How We Partnered with Civic Nebraska to Contribute to a 172% Increase in Vote by Mail Turnout.
Before
The State of Nebraska operates a complicated Vote by Mail (VBM) election system. Voters can apply to vote by absentee without exception. But the application is not easily accessible for all voters across the state. Nebraskans must visit the archaic state website, navigate the less-than-user-friendly pages to finally find the application. Then, the voter must fill out the form, print it, and send it back to the Secretary of State’s office via mail.
After
Effct partnered with Civic Nebraska to simplify the process. We used a captivating explainer video to educate voters and designed a landing page for them to easily submitted their information to. We then directed them to the Vote By Mail application and continually followed up with automated emails to ensure they turned in their application.
On Primary Election Day 2020, the state of Nebraska shattered voting history due to more than 80% of all votes cast by mail compared to 25% historically. The COVID-19 pandemic played a huge factor in the increase in VBM. Still Effct and Civic Nebraska's partnership generated 400,000 impressions online, and nearly 400,000 Nebraskans voted by mail.
In Nebraska, voters are required to re-apply for their VBM ballot for the general election. To ensure the voters we registered during the primary re-applied, we sent out an email drip campaign informing them of the requirement and supplying them with the application link.
Following the success of our primary election campaign, we developed multiple phases of advertisements for both Facebook and Google leading up to the general election. Through these ads we were able to garner 1,927,173 impressions and send the VBM application to 8,753 new contacts. This led to an increase of approximately 82,000 VBM voters (482,919 total) in Nebraska’s general election. In 2016, just 177,287 votes were mailed in, meaning there was a 172% increase in VBM in 2020.
Civic Nebraska has been extremely pleased with our partnership with Effct. The Effct team brought political and technical expertise to our statewide Vote by Mail push. From start to finish, they have demonstrated a keen understanding of the Nebraska electoral process. Their passion for voter access for all Americans aligns extremely well with our vision for voting rights for all Nebraska voters. We are ecstatic with our success in both the 2020 primary and general elections!
- John Cartier
Director of Voting Rights,
Civic Nebraska
By the Numbers
2,327,419
~353,015
$2.64
53%
Digital Tactics
Explainer
Video
Effct began by created and designed an engaging explainer video meant to convey a clear and concise story to raise awareness about Nebraska’s Vote by Mail application. Together with other engaging supplemental videos we have garnered over 62,253 video views across the state.
Landing Page Development
We built a sticky landing page (civicnebraska.vote) meant to convert voter traffic into successful Vote by Mail registrations. The landing page is meant to be a trusted source for VBM applications and voter registration for all Nebraskans. In both our Primary and General election campaigns, we generated a total of 21,390 website visits and registered over 11,300 voters for early voting.
Targeted
Traffic
By understanding our target audience we deployed hyper targeted ads through Facebook and Google to ensure we were able to reach voters searching for an easy and simple way to Vote. Through our successful Facebook traffic and lead generation ads we were able to draw a lot of visitors to the civicnebraska.vote site at a low cost of $1.40 per visit.
Automated Email
Instead of sending folks to the SOS website to access the VBM application, we asked folks to complete an online questionnaire that automatically enrolled them in the drip campaign. With the data collected through this website and our email platform, we were able to see exactly how many constituents were opening emails, which platform they came to the website by, and whether or not they actually downloaded the vote at home form, which we offered directly on the website. This method allowed Effct to achieve a 53.7% open rate and led to more than 11,300 registrations through the landing page.