NEXT

A group of young professionals, many of whom have worked their entire careers in politics, started NEXT to address their "collective frustration with the political climate and the lack of meaningful, concrete ways for people to change it."  A major project for NEXT was its Get on the Bus (GOTB) project which focused on two counties in West Virginia.  Description provided by NEXT:
 
Get on the Bus (GOTB)
NEXT focused on two counties in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia – Berkeley and Jefferson counties – where NEXT volunteers canvassed door to door with local activists to register, educate, and mobilize voters in an attempt to turn the state Blue.  After contacting 36,000 voters face-to-face, NEXT increased Democratic turnout by 38% and 39% in our two counties, and in the process trained hundreds of local volunteers in grassroots activism and left a venerable structure in place for future activity. 

• GOTB Trips – the centerpiece of the GOTB campaign were NEXT’s bus trips to Jefferson and Berkeley counties. Beginning in April, NEXT sponsored 14 bus trips that brought 800 DC volunteers into WV, who were then met by an equal number of WV volunteers.  To be sure, the Eastern Panhandle had never before seen an army of 1600 volunteers pour in to affect an election.

• NEXT Materials – NEXT volunteers developed high-quality voter education materials including a flyer highlighting the Bush record in West Virginia entitled, Is West Virginia Better Off? (link). After the Democratic convention, NEXT updated this card to include information on John Kerry’s record (link). Also, after our research demonstrated how many voters split their vote in 2000 voting for Senator Robert Byrd but against Al Gore, NEXT developed a post card highlighting Robert Byrd’s powerful endorsement of John Kerry (link).
  

• Canvassing Follow-up – Following each bus trip, canvassing information was entered into the NEXT database and hand-written letters were mailed to each undecided voter addressing the specific issue he or she identified as most important to them in choosing a president.  In addition, NEXT recruited Kerry supporters to come out the next week and volunteer.  Pretty soon, West Virginians began scheduling their own post-card writing events using NEXT’s materials and using our flyers to pass out at high school football games, barbeques, and local cultural events.  NEXT ended up sending over 2,000 handwritten letters to swing voters and passed out thousands of flyers at events.

• Get out the Vote (GOTV)/No Excuse Voting campaign – For the last three weeks of the campaign, NEXT has developed a very focused Get out the Vote campaign that emphasized West Virginia’s No Excuse Voting Law that allows West Virginians to vote for 15 full days before the Election Day.  NEXT opened up campaign offices across the state.  In the Eastern Panhandle, NEXT targeted 2,500 known Kerry supporters who for one reason or another had not voted in one or both of the past two presidential elections.  NEXT went after each one of these “low-performing Democrats” until we could verify from the county clerk that they had voted.  Much farther west, NEXT sent hundreds of volunteers deep into coal country to target heavily Democratic precincts with low turnout.