Joining the final six-week stretch for mobilizing Philadelphia voters

As we come down to the final six weeks in the election campaign, the 17th episode of “Talk It OUT: LGBTQ Voices In A Queer Election Year” takes us back to Pennsylvania to talk to an organizing group we first met in one of our earliest episodes.

I speak with Adam Barbanel-Fried, the director of Changing the Conversation Together, a group working to mobilize voters in low-turnout neighborhoods in Philadelphia — by making use of an intensive door-to-door voter outreach technique known as deep canvassing.

This past Sunday, a few days before speaking with Adam, I traveled to Philadelphia to spend the day canvassing with the group alongside nearly a hundred other volunteers. 

I learned first-hand how challenging that work can be but also how thoroughly Changing the Conversation Together trains its volunteers to have the sort of in-depth and authentic conversations with potential voters shown to be the single most effective way to increase turnout.

Maximizing voter turnout is a vital factor in an election expected to be very close and one in which Pennsylvania could well decide the outcome.

Adam and I talk in detail about the training involved in doing deep canvassing and what a volunteer can reasonably expect to encounter.

We also discuss Changing the Conversation’s plans for the final six-week stretch of the campaign and most importantly how you can help.

“Talk It OUT” is presented by Gay City News.

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Music courtesy of IMG via uppbeat.io.