Emergency Effort to Protect the Courts Frequently Asked Questions
Updated often. Please check carefully to see if your question is answered here before emailing. For questions about the campaign more generally, check out our Operation Democracy overview and FAQ.
Signing Up Questions| General Questions | Door to Door Questions
Signing up Questions
How do I get my password? What is it?
I never got an email confirming that I signed up to lead an event. What should I do?
General Questions
Where can I find more information about the Judges issue?
I already collected Social Security petition signatures, what should I do with them?
Do we really need to print out 40 fliers for each member of our team?
Why are we doing this on a weekend? Won’t the offices be empty?
What do we do if the senator’s voice mail box is filled?
There are multiple phone numbers on the flyer – which is the best to call?
How do I know if there is going to be a rally in my community on the 27th?
Door to Door Questions
What are the best times to go door to door?
Some houses in my neighborhood have “no soliciting” signs. Is it ok to knock on these doors?
Our team covers a huge area. It’s seems kind of random to just knock on a few doors…
Are we going to get lists of voters to talk to, like we did during Leave No Voter Behind?
Shouldn’t we have a system for tracking who we talk to, if we’re going to do this again?
I have a question that isn't answered here. What do I do?
Signing Up Questions
How do I get my password? What is it?
When you signed up to coordinate an event, you should have received an email with the subject “Thanks for creating an event: more info.” Near the bottom of this email is a link you can use to create a password—just click on the link and then enter your new password twice.
You can also go directly to http://action.moveonpac.org/login/forgot.html and enter the password you used to create the account. You will then get an email sent to you that will allow you to set a new password. It may sound a little complicated, but it’s really easy in practice.
I never got an email confirming that I signed up to lead an event. What should I do?
There are a few reasons why you might not have received your confirmation email. Don’t forget that until you click on the link in the confirmation email, your event won’t be posted online. Here are a few steps you can take to get the confirmation email:
1) Check your junk mail box. Sometimes these messages get filtered—even if the normal MoveOn emails don’t.
2) If you don’t see it in your junk mail, then you should check your email filter settings, and try temporarily relaxing them—again, sometimes this type of message gets blocked. Once you’ve changed the settings, go back and re-enter your event at:
http://www.moveonpac.org/event/events/create.html?action_id=3
3) If neither of these options work, and you’re sure that you correctly entered your email address when you signed up, then your email is probably blocking our emails in a way that you can’t change. For instance, many people have this problem with verizon email accounts. In this case you should either use an alternative email address or if you don’t have one, you should create one (you can do it for free at www.hotmail.com or www.yahoo.com)
What if we’re not meeting at a “venue”?
If your team is meeting at a well known street corner, park, or anything else, feel free to put that in the “venue” box when creating your event.
General Questions
I already collected Social Security petition signatures, what should I do with them?
For now, just hold onto them. We’re going put our Social Security plan into effect later on and will need every signature we can get.
Do we really need to print out 40 fliers for each member of our team?
We’re asking you to print out 40 fliers per team member so that you can leave a flier at every door you knock on. Even if someone isn’t home when you stop by, the flier will help educate them about the issue—and maybe lead to more phone calls.
But if this creates a problem you should either split up the task among multiple people in your team or , if necessary, just print out fewer fliers for each person.
Remember, you can’t print these out for free at work or at a local non-profit--that would be considered a contribution to MoveOn Political Action, which is illegal from businesses and non-profits.
There is no way my senators are going to change their minds, shouldn’t we be calling swing senators instead? Actually, every senator need to hear from us: firm Republican opponents need to know that the public is paying attention, and reliable Democratic supporters need to know that if they stand up and fight--including resisting if the nuclear option passes--we've got their backs.
Plus, senators are typically not very sensitive to the concerns of folks who live outside their state, so your best bet is to call your own senator.
Why are we doing this on a weekend? Won’t the offices be empty?
It’s true that most callers will reach voice mail instead of a staffer. But thousands of voice mails have the same impact as thousands of messages with staffers. You can tell people you talk to that if they find that a voicemail box is full, they should try a different office or call on Monday.
What do we do if the senator’s voice mail box is filled?
First, you should celebrate because it means that we’re getting a lot of phone calls made. Then you should try calling a local district office. If your district office’s voice mail is also full, keep trying the others—it’s fine if it isn’t the one closest to where you live. Otherwise, try calling on Monday.
There are multiple phone numbers on the flyer – which is the best to call?
Start with your senator’s DC office. If that line is busy or the mail box is full, then call the local office.
How do I know if there is going to be a rally in my community on the 27th?
We’ll be sending out another email in a few days letting you know about rallies that are being planned in your community and giving you the opportunity to get involved.
Door-to-door Questions
What are the best times to go door to door?
The best times on weekends are 11 am to 6 pm. That’s when you’ll find the most people home. .
Some houses in my neighborhood have “no soliciting” signs. Is it ok to knock on these doors?
Yes. Since we’re not asking for money, the no soliciting policy doesn’t apply to you.
I’ve never done anything like this before. I’m nervous about running into people who disagree with me and having a confrontation. What should I do?
It’s completely normal to be nervous about going door to door for the first time–most people are. But you’ll find that once you get a few houses under your belt, it not only becomes less scary, but you can start having fun. It’s a great way to meet your neighbors. We also designed the script to minimize confrontation
—if you find someone who wants to argue, just say "Thank you" and walk away. We're not trying to persuade people who disagree with us; we're trying to mobilize people who DO agree with us.
I live in a conservative neighborhood and I don’t think my neighbors will agree with me on this. Should I still do it?
Yes. Think of it as your goal to go through your neighborhood and start finding those people that share your concerns. You’ll find that these people are thrilled to find someone at their door talking about these issues – even more so than those who live in progressive neighborhoods. You’ll also be surprised by some of your neighbors; members are already telling us that they’ve found Bush voters who are concerned about this issue and who are willing to call their senators.
Our team covers a huge area. It’s seems kind of random to just knock on a few doors…
The goal of this call-in day is to get as many phone calls to our senators as possible, so you and your team should just pick part of your “turf” and start going to work. It’s ok if you don’t cover it all this time. We’ll be going door to door on a number of issues with Operation Democracy
over the next two years, so you can go to other areas next time. You might also want to think about consolidating the area you’re trying to cover.
Our goal is to build networks of relationships we can use to win on issues, build community, and ultimately win elections. That will take some time. But we have to start somewhere! Over time, with your help we'll recruit more teams to fill in the gaps.
Are we going to get lists of voters to talk to, like we did during Leave No Voter Behind?
No, not right now. For now, we want to talk to everyone we can. But as the 2006 elections come closer, we will start targeting folks who are unregistered or infrequent voters in key contested districts.
Shouldn’t we have a system for tracking who we talk to, if we’re going to do this again?
We plan to create a system to track these conversations, but it will likely take us a few months– we’ve got to get Operation Democracy fully up and running first! In the meantime, you should take down the name and address of supportive people yourself. If they’re really supportive, be sure to invite them to join your team.
I have a question that isn't answered here. What do I do?
We can't always answer every question individually, but if you contact us with your question; we'll answer the most common in this FAQ.