From NJ.....
"State Democrats and Republicans are putting the final touches on their get-out-the-vote - or what politicos like to call GOTV - effort.
"We'll have the phone banks and the literature, and we're moving money to county and local organizations," said Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-Ewing, chairwoman of the Democratic State Committee, which has about $500,000 for GOTV activities.
Brian Callanan, spokesman for the state Republican Party, said the GOP has about 21,000 volunteers for Election Day and $300,000 from the Republican National Committee. The GOP committee has an advertisement on its Web site offering $75 for people to do street work on Election Day.
"We'll be out in force throughout the state getting people to vote the entire Republican ticket from top to bottom," Callanan said.
But for the parties, the difference this year from past elections is that under new campaign finance law, GOTV efforts funded by either state or county party organizations cannot mention either Bush or Kerry. As a result, some congressional campaigns are helping fund county GOTV efforts.
"We're doing that because we can mention Kerry's name and the county organizations can't," said Paul Penna, campaign manager for Rep. Rush Holt, D-Hopewell Township.
Holt's organization is helping pay for the Mercer County Democratic Party's effort.
"We're doing some phone banks to call people, but the crux of our program is a program on Election Day to get people we have identified as Holt supporters or likely supporters to the polls," Penna said.
While the political parties are solidifying their plans, much of the voter efforts on Election Day won't be officially connected to partisan politics. Black churches throughout the state, for instance, are gearing up to get people to the polls.
"We are telling our congregants to make sure they vote and to bring a friend or a neighbor who is not a member of the church to vote with them," said the Rev. Reginald Jackson, executive director of the Black Ministers Council of New Jersey, which has endorsed Kerry.-- -- -- The Rev. Stanley Justice, pastor at the Mount Zion AME Church in Trenton, said he has been preaching for months on the need for people to vote.
"We recognize the importance of this election and we as clergy are doing what we can to make sure that our people exercise their right," Justice said.
Black churches throughout the state are being asked to distribute voter guides that list policy positions for both Kerry and Bush but don't make recommendations on a candidate.
The churches also will provide transportation for voters who need rides to the polls on Election Day and stress to voters the importance of carrying proper credentials.
Jackson said he would like to see at least 70 percent of New Jersey's estimated 500,000 black voters go to the polls.
The Mercer County Central Labor Council, which represents local AFL-CIO unions, will base Election Day operations at the Colonial Firehouse in Hamilton, where 400 to 600 people will begin working at 1 p.m. that day, Maloney said. The council has endorsed the Kerry-Edwards Democratic presidential ticket, Democratic Freeholders Anthony Carabelli and Keith Hamilton, Ewing Democratic Councilman Burt Steinmann and Reps. Chris Smith, R- Hamilton, and Holt.
Maloney said union members will spread out across the county, supporting the endorsed candidates by knocking on doors and making sure people have voted.
"We're going to visit union brothers and sisters," Maloney said. "We're hoping that Kerry carries the state, which he should. We're going to make sure of that."-- -- --
The state Sierra Club chapter plans to do the same. It also supports Kerry-Edwards.
"This is the most important election ever when it comes to the environment," Tittel said. "The reason I say that is this is the first president who has gone out and actively weakened the environment and not had any major environmental initiatives."
Tittel said the Sierra Club will send volunteers on Election Day to talk to people on the streets and outside polling places. Some, he said, will walk door-to-door, while others will team with Democratic organizations.
Yet New Jersey won't be getting all the attention because Pennsylvania is considered more of a swing state. Both campaigns have concentrated on winning Pennsylvania, and Tittel said the Sierra Club has been sending 50 to 100 people to Pennsylvania on weekends. Maloney said his organization also has sent people to Pennsylvania.
Juan Melli-Huber, a Princeton University graduate student and organizer of Mercer County Democracy for America, part of the organization formed by former Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean, said members have been advised either to help county Democrats or to head to Pennsylvania. He said group members have been going to Pennsylvania for about two months, working with another pro-Kerry advocacy group, America Coming Together.
"With the election four years ago, they realize the get-out-the-vote effort is real important," said Melli-Huber, who said his group has a mailing list of more than 1,000 people and monthly meetings that attract 40 to 50 people.
While some push for Kerry-Edwards, others work for the Bush-Cheney ticket, though the Republicans seem to lack support from as many organized special interest groups as the Democrats.
Marie Tasy, New Jersey Right To Life executive director, said group volunteers will be involved in numerous activities on Election Day. She declined to discuss details but mentioned phone banks and literature distribution.
"We definitely believe that New Jersey is winnable for President Bush," Tasy said.-- -- --
Rich Miller, of the Coalition of New Jersey Sportsmen, which supports gun rights, said individual clubs have their own plans, but the statewide group plans a mailing to "a couple hundred thousand" homes. The mailing, he said, will carry a simple message: "Vote for Bush."
Miller said the National Rifle Association, an influential political action organization that typically supports Republicans, doesn't plan major activity in New Jersey, but he said he's confident the coalition's campaign efforts can prove decisive "if everybody votes that we mail to."
http://www.nj.com/news/times/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1098605231304840.xml
Minnesota (DOES THE GOP HAVE PEOPLE DRIVING PEOPLE TO THE POLLS?):
"The state hasn't gone Republican in a presidential election since 1972, but the spreading suburbs of the Twin Cities are providing increasingly fertile territory for the GOP, and Bush campaign aides think they can win.
"We're going to be outspent, we might be outgunned, but we won't be outworked," said Peter Hong, the Bush campaign's Minnesota spokesman.
More than 50,000 Minnesota volunteers are on the rolls for the Bush campaign, which uses them as the basic building block in its get-out-the-vote operation. Bush's campaign has targeted 17 of Minnesota's 87 counties for special effort on Election Day, hoping to bring out the president's most ardent supporters.
Stearns County is a target, as are suburban counties around the Twin Cities and some rural parts of the state. The GOP has a full-time field office in Waite Park, supporting Bush and U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy, as well as local candidates.
Each of the state's 4,100 precincts has a Bush campaign volunteer in charge of organizing turnout. The other volunteers will be enlisted into calling voters and knocking on doors during the last weekend before the election, as part of the campaign's
"72 Hour Project."
"It's hard for me to believe there are so many people still undecided," Pamela Rieland, 35, of Avon said as she knocked on doors and dropped off literature Oct. 16. None of the dozen or so undecided voters she was looking for was home.
Both campaigns sent miniature armies of volunteers out during a recent weekend, combing the state for the few voters who haven't been identified as a Bush or Kerry supporter yet.
Each campaign sent out walkers with extremely specific lists, looking for no more than a handful of voters on each block.
The lists were so targeted that in some cases the campaigns needed only to contact the husband or wife of a voter they already had on file.
Democrats, allies
Democrats had get-out-the-vote conventions in five Minnesota cities on the same day, trying to prepare hundreds of volunteers for the work they'd be doing on Election Day.
Working from the late Sen. Paul Wellstone's old campaign headquarters in St. Paul, where some of Minnesota's best field operations were mapped out, the Democrat-Farmer-Labor Party has signed up 10,000 to 15,000 volunteers for the final few days. They've given out 60,000 lawn signs and have offices in 16 cities, including downtown St. Cloud.
"This will be the largest GOTV effort in the state's history," said Stacie Paxton, Kerry's spokeswoman in Minnesota. "It's the first time it's been a battleground state."
The Democratic effort will get a major boost from America Coming Together, a group supported by billionaire George Soros that had a $4 million budget in Minnesota to make sure they find every sympathetic voter in the state.
The group's organizers say they've figured out exactly how many votes Kerry will need to win the state, based on past results and expected turnout: 1,319,747.
By Oct. 16, their paid and volunteer field workers already had knocked on 460,000 doors, and before Election Day they plan to hit 700,000.
Canvassers sweep through neighborhoods in the Twin Cities, Duluth and Eveleth with detailed demographic data on their Palm Pilots, uploading the answers to questions they ask every night to update the master voter file.
To help win over undecided voters, the Palm Pilots also are loaded with 30-second videos featuring Minnesotans talking about seven issues in two languages.
On Election Day, as many as 4,000 volunteers will help bring people to polling places. America Coming Together has even recruited a fleet of cab drivers who will give free rides to voters."
http://miva.sctimes.com/miva/cgi-bin/miva?CMN/Local/read.mv+20041024045644+1+