Once Voices for Reason PAC decided the most effective thing we could do to influence the election was to send handwritten messages to voters in battleground states on Alaska-themed art cards that would catch the interest and attention of voters, we tried to figure out the nuts and bolts of accomplishing this. We sought to work with other organizations but couldn't find one that wanted to work with a non-partisan organization whose only goal was to defeat Trump. So, on our own, with as much advice as we could find, we decided to send messages to women in Arizona who registered as independents or 'party not-designated' and did not vote regularly. We found a company specializing in providing 'voter file' information. We purchased 9200 addresses of these independent women voters in Maricopa County who had only voted twice in the last four general elections. Ketchikan artists donated 6000 cards for the campaign. We sought postcard writers in Ketchikan from friends, family and acquaintances. And we started the campaign on June 23, 2024.
We put ads and letters to the editor in the Anchorage and Ketchikan newspapers to get more writers. Eventually, 8000 more cards were donated, and 5000 more addresses were purchased. Groups in Cordova and Phoenix used our cards and addresses. To get cards to non-ketchikan residents, we made cards available through our website and mailed them all over Alaska and elsewhere. By the end of our campaign 12600 cards were mailed to our targeted voters.
Once it became clear after Harris was nominated that the election was going to be a toss-up, we decided that the best use of our postcards, at this point in the election, was to encourage low-frequency, but potential Harris voters, to vote. On October 1, we started our Get-out-the-Vote postcard campaign. These were sent to women in Maricopa County—Arizona, who vote infrequently and are registered Democrats. To get a lot of cards sent, we hosted numerous postcard writing parties in Ketchikan. By our deadline of October 25, 6900 cards were mailed