2006

In 2006, WVWV released its groundbreaking study of unmarried America and the first ever major poll of unmarried America. Registration and voter mobilization programs sponsored by Women's Voices. Women Vote reached more than two million single women by Election Day. Across the country we mailed, phoned, emailed and worked with partners to encourage single, divorced and widowed women to make their voices heard.

The 2006 election underscored the importance of the marriage gap as the defining factor in American politics in terms of who does and does not participate. Yet only Women's Voices. Women Vote is working to make sure that single women, who are underrepresented in the American electorate, realize their potential to influence the democratic process. WVWV enjoyed great success in our programs in 2006,, including a communications program that encouraged women to vote with over 2.8 million pieces of mail, 1 million automated phone calls and 695,000 live phone calls;

• Completion of a same day registration program in Minnesota and Wisconsin with over 400,000 contacts;
• The registration of nearly 90,000 new voters across the country;
• The generation of nearly 30,000 vote by mail applications in a test program in vote by mail states;
• The development and enhancement of unique data lists of unmarried women in 16 states;
• The creation of a wildly successful Public Service Announcement campaign with an audience of 50 million people and a paid media value of $3 million.

The success of our approach and communication strategy was evidenced in our post-election survey of voters we registered in 2006. Fully 25 percent cited our materials as the reason they registered to vote. Among all unmarried women in the states where we ran programs, one in four recalled receiving information about single women and voting.

Marital status, along with age, education and length of residence, remains one of the top predictors of whether or not an individual will participate in an election. Married individuals are disproportionately represented in the electorate, while unmarried individuals - who now make up a majority of American households - are underrepresented.

Armed with this knowledge, WVWV has created state of the art modeling techniques to determine marital status and created quality lists to make sure that single women are correctly identified, registered and turned out to vote. All of our communication programs are rigorously tested, and we incorporate scientific models and control groups into all of our programs.

2004

Women's Voice. Women Vote identified the fastest-growing large demographic in the nation today - unmarried women. We also identified the "marriage gap" as one of the most important realities in our nation's public life and one of the most important dynamics in driving civic engagement.

In 2004, WVWV ran public service announcements across the country promoting voting for unmarried women. We also ran successful voter registration and turnout programs in a total of 16 states. The more intense the WVWV programs, the greater the increase in turnout by unmarried women.

The results of WVWV's targeting was:

• In the 16 states where WVWV ran programs, unmarried women turnout increased by 8.25 percent over 2000;
• In WVWV's top 8 states for program activity, unmarried women turnout increased by 10.5 percent;
• In WVWV's final 4 states, unmarried women turnout increased by 13.5 percent;
• In the states where WVWV only ran public service announcements, unmarried women turnout increased by 5 percent.

Overall, in 2004, WVWV helped unmarried women increase their representation in the electorate from 19% in 2000 to 22.4% in 2004.

WVWV demonstrated that we can:

• Find and target individual members of a large demographic group that are not heavily concentrated geographically;
• Develop a sophisticated research program to understand how to communicate information about political engagement with a large, diverse and under-engaged demographic group;
• Create pilot tests to determine if research allows one to cost-effectively motivate a large and diverse demographic group to register and vote;

Rollout successful tests with cost-effective economies of scale; and Create a highly innovative and successful lists program, including their purchase, enhancement, development, and sharing.

In addition to WVWV's own organizing programs, WVWV provided our lists, research, and other materials to partner organizations. Our motto was "steal this book." WVWV made its data and its materials available free of charge to other 501(c)(3), non-profit organizations by placing them on the WVWV web site. This type of collaborative work enabled the tested messages, that effectively target underrepresented groups, to be disseminated much more widely. WVWV has one over-riding goal: to ensure that all those working on voter registration and Get-Out-the-Vote efforts understand the importance of integrating women on their own in all that they do.