Reflection: The South Carolina Democratic Party

For my volunteer service, I chose the South Carolina Democratic Party to participate with. I was connected with Ernest Boston Jr. and Maria Reyes, two of the people there who supervised volunteers. My experience did not explicitly focus on campaigning, however. For the first few volunteer sessions that I attended, I was responsible for phone banking potential volunteers to assist in phone banking and canvassing. Closer to Election Day, I was responsible for phone banking voters in the Columbia area and making them aware of their options for voting, such as location, transportation, and early voting availability. I interacted with a number of my classmates who were also volunteering there. The experience was very revealing for what goes into …show more content…
Many, many people were very passionate about the election and believed that their civic duty to elect was one of the most important things they had at the time. Some people were extremely appreciative of the efforts we made to reach out to voters in the area. Other people were very adamantly opposed to it and considered us spam and a waste of time. It was especially interesting experience when calling people who didn’t consider themselves Democrats. The reactions I had ranged from calmly saying “We’re not Democrats, sorry” and hanging up to very aggressive, impassion statements on how we were “literally demonic.” Working as a phone banker in an election is an experience I think more people should …show more content…
The people I met were largely as I perceived them through their profiles and social media activity prior to actually getting to meet them. But once I started interacting with them, I understood more about why they held their positions. They were great people who had a number of skills you may not find in every person: brainstorming new, good ideas, articulating points clearly and effectively, and appealing to people using logos, ethos and pathos at the same time. Understanding who the South Carolina Democratic Party were as people as well as party members helped expand my understanding of the electoral process, especially on the local and state