Register Voters with Reach

How to register voters with the Democrats using the Reach app

Overview

Encouraging the people you know to check their voter registration, and registering to vote in their states, has a direct and positive impact for us to organize and win. We approach voter registration with the same principle that is the foundation for our organizing program: that YOU are the best advocate with the people in your life. That includes ensuring the people you know are registered to vote for upcoming elections.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to use the Reach app to help people check their registration and register to vote with the Democrats.

Identifying Potential Unregistered Voters

Using the Reach app allows a simple way for you to identify potential unregistered voters among people you know. Through a matching process against your personal contacts, we are able to help you target your phone contacts who may not be registered by matching their information against our voter database.

NOTE: You have complete control over what you upload and all of your data is encrypted. Reach will never share your data with any third parties.

Before continuing, please make sure to review our Reach User Guide and we highly encourage you to attend an upcoming training with our team to learn more on how to use the Reach app.

Step 1: Contact Import

  1. Navigate to the “My Reach” screen by clicking the icon at the bottom of your screen.

  2. Head to the “Network” tab to begin the process for importing your contacts.

  3. If your Network screen is empty, you can select “Import from your Contacts” to get started! If you already have some people in your Network, you’ll see an Import button in the lower right corner.

  4. If you are using the Reach native app on your phone, you can import contacts from your phone’s contact list. You’ll see a pop up asking you to give Reach permission to access your contacts – be sure to click “allow”. We take your privacy very seriously. You have complete control over what you upload and all of your data is encrypted. Reach & The Democrats will never share your data with any third parties.

  5. From the import screen, you can select which contacts you want to import into your Network. You’ll see a list of every contact in your phone address book if you’re on the mobile app. All of your contacts will be pre-selected for you. For the purposes of registering voters, keep all contacts selected to maximize the number of potential unregistered voters to connect with.

  6. When you’ve got the selection just right, tap “Search for Matching Voters in Reach”.

Step 2: Match Your Contacts

  1. Next, we’ll run all of the contacts you selected through a speedy Reach search to show you which ones may match people within the voter file.

  2. You’ll see each contact listed starting with the ones whose name AND phone number match our database who will have the label “Great Matches", "Matches" or "No Matches."

  3. Next, we want to filter our contacts to narrow down to those who were NOT matched in our database to provide a view of our contacts who may not be registered to vote. Tap the Filters & Prefs tab in the top left to select a filter.

  4. In the filters view, tap "Matches" and select the "No Matches" checkbox. This will narrow down the list of contacts who were not matched to the voter database.

  5. Tap "Done" and then "Apply" to submit your new filter view.

  6. You will now see a view of contacts in your phone book who were unable to be matched to an active voter. Contacts should show a blue "No Matches" label next to each contact.

  7. NOTE: There may be a scenario where the contact was not matched due to the limited information of the contact. Please be sure to check if you are unsure about a contact -- sometimes it's related to a naming convention such as "Mom" for a name or a phone number being listed incorrectly.

Step 3: Add To Your Network

After you've confirmed an individual contact who has the correct contact information but is NOT matched, we'll want to add them to our network to begin the registration process.

  1. Tap the contact you want to add. In the contact rollup, tap "Add [NAME] as a new person.

  2. Next, confirm that the person you want to add after attempting to match them by either adding more contact information, such as a last name. Tap "Continue."

  3. Once you’ve confirmed the contact details are correct, tap “Add to My Network” and move on to add your next contact!