A. Background
To help clerks communicate with voters about absentee voting, the Wisconsin Elections Commission has put together a series of sample social media posts and graphics, as well as website banners. Clerks are free to use and customize them for their own needs, as well as to share them with others in their organizations.
The goal is to encourage as many voters as possible to use MyVote to request absentee ballots well before the April 2 deadline for absentee requests. More absentee ballots mean fewer voters at the polls on Election Day and fewer opportunities to spread the virus.
All the information is designed with the look and feel of the MyVote website.
If you’re not a social media or website expert, don’t worry. You are also encouraged to share our Facebook posts and retweet our tweets if that would be easier for you. Instructions are below.
B. Frequently Asked Questions and Commission Staff Guidance
1. How do I download the social media and website resources?
On this page, you will see two attachments above.
Because there are so many files, we have zipped them into compressed folders. You can right-click on each of the files and save them to your local computer or network. You can also ask your IT department, if you have one, for assistance, especially if they help you maintain your website.
Once they have been saved to your computer, you can click on the folder to see its contents. If you right-click the folder, your computer will also give you the option to “Extract All,” which will decompress the files to make it easier to work with them.
2. What is in the folders?
The Social Media Posts and Art.zip folder has a Word document containing suggested language for Facebook and Twitter posts. There are approximately 20 different small picture files that you can use with the posts. Finally, there is also a PDF document that shows you examples of social media posts – how you can pair the words with the pictures.
The Web Banners.zip folder has pictures you can use on your website in many different shapes and sizes. There are about 35 different graphics files, as well as a PDF document that shows their sizes and messages.
3. When should I use these?
As soon as possible. While the deadline to request an absentee ballot by mail is April 2, we want to encourage people to request absentee ballots as soon as possible.
You will see that the social media posts and graphics are divided into different themes, including Awareness, How To, etc. Depending on how fancy you want to get, you can create your own social media posting schedule. Our recommendation is to use a mixture of them, but as you get close to April 7 to use the ones reminding people to mail their ballots ASAP.
You can also use these graphics in any county or municipal newsletters you plan to send out soon.
For examples, you can look at the WEC’s Facebook and Twitter pages:
https://www.facebook.com/wisconsinelectionscommission
https://twitter.com/WI_Elections
Please feel free just to repost, share or retweet what we put on our Facebook and Twitter pages.
C. Additional Information
The situation concerning COVID-19 and the upcoming elections is fluid and quickly evolving, so guidance changes daily. The WEC and its staff are working quickly to develop new resources for clerks to deal with the pandemic, including additional news releases you can use. Please check back to our COVID-19 page frequently for new resources.
If you have questions, please contact the WEC Help Desk at (608) 261-2028, or @email.