Collecting signatures for Bonifaz this weekend

[Cos]

I posted this last night on johnbonifaz.com

There are only a couple of weeks left to gather signatures to get John Bonifaz on the ballot! We need 5,000 certified signatures from Democratic and unenrolled registered Massachusetts voters. Our goal: Collect twice as many as we need, to make sure that even if many of them are not certified, John will be safely on the ballot this September.

This weekend is a great time for you to help us reach this goal.

I spoke to some of our friends in western Massachusetts, and heard that they're planning to collect signatures for Bonifaz in Northampton and Shelburne Falls on Saturday night, and Amherst on Sunday. Want to join them, help out, and meet Bonifaz supporters in the valley? Or, want to collect signatures where you live, somewhere else in the state?

Read on... and tell us about your plans by posting a comment!

The rest of the post is here. Are any of you going to gather signatures for Bonifaz? Or already have? Please post a comment there!

[EFerrari]

1. I'll kick and think how I can help from CA

I so much want this campaign to win!

:toast:

[Cos]

2. How you can help from CA

Here are a few ways:

1. Do you know anyone who lives in Massachusetts? Talk to them, indivudally, not by email to a list. Catch them on the phone, or on AIM, or something like that. Tell them why this election is important to you. Ask them if they'll sign up on our web site, and come volunteer. They can email [email protected]


2. Got any money? If you're not broke, make a donation, even if it's a small one. The incumbent, Bill Galvin, has a lot of money and name recognition. Bonifaz is going to need to buy a lot of media to get his name out there. And this is exactly the sort of election where name recognition matters most: a downballot statewide office on a relatively high turnout competitive Governor's race.


3. Visit the blog often, and post comments. Yes, really, that does help. I'm trying to build an audience for John's web site, and to do that, I need to give people reasons to keep coming back to check for new content. There are very few things that get someone to keep revisiting a site, than seeing new comments appear regularly.


4. Talk him up among people interested in election reform. Send email to relevant lists, groups you're a member of, or people you know who care about this, wherever they are in the country. If they care about election reform, they should care about this race. Ask them to imagine what an impact it would have nationally if Massachusetts implemented same day registration, instant runoff voting, and a requirement that voting machines and their code and data be under public ownership? Or moved our state election day to the weekend?

As you get more people interested, also ask them to do the above three things:

1. Talk to anyone they know in MA.
2. Make a donation.
3. Visit our site regularly and comment on the blog

P.S. Want to be part of my online volunteer team? Email me, [email protected], with your contact info.

[EFerrari]

3. Will do! Thank you!

best,
Beth

[Sydnie]

4. Why weren't you at the Kerry speech today?

There were hundreds of people there and they were getting signatures for other candidates while we waited in line.

[Cos]

6. I missed it, but there were people there

I missed the Kerry speech, unfortunately. Too much other work to do.

We did have Bonifaz signature collectors there, and one of them wrote a long piece on it that I hope he'll post on a blog soon - it would be a great post for Blue Mass Group, I think. I'll update here with a link if he does.

Big events like that are actually difficult places to collect signatures, because they draw lots of people from out of town and out of state. You have to ask everyone where they're from, many of them can't sign, and for those who can, chances are you don't yet have a signature sheet with their town on it, so you have to start a new one, write their town on the front and back, and you use up a lot of time per signer. At the end of that day, you have a couple of pages with a number of signatures, and a large stack of papers with one or two signatures each - and each of those has to then be turned in to a different town clerk. Practically speaking, you can't easily work alone, you have to work in pairs, or you'll miss most people walking by. It's often much more time-efficient to collect signatures at a T stop or in front of a supermarket that draws mostly local people.

[Cos]

10. one of them posted

http://www.johnbonifaz.com/blog/20060421

One of the people who collected signatures at the Kerry speech commented on the blog.

[Bill McBlueState]

5. is there anyone gathering sigs in Greenfield or Montague?

I was at an event at UMass last week, and oddly, the guy who asked me for a signature just walked away when I said I live in Montague, not Amherst.

[Cos]

7. Call Susan

Susan Patlove, who organized the signature gathering in Shelburne Falls on Saturday, is I believe our Franklin County coordinator (or co-coordinator). Her phone number's in my Friday night blog post on johnbonifaz.com (the one I link to here). Call her up and say you wanna do something in Greenfield. Then, post a comment on the blog :) Thanks!!

[paineinthearse]

8. Contact Patrick Keaney, statewide signature coordinator

[email protected]

[paineinthearse]

9. Here's another opportunity for Western Mass supporters - 4/27

Details at http://www.johnbonifaz.com/node/354