Phone Calls Drive Voter Registration

Every campaign wants to win at the polls. But even the best-run operation that rallies supporters, stirs up enthusiasm, and makes headlines won’t move the needle unless those supporters are actually registered to vote. Social media posts and email blasts about voter registration are easy to scroll past and forget. To truly mobilize people, you need to command their attention and action.

Phone calls are an instant, personal, and highly effective way to engage voters one-on-one. Unlike a post or a banner ad, a phone call creates a two-way conversation and prompts a response. It gives people a chance to ask questions, express concerns, and take immediate action.

At Stones’ Phones, we’ve seen firsthand how phone calls can drive voter registration. Here’s how we helped two organizations turn conversations into votes.

Georgia Association of Educators

When thousands of voters were purged from Georgia’s voter rolls, the Georgia Association of Educators (GAE) sprang into action. They needed to alert their members to the issue and help them quickly confirm their registration.

We partnered with GAE to launch Cell Phone-Friendly Auto Calls, a dynamic strategy that blends the scale of Auto Calls with the authenticity of a real person’s voice. Unlike pre-recorded messages, these calls are delivered live, so we’re able to send them to both landlines and cell phones.

We made the calls even more interactive by having the live speaker prompt members to press “6” if they wanted a follow-up text with a direct link to check their registration. Those who opted in received a same-day text and a simple next step to verify their voter status.

This multi-channel approach combined urgency with clarity. The calls broke through the noise, while the texts gave people a quick, convenient way to follow through. In the end, we reached 30,000 educators across Georgia, equipping them with the tools to make sure their votes counted.

Shape Up the Vote

Barbershops, salons, and yoga studios may not be the first places you think of for voter registration. But they should be. Shape Up the Vote, a nonpartisan civic engagement campaign, recognized that trusted businesses are powerful messengers. These spaces are where people go for a cut or a class, but they’re also where communities connect, confide, and catch up. That made these businesses the perfect partners for a voter registration push.

To bring these businesses on board, we launched Live ID Calls. Our first wave of calls introduced business owners to the campaign, explained their potential impact, and offered them voter kits—posters, mirror clings, and educational materials they could display and share with clients. During the call, we collected mailing addresses to make sure those kits got into the right hands.

In the following weeks, we called back over 10,000 businesses that had received a kit to confirm they had displayed the materials and to offer additional resources.

The impact was huge. From our calls alone, hundreds of shops requested materials, and we confirmed 838 businesses proudly displayed voter engagement tools in their spaces. All told, Shape Up the Vote mailed over 14,000 kits and helped spark nearly 127,000 conversations between stylists, barbers, and their clients about making a plan to vote.

These cases highlight the effectiveness of phones in driving voter registration. By creating immediate connections, phone calls inspire action, and provide the support needed to take the first (and most important) step toward casting their ballot.

If you aren’t using phones to drive registration, you might be leaving votes on the table. Let’s talk about how to change that.