One Palm Card Is Not a Precinct Strategy – It May Record a Contact, But Can It Create a Voter?
Guest post by Linda Brickman
THE GRASSROOTS GENERAL ELECTION ACTION SERIES: Step 1…
This three-part series presents one practical, hands-on path for Precinct Committeemen, grassroots volunteers, candidates, and ordinary citizens who believe the work of winning an election must begin in their own neighborhoods; it does not suggest there is only one way to win a General Election.
There’s a growing reality and recognition that the current Top-Down political party strategies for successful campaigning no longer work. So, this is a Modest Proposal for engagement at the local levels.
After all, if you want a different result, you need to change your method, inputs, or assumptions. So, the objective of this series is to help We the People Get Our Intensity UP!
Each installment addresses One Essential Grassroots Responsibility.
STEP 1 — REACH THE VOTER
How to turn one brief introduction into a continuing, respectful relationship that informs the voter, encourages participation, and helps turn an intention to vote into a completed ballot.
STEP 2 — ORGANIZE THE GRASSROOTS
How coordinated messages, organized precincts, neighborhood volunteers, and an election-readiness network can turn individual effort into an effective campaign operation.
STEP 3 — DEFINE AND EVALUATE THE CANDIDATES
How voters and volunteers can look beyond labels, personalities, and recycled political comparisons—and instead examine each candidate’s record, experience, priorities, decisions, and plans.
(While Arizona examples are used, the lessons apply to concerned activists and campaigns throughout their individual States.)
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STEP 1 — REACH THE VOTER
A Database Can Record a Contact — but Only a Neighbor Can Build a Relationship
One palm card cannot win an election. Neither can one meeting, one message, one volunteer, or one political organization.
But when each person accepts one clearly defined responsibility — and follows through — the grassroots can build the movement necessary to reach, inform, and motivate the voters who will decide the future of Arizona, other States, and the Nation.
A palm card can introduce a candidate. It cannot listen to a voter … It cannot listen to a voter, answer a question, overcome distrust, or make someone believe that voting will matter.
A campaign database may mark a household as “contacted.” But was the voter informed? Was the candidate or issue remembered? Was a relationship started — or was a piece of paper merely left at the door?
Meanwhile, the opposition will not wait. If voters receive one palm card from our side, but repeatedly hear the opposition’s description of the candidate, through multiple messaging formats, the opposition may win the contest for recognition EVEN BEFORE our candidate is known by his own record.
A candidate who is not introduced by his own record will be defined by someone else’s narrative.
That is the challenge Arizona’s precinct committeemen (PCs) must answer before November.
No single palm card, meeting, message, or volunteer can win an election alone.
Low-Propensity Is Not the Same as Low-Information Voter
These groups overlap, but they are not identical:
- A low-information voter may not know the candidates, issues, or election dates.
- A low-propensity voter may agree with the candidate but has an inconsistent voting history.
- Some voters are both: they know little and rarely vote.
A palm card may introduce the candidate, but it does not necessarily give that voter enough reason — or enough reminders — to cast a ballot.
The campaign database may say:
CONTACTED
But the More Important Questions are:
Did the Voter remember your candidate?
Did the Voter understand why this election matters to their family?
Did the Voter actually make a plan to vote?
The PC Does Not Need to Invite Them to a Meeting
Low-propensity voters are among the least likely people to attend a PC’s Legislative District (LD) meeting, campaign training, candidate forum, rally, or political event. And we cannot build a strategy that requires them to come to us.
For these voters, the PC Becomes the Meeting.
The approach should be neutral in tone but transparent in purpose.
For example:
“Good afternoon. I’m Linda. I live nearby and serve as your neighborhood, Republican precinct committeeman (or your neighborhood resource person). I’m volunteering in support of Andy Biggs for governor, but I also want to hear what Arizona voters believe the next governor must address. What issues concern you most?”
The conversation may last only 30 or 60 seconds. Listen first, answer only what you know, and leave the official campaign palm card. If the voter asks not to be contacted again, thank the voter and honor that request.
But that should be Contact One – NOT the Entire Strategy!
A Simple Four-Touch System
Each contact should have a different purpose—not merely repeat the same campaign pitch.
Touch One: Recognition
Goal: Introduce the candidate.
- One official palm card.
- Candidate’s name.
- One memorable qualification.
- One reason the race matters.
“Andy Biggs has served Arizona in both the Legislature and Congress. He is now running for governor.”
Touch Two: Relevance
Goal: Connect the election to something the voter cares about.
This could be a brief text, email, or e-newsletter, telephone call, doorstep conversation, or neighborhood message using accurate, campaign-approved information:
“You told us affordability was your biggest concern. Here is where the candidates differ on taxes, spending, housing costs, or energy.”
This is not another copy of the same palm card. It is the “Second Chapter” of the conversation.
Touch Three: The Voting Plan
Goal: Move the voter from general support to a specific action.
Ask:
- Will you vote early or on Election Day?
- If you vote by mail, do you know when your ballot should arrive and how to track it?
- Do you know your voting location and hours?
- Is your voter registration current?
- On what day do you plan to cast your ballot?
- Do you or any of your neighbors need transportation assistance to the polls?
The goal is not to pressure the voter. It is to remove uncertainty and Turn a General Intention Into a Practical Plan.
Touch Four: The Reminder
Goal: Make certain intention becomes action.
A neighbor, friend, family member, or PC sends a brief reminder close to voting. For example:
“Just checking in – have you completed your ballot?”
Personal contact has historically been more effective than impersonal political mail alone. A classic randomized field experiment found that face-to-face canvassing tends to increase turnout.
The important caution is that simply piling on identical contacts does not necessarily increase turnout. Each contact should be purposeful and increasingly specific.
DEFINE THE CANDIDATE BEFORE THE OPPOSITION DOES
Repeated voter contact has become even more important because political opponents will immediately attempt to overwhelm voters with messaging that defines a candidate through labels, comparisons, and the controversies of previous elections.
If voters hear an opponent’s description several times, but receive only one palm card from our side, which message are they most likely to remember?
Precinct committeemen do not need to spend every doorstep conversation arguing about another candidate or relitigating a previous election. Their responsibility is simpler: introduce the candidate honestly, explain the candidate’s own experience and priorities, listen to the voter, and provide enough accurate information for that voter to make an independent judgment.
Remember: A candidate who is not clearly defined by his own record will soon be defined by someone else’s narrative.
REPEATED CONTACT IS NOT REPEATED PAPER
Think about it: there is a difference between recording one contact, and Motivating a Voter.
We must bring the campaign to voters who may never attend a formal meeting — not through long political lectures, but through a series of brief, personal, purposeful contacts:
We must bring the campaign to them…
- First, introduce the candidate.
- Then, connect the election to the voter’s concerns.
- Next, help the voter make a voting plan.
- Finally, follow up until Intention Becomes Action.
A palm card is a useful introduction. It is not, by itself, a precinct strategy.
The PC Strategy in One Sentence
Do not expect a low-propensity voter to attend one two-hour meeting; bring that voter four useful messages lasting less than two minutes each.
That is where I believe our strategy can become the Winning Ticket!
WHERE CAMPAIGN DISCIPLINE AND GRASSROOTS MARKETING MEET
This approach allows both strategies to work together:
- The campaign uses one official palm card and records the first contact.
- The volunteer adds recognition, relevance, a personal relationship, and follow-through.
- The campaign does not need to print seven expensive cards for the same voter.
- The PC has a clear reason and a respectful method to follow up.
- The voter does not have to attend a single meeting.
The voter who will never come to an LD meeting may still vote – but only if the precinct volunteer comes to the voter.
That is where the work begins.
A palm card can open the door. A sticker can start a conversation. A personal message can create interest. But only consistent, respectful follow-up can turn that interest into a commitment – and that Commitment into a Completed Ballot.
We cannot wait for low-propensity voters, or low-information voters, to find the campaign, attend a meeting, or suddenly become politically engaged on their own.
We must reach them where they are, speak to the issues they care about, help them make a plan to vote, and remind them that their participation may determine Arizona’s and our Nation’s future.
One Contact Records A Name.
A Relationship Motivates A Voter.
And A Motivated Voter Can Help Win An Election.
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Coming Next in The Grassroots General-Election Action Series…
STEP 2 — ORGANIZE THE GRASSROOTS
THE GRASSROOTS MUST BECOME THE CAMPAIGN MACHINE
One Precinct Committeeman can reach a voter. One volunteer can build a neighborhood relationship. But individual contacts become far more powerful when the grassroots coordinates its message, organizes every precinct, divides the work into manageable responsibilities, and prepares long before Election Day.
The next installment will explain “How Three Working Parts” can operate together:
Build the Message.
Create concise, truthful, defensible information capable of reaching Republicans, Independents, unaffiliated voters, and persuadable Democrats – without insulting or ignoring them.
Organize Every Precinct.
Turn neighborhoods into manageable areas of responsibility where voters are known, contacted, informed, and never taken for granted.
Prepare for the Election.
Build a coordinated communications and election-readiness network that recruits, educates, and remains active before, during, and through Election Day.
The Political Party may provide the structure.
But the Grassroots must provide the movement.
by Linda Brickman
©2026 Linda Brickman All Rights Reserved.
