A million doors, 1.5 million calls

Club's voter-education efforts set new standard

From August through Election Day, Sierra Club's Environmental Voter Education Campaign nationwide knocked on more than a million doors and placed more than 1.5 million calls to educate voters about the environmental positions of the presidential candidates.

Our volunteers from the Bay Chapter, people young and old, some new to election work and others veteran campaigners, led the way in Reno, NV, with the primary message that while President Bush broke his campaign promise on plans to ship 77,000 tons of nuclear waste to Nevada, Sen. Kerry has voted repeatedly against this potential environmental catastrophe. (Some volunteers went as well to Las Vegas or other swing-state sites).

Bruce Hamilton, the Sierra Club's conservation director, joined us, along with his family and friends, for the final days of "Get Out the Vote". His comments mirror many heard throughout the weekend: "George Bush narrowly won Nevada and the presidency last night, but what I witnessed the last four days was nothing short of miraculous. We had hundreds of volunteers and staff working day and night combing through this battleground city to turn out every last environmental voter. Volunteers would walk to knock on doors for seven or eight hours, and then return to our headquarters to do phoning to the houses they missed. By election night we had run out of targeted voters to call and visit. At door after door, voters would thank us for coming out to talk to them. One voter told our canvass team she was sure to vote: `I would crawl over glass to be sure to vote in this election.' It was democracy at its finest."

Volunteers not only came on weekends to speak with voters, but several came during the week to help with crucial office and organizing tasks. While most volunteers came to Reno on the weekends, others came for longer. Nina Silk took a week of vacation to come up in October before going on to Arizona. Guy Saperstein recruited his family and friends to spend all or part of two weeks at his house in Truckee so that they could talk with voters at the door and on the phone. About 175 volunteers came to Reno from the Bay Chapter, some repeatedly.

The Bay Chapter volunteers who came to Reno were awesome!

Patricia Jones and Ilysia Shattuck