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Hello everyone- what an election eh?

Just got home after an exhaustive day-

Yesterday (Monday) I spent 11 hours at Trump HQ’s in Phoenix, AZ., making phone calls in a Get Out The Vote process. What that entails is basically making phone calls nonstop... and reading from a script in order to encourage voters to go vote for Trump.

The way things work, is if one has a laptop, you bring it to the call center. The managers get your name, e-mail address, and phone number (from you) and register it to a software program named Callfire. Once that is done, a head set is linked physically to your cell phone. Your laptop is linked to Callfire, then Callfire contacts your phone. The phone is answered, completing the link between your phone and your laptop. Then- a prompt on your laptop directs you to start dialing numbers. One by one, numbers come up on your laptop screen... some are not answered, and some are- either by someone live, or by the customary tools of a recorded message.

Depending on the protocol- either a message is left by the volunteer caller reading a script, or- by clicking on a hot link button named Smart Drop, and a pre-recorded message is activated, and left with the intended caller on what ever device is being used by the voter. This frees up the volunteer to continue placing additional calls.

Other outcomes or dispositions-
are owed to being-

a technical issue (dropped call)
wrong number,
completed call,
hung up,
or-
left voice message.

There is a dialog box for entering Notes, and once the Disposition is selected, and any Notes are entered- then the caller clicks on a function button marked- Save. Once Save is selected... another call is spun up for the caller to deal with. There is also a Hang Up function, that ends a call and initiates the next one. Either wireless phone service or landlines were contacted, driven primarily by time of day. The call center was capable of supporting approximately 24 volunteers at any one time, and in a slow period, may only have 6 callers engaged in getting out the vote. The goal might be to contact 5,000 voters, by way of phoning them, and there may be as many as 45 callers, or as few as 6, working together on the same goal.

I went by my precinct on the way in to volunteer today, and found so many voters standing in line- that there was at least a two hour wait to vote. I had an early ballot that I had not mailed in, needing to be delivered, so I elected to travel to the next closest polling location. That location was just as packed, so I made the decision to just walk to the front of the line and enter the building so that I could hand off the ballot to election officials. I took all of 15 seconds to complete the task.

The call center had dozens of I-Pads for use, in the event a volunteer showed up without a laptop. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner was provided. Bottled water and coffee was available as well.

Yard signs, stickers, window placards, and bumper stickers were available for the taking, with a steady stream of volunteers stopping by for campaign supplies.

The staff were from the Trump campaigns in Louisiana, and Nevada.

I am fading fast, so I’m posting this, and will add to it tomorrow. Good night everyone.