Segways on the Campaign Trail

smooth wombat writes "The Segway is being used in a way probably not considered during its design: on the campaign trail. CNN's story talks about how a few candidates in different states are using the device to meet more people. According to one campaign consultant, who cited a Yale University study, knocking on voters' doors can account for a 7 percent to 12 percent increase in overall voter turnout. Using the Segway a candidate can reach three times the people compared to simply walking."

Re:what about other short-distance vehicles?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Doesn't pass the "get to the door without being out of breath" test in all situations (which was the *big* thing in the article- that this over 50 year old candidate could hit twice to three times as many houses without being out of breath).

Since the candidate in question is a HUGE believer in door-to-door campaigning, being able to still do it despite advanced years is a big deal.

walking precincts - an elected official who did it

[chongo]

I would like to comment on walking the campaign trail from the perspective of an elected official who did a lot of it:

When I ran for Sunnyvale City Council I talked every predict in the city of ~125k people; knocking on some +30k doors of regular voters introducing myself and asking people to consider voting for me in November.

It was a very valuable experience. I had plenty of experience listening to the voters and answering their questions. By the time it came to the televised debates I had a solid grasp of the concerns of the voting public. I won with ~50% of the vote in a 3-way race.

Doing that much walking was hard work! I walked 6 to 8 hours a day, 7 days a week for nearly 8 months. Not only was to good exercise, it gave me some key insights into important neighborhood issues while I was in office.

Walking for another candidate is a fine thing to do. Even after I was selected I walked a number precincts for a number of candidates that I endorsed. Still, there is no substitute for a voter talking one-on-one with the actual candidate.

What all of that said: About 1/2 of the my time in a precinct was at the door:

• waiting for somebody to answer
• leaving a note if nobody was home
• attempting to discover of they had a "No solicitors" sign (I would not knock if they did)
• finding the door bell
• attempting to determine if the door bell worked or if you had to knock
• talking to the voter

The Segway will not help you with the door time.

Another ~1/6 of my time was spent going from the street to the door. This was the time that one had to remain alert for:

• dogs and other attack animals
• trip and fall hazards (hard to walk the city if you are on crutches)
• finding the "main door" (sometimes the main door was not the front door but a side door)
• avoiding plants / lawn (some people really get upset if you tread on their lawn, others expect you to walk over it to reach their door)
• not surprising people (not good introduce yourself after you have just startled them)

Using the Segway to go from the curb to the door would be a bad idea ... even if you had room to navigate your way without running over plants, pets, etc. :-) The many stairs and steps would also be an issue with the Segway.

The other ~1/3 of my time was spent going to the next door. Some of that is finding the next address of a regular voter. Some of that is attempting to look up their name (I always attempted to address them personally if possible), etc.

The Segway would be able to help going to the next door.

I mostly walked in the suburbs. I am sure other types of areas have different time ratios. For my case: even if the Segway could cut my time to the next door to zero, it would have only saved me about 1/3 of my time.

Segways are fun, but I don't see how they can 3x your voter reach in the types of areas that I was walking in.