A mixture of animated exchanges and polite conversation is followed by the enthusiastic “Woot!” of a successful phone call. Three MU student volunteers and Jon Ratliff, political director of Missouri House Republican Campaign Committee, were hooked up to university computers, intent upon engaging voters in an affable, structured exchange to obtain the answers they wanted.

The MU College Republicans held their first phone banking night of the year from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday night in Cornell Hall Room 104.

This phone bank was held, in part, as a result of the upcoming special election for state representative in Missouri’s 15th district, which will transpire on Nov. 8. Former State Rep. Sally Faith stepped down from office to become Mayor of St. Charles.

Republican Chrissy Sommer is a contender for this open seat, and part of the survey the volunteers administered pertained to her values and asked how constituents planned on casting their votes.

“She’s actually a pretty strong conservative running for the position, so we were calling to assist in that campaign,” said Courtney Scott, a freshman in charge of coordinating the phone bank. “We were trying to urge everybody to go out and take a stand.”

Along with Sommer’s campaign, issues ranging from the nation’s increasing debt, ensuring strong schools, government inefficiency, increasing taxes and the inability to compromise because of partisan conflict were all incorporated within the survey.

“(Phone banking) gives us a feel about the constituents’ stances on various issues, where they’re really supporting the Republican Party, where we might need to make some changes to accommodate the voting base and really represent the people,” Scott said.

Tuesday’s phone bank was organized by HRCC, based in Jefferson City.

“We’re just another part of the grassroots movement,” Ratliff said. “We’re all working towards the same goal of electing Republicans, spreading the conservative message, and having fun doing it. This past bank, it was voter ID calls … to see how they feel about some upcoming issues.”

The goal of the phone bank was to reach as many people as possible in the allocated time period. Within a few hours, the volunteers were able to reach a few hundred voters. Party affiliations were unknown, so a variety of demographics were encountered.

The College Republicans hope to run several phone banks throughout the year, with more volunteer help to reach even more citizens.

“We get back the satisfaction of knowing that this is a party, this is a group, this is an ideology that we really agree with and we feel will help both locally and nationwide,” Scott said. “It’s satisfaction and also a sense of involvement. We really appreciate the HRCC’s involvement here on campus, and we’re happy to assist.”

The MU College Democrats also get involved through phone banks to advocate various candidates and causes they support.

“Phone banking is a great way to get members of the club involved with local and national political campaigns,” College Democrats Vice President Anna Boisseau said in an email. “It is a very flexible type of campaign work that doesn’t require much training, so it is easy to organize members to help out with campaigns in this way.”

Typically, phone banks identify the citizens who plan on voting pro-candidate, so that near or on elections days they will be reminded to get to the polls and vote.

“It allows campaigns to figure out who to target for their GOTV (get out the vote) efforts,” Boisseau said. “If they know who to target before the election, they can use canvassing more effectively.”

MU College Democrats President Matthew Tharp said that phone banking brings positive attention to their organization.

“The MU College Democrats are supported by candidates and organizations we phone bank for when (they) speak to our members, invite us to their events, and bring positive attention to the MU College Democrats,” Tharp said in an email.

Each political party has its own voter database with which to identify voters. Both organizations volunteer through phone banks to promote candidates for every level or politics: local, statewide and national.

Neither organization creates its own surveys for the phone banks; instead, a candidate’s campaign, the state party or another organization that pays for the phone bank establishes the questions and material involved.