When you hear Republican, Democrat or even third party affiliations like the Green Party or Libertarians, you think of a very different world. Many think its corrupt, some thinks it fun and a few dont even know how to spell politics or vote for that meaning. Acronyms like GOTV, ED, VAN, and TV, may seem like go T.V., Education, some type of vehicle and something you watch. But no, they stand for Get out the Vote, Election Day, Voter Action Network, and targeted voter are really what these acronyms mean. Many people come and volunteer for a campaign on their own. They may see a candidate at a local event and agree to vote for the candidate and do some phone calling to friends for the candidate to show their full support. Most volunteers come out during the presidential elections. They see the opportunity to affect change and hope on a national level and begin to call around looking for the candidates headquarters.

Once they are in the door, they enjoy the atmosphere; Election Day is here and then the race is over. The volunteers and supporters long to have that excitement continue with door to door knocking, phone banking, and holding signs up around busy intersections to notify voters that there is an election going on. With that, they start to get involved in smaller campaigns, like school board or council races. As the election season gets closer to November, you will start to see more candidates yard signs go up in your community. If it is your neighbor, a simple question like where did you get the sign from could spark a conversation that gets you the information for the headquarters and gets you in the door to volunteer.

Volunteers are so crucial to campaigns because they generally cant afford to pay the sizeable staff they need to execute their objective. So college students have become a big target. One who is willing to work for little or nothing to get the experience, come in early, leave late, and has an expendable amount of energy. A lot of people think you have to major in something like political science or some major remotely similar to politics, but that is not the case. My major just so happened to be business administration and a friend of mines was nursing. That just shows you that all walks of life participate in this process and that your only qualification is the passion to help the candidate get elected to office.

If you find yourself wanting to do more in upcoming election and have the urge to volunteer and dont know where to start, then call the national parties of each and see what you can do to find campaigns locally!