A Precinct Committee Officer (PCO) for the Democratic Party in a legislative district precinct plays several important roles:
- Grassroots organizing: PCOs serve as the grassroots organizers for the Democratic Party at the neighborhood level. They connect with voters in their precinct and help build support for Democratic candidates and policies.
- Voter outreach: PCOs often conduct voter registration drives, distribute campaign literature, and engage in door-to-door canvassing to inform voters about candidates and issues.
- Get-out-the-vote efforts: During elections, PCOs work to mobilize voters in their precinct, encouraging them to vote and sometimes helping with transportation to polling places.
- Party representation: PCOs represent their precinct at local Democratic Party meetings and conventions. They have voting rights on local party matters and in selecting party leadership (e.g. endorsements).
- Candidate recruitment: PCOs can help identify and encourage potential candidates to run for local offices.
- Information conduit: PCOs serve as a two-way communication channel between the party and voters, relaying voter concerns to party leadership and disseminating party information to constituents.
- Filling vacancies: In some areas, PCOs may play a role in nominating replacements for vacant elected positions.
- Community engagement: PCOs often attend community events and meetings to represent the Democratic Party and stay informed about local issues.
The specific duties and powers of PCOs can vary depending on state and local party rules. Their overall goal is to strengthen the Democratic Party’s presence and effectiveness at the most local level of political organization. In the WA State 45th legislative district, we are doing a lot to bolster the role of PCO, and to increase the number of PCOs that we have. We want to build a learning community of PCOs. Towards that end, we are looking for some specific types of volunteers in addition to PCOs.
- PCO Committee Chair
- PCO Coordinator(s) – there are roles for organizing, coordinating, and training our PCO volunteers. We want to create sub teams of PCOs who can support one another with their duties. We want to create PCO Coordinator roles who can help galvanize the sub teams.
- PCO Team Event Coordinator – this person would work, with the Events Committee, to create events specifically for PCO’s. This work would involve securing space (a home, a library, other primarily free places) where we could convene PCOs for social interaction and training.
- Recruit-the-PCOs – we have filled about 25% of our open PCO positions. We are seeking volunteers who will use their organizing skills and our membership information to identify and recruit additional PCOs.
- Technical skills – we have a great need for technically proficient (database, queries) volunteers who can help us extract voter information from tools like Votebuilder and Minivan. Training is available.
- Collateral Generation & Production – a volunteer could work with the Communications Committee on generating collateral that PCOs can legally carry when they canvas door-to-door.
- Train-the-PCOs – there are roles for training the PCOs. This includes skilled-based training like “how to talk to voters” and how to use support tools like Votebuilder.
- Cross-committee organizing – work with the Events Committee (primarily) to create team building resources specifically for PCO volunteers. Examples have included training potlucks, and events at local watering holes. Eventually, this could include leveraging PCO resources to occasionally help other committees.
- Sign-waving – it may sound funny but standing at busy intersections (safely) waving candidate signs is a great reminder for driving voters!
- Build diversity – we welcome diverse members and encourage everyone to ensure that our PCO population is representative of the diversity of our district.
- Phone banking – You can work in teams to call voters for whom we have phone contact information.
- Writing postcards – Often reserved for out-of-state voters (e.g. POTUS election), we can put together postcard-writing parties to encourage voters in swing states
Please note: we could easily craft a great internship experience for a college student with an interest in organizing, politics and government. Interns can really shape the content of their experience, and we have bandwidth available to mentor and guide interns.
