Washington – As discontent with the Republican Party threatens to dampen turnout of conservative voters in November, evangelical leaders are launching a massive registration drive designed to reach religious voters in battleground states.
The program, coordinated by Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family and its influential founder, James Dobson, will use a variety of methods – including information inserted in church publications and booths placed outside worship services – to try to recruit millions of new voters in 2006 and beyond.
The effort builds on the aggressive courtship of evangelical voters in 2004 by President Bush’s re-election campaign, even as the Internal Revenue Service has announced renewed scrutiny of nonprofit organizations, including churches, that engage in political activities.
The new voter-registration program – with a special focus on eight states with key Senate, House and state-level races – comes as Republicans are struggling with negative public sentiment over the war in Iraq and other administration policies.
Turning out core GOP voters is central to the party’s strategy to retain control of Congress.
“Anytime you go from a big presidential year like 2004 to an off-year like this, there’s going to be a drop-off” in voter interest, said John Paulton of Focus on the Family Action, the political arm of Focus on the Family. “It’s a question of how much. You could argue that the fear of what could happen if many more liberal politicians take over could be very motivating to get out and vote as strongly.”
The program is seeking county and church coordinators in the targeted states of Maryland, Montana, Tennessee, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Minnesota.
“In 2004, about 25 million evangelicals failed to vote. Now is the time to reverse the trend,” an e-mail said.
According to the e-mail, county coordinators are being asked to work about five hours a week and would be responsible for “recruiting key evangelical churches.” The church coordinators, devoting one or two hours a week, would be in charge of “encouraging pastors to speak about Christian citizenship, conducting a voter-registration drive, distributing voter guides and get-out- the-vote efforts.”
Registering voters in churches is not a new tactic for either party, but Republicans have proved far more effective in recent years at combining religion and politics for electoral gain.
Critics say the practice is potentially illegal, citing tax laws that prohibit churches from engaging in partisan activities. The Internal Revenue Service has launched a program to crack down on violators, with investigations pending against dozens of churches.
