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This year, National Voter Registration Day is September 27. On this annual holiday, thousands of groups around the country will be holding voter registration drives — setting up at your local college, grocery store, community center, library, or street corner. Their goal? To make sure that people who want to vote this November are registered.

Voter registration drives are something that Valerie Walston knows a lot about. In her position as Voter Outreach Coordinator for the Auditor’s Office in Thurston County, Washington, Valerie helps organize and support registration efforts throughout the county. Recently, by combining community partnerships, strategic promotion, and youth outreach, she and her team have gotten voter registration drives down to a science.

Part of the scenic Puget Sound region, Thurston County is home to Olympia, the state capital. In the Washington State Capitol building, you’ll find a large bronze bust of George Washington with an unusually shiny nose. That’s because for locals and visitors alike, it’s a longstanding tradition to rub Washington’s nose for good luck.

Thurston County has about 168,700 registered voters — but don’t be surprised if this number increases in the near future. The secret isn’t good luck. It’s good planning.

Forging Partnerships

Thurston County Auditor Mary Hall is proud of the high voter turnout in the county — around 80% — and the local rate of voter registration is on par with national figures, but still her team is always working to increase these numbers.

Like many other government offices, however, they’re trying to do more with less. “We have limited resources to staff voter registration drives,” explains Valerie, adding that “Thurston County Elections’ goal of achieving high voter registration and high voter turnout must now be done with one less elections supervisor.”

Working together, Mary and Valerie found a solution to the shortfalls of staff and resources in community partnerships. “We identify community partners with similar missions,” Valerie says. “The League of Women Voters and the YWCA both seek to promote voting, voter registration, and civic participation, so those partners were obvious.”

These partner organizations contribute a lot to the registration drives. “They help us be the ‘boots on the ground’ during NVRD events,” according to Valerie, “and they also help promote events and voter registration through social channels, press releases, etc.” Once the partnerships are established, Valerie and her colleagues move on to other prep work.

“We identify areas with significant foot traffic (libraries, colleges, intercity transit centers, etc.) and book voter registration drives and assign staff. Then, we build voter registration kits, consisting of voter registration forms, ‘Register to Vote Here’ signs, ‘I Registered to Vote’ stickers, ‘iRegistered’ selfie signs, and table decor including tablecloths, flags, and table flag stands.”

Every election official knows how popular stickers are, and materials are another area where partnerships help out. “We utilize promotional posters and stickers sent by the National Voter Registration Day group at each of our drive locations,” Valerie explains. This means registration volunteers can give out swag without the expense.

Promotion is Key

As important as staff and materials are, though, Mary and Valerie understand that a registration event needs effective promotion to be successful. This is where Valerie’s years of experience in media relations come in handy. To spread the word about registration drives, the Auditor’s Office relies on graphic communications and social media campaigns.

“The trend is now toward images and, in particular, video,” Valerie says. “Social media is a perfect starting point for these graphic campaigns, and we host them on our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube accounts. In the past, we’ve had earned media on our graphics, which extends the life and visibility of them even more.”

In other words, the promotion efforts of the election staff gain public notice, directing even more attention to the registration drives.

Mary’s office has already gotten positive attention for its new NVRD video. “Videos tend to do really well on Facebook,” observes Valerie.

With effective partnerships and innovative promotion, registration drives in Thurston County have had great results. Last year, according to Valerie, there were about a dozen voter registration events in the county, bringing in more than 350 new voter registrations.

Civic Engagement for the Whole Family

But because achievement can breed ambition, Mary and her staff are starting a new project this year: combining voter registration drives with a youth engagement program.

What does that look like? It’s hard to miss. At an upcoming voter registration event, in addition to seeing friendly volunteers from the League of Women Voters and YWCA, you might meet eyes with a five-foot-tall cartoon ballot box.

His name is Billy, and he helps get kids thinking about civic participation. Billy the Ballot Box, Valerie tells us, is “sad and skinny” when there’s low voter turnout, but he “grows big and strong as voters put their ballots in him.”

While kids can’t vote, they’re still an important audience for civic outreach: they can begin to learn about elections while also encouraging the adults around them to be dutiful voters.

“We use Billy,” Valerie says, “to promote ‘dinner table conversations’ among families with children. It is also our hope that children who like Billy will urge their parents, aunts, and uncles to return their ballots so Billy may become big and strong.”

Billy has become a fixture in local school and social media outreach, but now he’ll also be making in-person appearances at registration drives. “Our voter registration events will include Billy the Ballot Box bookmarks, coloring pages, crayons, and a five-foot cardboard cutout,” Valerie reports. These kid-friendly materials mean registration tables will have something for adults and children alike.

This year, National Voter Registration Day promises to be a big day in Thurston County. And the partnerships, promotion, and youth outreach engineered by Mary, Valerie, and their team are sure to make it a triumph.

On the national level, NVRD has achieved a lot since it launched in 2012. According to Matt Singer of NVRD, it’s helped to register almost 640,000 new voters, and already more than 3,600 organizations have signed up to participate this year.

Registration Resources

Are you thinking about supporting registration drives in your area? We’ve got some great resources to share with you.

You can sign up to become an NVRD partner at this partnership sign-up page.

If you’re looking for voter registration materials, check out the link below for our Voter Registration Drive Kit, one of the tools in the ElectionTools.org.

Finally, Valerie has offered to talk with election officials who want to launch voter registration drives in their own areas. You can reach out to her at [email protected].

What solutions have you found for organizing and supporting voter registration efforts in your community? How have community partnerships helped your office run great elections and connect with the public? Tell us about them by emailing [email protected].