Political High

Most states now have early voting.   Here in South Dakota, we could start voting absentee on September 23, 2008.  Other states have a shorter period of time.

One of the things my boss, Mary Ann Giebink, is doing in her run for the state legislature in the Sioux Falls area is checking the county auditor’s office each evening to see which voters have requested an absentee ballot.  (SD doesn’t require an excuse.  You can just vote early if you like.)

She gets the list and checks for voters in District 10 who have requested ballots.  She or her campaign staff then sends what’s called “chase mail” to that voter.  It is an envelop contaning Mary Ann’s campaign literature as well as the literature of other local Democratic candidates.

The key to this is as soon as the list comes out, someone from the campaign checks it and gets the responses in the mail.  You don’t want to have a lag from when the voter gets the ballot to sending it back in.  If the voter wants to vote early, they probably won’t let the envelop with their ballot lay around the house for long.

I think chase mail is one of those little details than can make the difference between winning and losing in a close election.