Monday, Aug. 14, 2006 | 7:26 a.m.
Paula Martin works a full day at a real estate development firm, and then twice a week, rather than going out for cocktails or to the movies like any other mid-20s professional, she calls strangers and tells them to vote for Rep. Jim Gibbons.
May seem odd, but there are hundreds like her working for the Reno Republican and his closest competitor for the nomination for governor, state Sen. Bob Beers.
It's volunteers such as Martin who may decide the Republican nomination. Republicans in recent years have stepped up their get-out-the-vote efforts, or GOTV, as the political pros call it.
In a GOTV effort, a campaign identifies its voters and pesters them to vote, while persuading the still-undecided with phone calls and home visits. For people with a history of voting absentee, it helps them get an absentee ballot; for the aged and infirm, it finds them a ride.
Until recently, Democrats owned this part of politics, using unions and their large volunteer base as a way to overcome the Republicans' typical financial advantage.
"For Republicans, GOTV used to mean 'get on television,' " said Grant Hewitt, Gibbons' deputy campaign manager.
Since 2000, however, they've recognized the importance of the personal touch in persuading voters to get to the polls. Like any sales job, persistence - even to the point of being a nuisance - pays dividends. Nevada, and Southern Nevada in particular, offers its own special challenges, however, with its mobile population and 24-hour lifestyle, campaign managers and analysts say.
The story of Republican GOTV efforts goes like this: Karl Rove, who ran President Bush's campaigns, is said to have been blindsided by Al Gore's popular vote victory in 2000, which was due in part to the Democrats' impressive Election Day operation.
Never again, Republicans vowed. They began recruiting volunteers and battle tested a new operation in 2002, which was then used to great effect in 2004, especially in key states such as Nevada and Ohio, where a surge in Republican turnout overcame an even heavier than expected Democratic tide.
Both parties now use sophisticated databases to find their voters and keep track of what issues are most important to them.
"It's all computer-driven and highly targetable," said B.R. McConnon, the CEO of Democracy Data & Communications, a D.C.-area firm that runs the technology for many GOTV campaigns.
One new technique, for instance, has volunteers inputting data into a hand-held computer, which is then uploaded onto the campaign's database. They use those databases to call voters and identify who they know to be solid supporters. Then, when that list is complete, they call those people once early voting begins.
Each day during early voting, Clark County updates its voter list, so the campaigns know who's been naughty, and who's been nice, so to speak. Supporters who don't vote will get another phone call.
"You do make yourself a nuisance with some people," said Dan Hart, who's running the campaign of Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson. "But the ultimate goal is to get them to vote; so if you have to be a little bit of nuisance, then so be it."
Gibson is challenging the Democratic frontrunner in the governor's race, state Sen. Dina Titus. Marlene Lockard, who was an aid to former Sen. Richard Bryan, is running the statewide Titus field operation.
Lockard said Southern Nevada's 24-hour work schedule and lifestyle requires longer hours for field workers. In other states, volunteers walking precincts and making phone calls might only work in the early evening, when they figure people will be home. Titus workers are going from 8 in the morning to 8 at night. Same with other campaigns.
Ryan Erwin, a Nevada Republican consultant, said in an e-mail, "it is always more difficult here than anywhere else that I have worked" because of the 24-hour schedule, the rapid growth and a mobile population often uninterested in politics. All the unlisted phone numbers are another problem.
Political parties, which often drive turnout in other states, are relatively weak here. Privately, Republicans grouse that their party is in particular disarray this year.
Donald Green, Yale political science professor and co-author of "Get Out the Vote! How to Increase Voter Turnout," said the mobility of Nevada's population would make finding and reaching voters that much harder: "I wouldn't overstate the precision of these lists. A highly mobile electorate really degrades these lists."
The data show that mobility is usually correlated with low turnout, Green said.
That could explain the rather dismal turnout in Nevada, which ranked 45th in the country in turnout among eligible voters in the 2002 mid-term election, according to a study by a George Mason University professor.
In the 2002 primary, 11.5 percent of the voting-age population of Clark County cast ballots. (This low number is also a reflection of our large noncitizen and felon population, who are of voting-age, but can't vote.)
So what can campaigns to do in this environment? They all say it's just hard work, but there might be another answer: whiskey.
Green said voter turnout has been on the decline since the 19th century, when political machines courted voters with free food and strong drink. He blames the secret ballot: "It made it impossible to check their votes and know if you'd wasted your whiskey or not."
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