Yard signs burst out of a storage room door, and a Rosie the Riveter poster — with the First Lady as Rosie — adorns a big wall. There are plenty of “Missouri for Clinton-Kaine” and “Jason Kander for Senator” signs decoupaged around the room. A woman steps inside, takes a Clinton-Kaine sign, and signs for a local congressman. This is just a normal day in the Boone County Democratic Party office during a big election year.
Aside from the presidential election, Missouri will be voting for several offices this election season, including various state officials: state senators, state representatives, secretary of state, lieutenant governor and governor. Eight U.S. House seats and one of Missouri’s U.S. Senate seats are up for election. With a full ballot on Nov. 8, the Democratic and Republican Party offices of Boone County have a full schedule until the big day.
Campaigning is in full swing at both of these offices. The Democratic office, located at 300 E. Broadway, has any sign you could think of under the Democratic ticket, including Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.
The Republican office, at 1900 N. Providence Road, also provides signs in support of its Republican candidates. The offices are making phone calls and knocking on doors, getting the word to all of the voters in the Boone County area. They are also building a volunteer staff to help make phone calls and/or go door to door.
“Volunteers will make calls to a list of people for the day reading off of a script. Or if they’d rather hand out information they can go door knocking,” said Mike Zweifel, Boone County Republican Central Committee chairman.
The Democratic office is primarily focusing on building up volunteer staff to be “precinct captains” to help manage voting polls on election day.
There are different offices for specific candidates, and the Republican and Democratic offices coordinate with them as much as possible. The Republican Party office is sharing its space with state senate candidate Caleb Rowden. And a particular Democratic candidate got an office in Columbia on Oct. 10: Hillary Clinton. The new office is located at 15 S. Tenth Street.
The offices have noticed traffic picking up with the major election just around the corner.
“We’ve seen up to 20 to 25 people in the office a day now,” said Angie Wood, chairwoman of the Boone County Democratic Central Committee.
Some of this traffic includes college students from around Columbia looking for information on candidates or even signing up to volunteer to help either office in its campaign endeavors.
“More college students tend to volunteer at the offices of Roy Blunt or Eric Greitens because they’re [students] from St. Louis or Kansas City,” Zweifel said.
The Republican Party office hosted an event at Columbia College for the first presidential debate. The offices also schedule other events like the Democratic office’s election day watch party at The Blue Note on Nov. 8.
At either office, there is help available to fill out voter registration forms. Once the form is filled out correctly, the prospective voter will then send it in the mail to their county clerk. There are other options to register to vote, such as registering online or in person, that Wood also lets future voters know about. If a voter is unsure of what district they live in, Zweifel can help them locate their district with the map available at www.showmeboone.com/clerk. The Democratic and Republican offices are making sure they can help as many people as they can to register to vote before the deadline on Oct. 12.
_Edited by Katie Rosso | krosso@themaneater.com_