting 214 00:14:04,162 --> 00:14:07,874 record. There's no way my neighbors have voted 215 00:14:07,874 --> 00:14:10,463 more than me. just want to be clear, this is data 216 00:14:10,463 --> 00:14:12,634 error. Nonetheless, it's fascinating that I 217 00:14:12,634 --> 00:14:15,832 received this treatment. That I've, that I've learned that has 218 00:14:15,832 --> 00:14:19,660 been mailed to literally millions of people in the 2012 election, this mailer, 219 00:14:19,660 --> 00:14:24,640 which emphasizes, be a voter, join lots of others who are voting. 220 00:14:24,640 --> 00:14:28,174 This is an e-mail from a national security organization called the Truman 221 00:14:28,174 --> 00:14:32,702 National Security Project. And if you unpack the messaging in it, it 222 00:14:32,702 --> 00:14:38,89 says, lots of others are voting. Make sure you know where your, where your 223 00:14:38,89 --> 00:14:41,996 voting place is, so it emphasizes, make a plan. 224 00:14:41,996 --> 00:14:47,108 it emphasizes you're the kind of person who votes and, so it emphasizes all three 225 00:14:47,108 --> 00:14:51,196 of those. It's a, it's a really sophisticated, and 226 00:14:51,196 --> 00:14:55,244 even the subject line is do you have a voting plan? 227 00:14:55,244 --> 00:15:00,290 So now, on the weekend before the election, a woman came knocking on my 228 00:15:00,290 --> 00:15:06,730 door volunteering for the Elizabeth Warren campaign. 229 00:15:06,730 --> 00:15:10,790 And you can see her thumb in this image here, she came, she read me a script. 230 00:15:10,790 --> 00:15:14,180 It was fascinating and it reflected all of this research. 231 00:15:14,180 --> 00:15:17,744 She's talking to me, asking me to make a plan, saying, lots of others are going to 232 00:15:17,744 --> 00:15:21,870 vote, calling me a voter and the kind of person who votes. 233 00:15:21,870 --> 00:15:25,90 It was great, so afterwards, of course, I said, yes and I do have a plan. 234 00:15:25,90 --> 00:15:26,946 I know when I'm going to vote, I know where I'm going to be coming from, I know 235 00:15:26,946 --> 00:15:30,604 how I'm going to get there, thank you. And would you mind if I took a picture of 236 00:15:30,604 --> 00:15:34,340 your script and of your finger and your hand while you're doing it? 237 00:15:34,340 --> 00:15:36,877 So, all I got was the tip of her finger, but this is a picture of the actual 238 00:15:36,877 --> 00:15:40,420 script that they were using for the Elizabeth Warren campaign. 239 00:15:40,420 --> 00:15:46,210 She won in the 2012 Senate race in Massachusetts against Scott Brown. 240 00:15:46,210 --> 00:15:49,864 Now, here's an e-mail that was sent several weeks before the election by the 241 00:15:49,864 --> 00:15:55,29 Obama campaign to their e-mail list, in which they said, make a plan. 242 00:15:55,29 --> 00:15:57,440 And then they said, what time will you vote? 243 00:15:57,440 --> 00:15:59,444 How will you get here? Where will you be coming from? 244 00:15:59,444 --> 00:16:01,774 These are the specific questions we used in our search. 245 00:16:01,774 --> 00:16:04,980 So, this is fantastic. And I presume that what they were going 246 00:16:04,980 --> 00:16:09,262 to do was e-mail back to me right before the election day. 247 00:16:09,262 --> 00:16:13,438 Continuing with the Obama campaign, so this is the the week the night before the 248 00:16:13,438 --> 00:16:18,620 election, it says, do you have a plan for tomorrow, is the subject line. 249 00:16:18,620 --> 00:16:22,118 And as you read through it, you can see all the best practices we've been talking 250 00:16:22,118 --> 00:16:25,414 about. Now finally, this, I really want to focus 251 00:16:25,414 --> 00:16:28,470 in on. this is the script from the Obama 252 00:16:28,470 --> 00:16:32,690 campaign's calling tool. So, they had millions of calls made by 253 00:16:32,690 --> 00:16:36,370 volunteers. Delivered the, the, the week before the 254 00:16:36,370 --> 00:16:41,260 election, mobilizing other targets that the campaign had. 255 00:16:41,260 --> 00:16:45,408 So, if you read this script, I, I called in, I logged in and made some phone calls 256 00:16:45,408 --> 00:16:49,680 and I, and I, and I took a picture of the script. 257 00:16:49,680 --> 00:16:53,710 This is the exact script they use, and as you unpack it, you can see each of these 258 00:16:53,710 --> 00:16:57,198 things. It says, I'm calling because records 259 00:16:57,198 --> 00:17:01,220 showed that you voted in 2008. we're reminding voters like you. 260 00:17:01,220 --> 00:17:04,874 If you keep reading it, it says we've talked to a lot of people in your town 261 00:17:04,874 --> 00:17:09,229 today who are planning to vote. This election is going to be close and we 262 00:17:09,229 --> 00:17:11,730 really need your vote. But they talked to a lot of people who 263 00:17:11,730 --> 00:17:15,478 are going to vote. I have your polling place listed as this, 264 00:17:15,478 --> 00:17:20,479 and that the hours are this. I know everyone is busy, so what time you 265 00:17:20,479 --> 00:17:24,180 plan to vote? Next question, will you be heading there 266 00:17:24,180 --> 00:17:29,10 from work or somewhere else? Basically, this is, let's elicit a plan. 267 00:17:29,10 --> 00:17:30,700 And then, and then finally, do you need a ride? 268 00:17:30,700 --> 00:17:34,296 The, the goal of that question, of course, they're, they're, they're 269 00:17:34,296 --> 00:17:38,264 ingratiating themselves, offering, we'll give you a ride, but they're also 270 00:17:38,264 --> 00:17:44,604 prompting the target to make a plan. So, contrast that script with the Romney 271 00:17:44,604 --> 00:17:47,460 script. So, I, I made calls, I signed, I used the 272 00:17:47,460 --> 00:17:51,90 calling tool to capture the scripts for both campaigns, to see what people were 273 00:17:51,90 --> 00:17:54,870 saying. And as you can see here on the screen, 274 00:17:54,870 --> 00:17:59,79 the Romney script did not reflect any of the published, widely available 275 00:17:59,79 --> 00:18:03,564 behavioral research, that has been proven to double and triple the impact per 276 00:18:03,564 --> 00:18:10,282 dollar spent on voter mobilzation. I found this baffling and I, I don't come 277 00:18:10,282 --> 00:18:14,0 at this as I'm presenting this from a partisan perspective. 278 00:18:14,0 --> 00:18:18,620 It was just surprising as someone who does research and publishes his research 279 00:18:18,620 --> 00:18:22,890 to find that the Obama campaign internalized this behavioral science to 280 00:18:22,890 --> 00:18:27,930 maximize its impact when communicating to voters and the Romney campaign apparently 281 00:18:27,930 --> 00:18:34,595 didn't use any of it. But that said, the research in total has 282 00:18:34,595 --> 00:18:39,530 made a, a ton of progress in about a decade of, of focus. 283 00:18:39,530 --> 00:18:42,233 So, with dozens and hundreds of experiments focused on how do we 284 00:18:42,233 --> 00:18:45,446 translate behavioral science into strategies to increase voter turnout, 285 00:18:45,446 --> 00:18:49,953 we've made substantial progress. To make a plan, emphasize high turnout, 286 00:18:49,953 --> 00:18:53,13 emphasize the voter identity, introduce the prospect of post election 287 00:18:53,13 --> 00:18:58,66 accountability. And we've, from this problem of 288 00:18:58,66 --> 00:19:02,92 increasing turnout, we've managed to really build a set of tools and best 289 00:19:02,92 --> 00:19:06,580 practices that made voter mobilization efforts substantially more effective, 290 00:19:06,580 --> 00:19:11,446 which increased participation in elections. 291 00:19:11,446 --> 00:19:15,538 In the end, this is about increasing representative, representation and 292 00:19:15,538 --> 00:19:20,440 increasing participation. And it's publicly available research. 293 00:19:20,440 --> 00:19:22,280 Now, thank you. Please vote. 294 00:19:22,280 --> 00:19:25,466 If you want to learn more, this is my website, and I also think, if you are 295 00:19:25,466 --> 00:19:28,976 interested in this research, here's a list of other political scientists who 296 00:19:28,976 --> 00:19:33,250 work on voter mobilization, do fascinating work. 297 00:19:33,250 --> 00:19:38,382 And also, a list of my collaborators on this research. 298 00:19:38,382 --> 00:19:51,444 Thank you.