RETRACTED: Party at the Mailbox: Mobilizing Black Voters with Celebrations of Community

22 September 2021, Version 1
This content is an early or alternative research output and has not been peer-reviewed at the time of posting.

Abstract

In early 2020 Black Girls Vote, Inc. (BGV) created an initiative to deliver customized locally-themed voter engagement boxes to Baltimore city residents. The pilot Party at the Mailbox (PATM) effort for the June 2020 primary was enormously successful, increasing turnout by 3.5 percentage points overall and by 12.4 percentage points among low-propensity members of households where boxes were delivered. We continued to partner with BGV for the fall general elections as they again worked to increase turnout in Baltimore and also expanded to Detroit and Philadelphia, and for the January 2021 U.S. Senate runoff election in Atlanta. We conclude that PATM works because it cultivates a spirit of celebration about voting that capitalizes on Black group consciousness and Black attitudes about the power of the vote.

Keywords

voter mobilization
Black Americans
group consciousness
celebration
randomized controlled trial
mixed methods
get-out-the-vote

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