Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2004
Gone are the days when voter-registration drives consisted of a quaint sign-up table at the local supermarket. With the presidential race shaping up as a tight one, some get-out-the-vote groups are turning up the marketing savvy. At an event in San Francisco in May, the group 1,000 Flowers offered free manicures and nail files to encourage single women to register; the organization hopes to sign up 10,000 women at beauty salons by the end of summer. Other groups are offering similarly creative incentives to vote.

Ladies' Nights

Running in Heels, a D.C.-based political-action committee, is trying to politicize the Sex and the City set by signing up voters at singles parties and offering bikini waxes and yoga classes.

Political Paddling

Ten college grads from Colorado, known as Paddle for the Presidency, are spending the summer canoeing down the entire Mississippi River. The nonprofit group is making pit stops, hoping to register 10,000 young voters by journey's end.

Ballot and Brew

The Democrats of Monroe County, N.Y., teamed up with the High Falls Brewing Co. for a free beer tasting and registration drive that got 65 people to register, about three times the number that usually sign up at the group's local events.

It's Super-Voters!

Isotope, a San Francisco comic-book shop, netted 107 new voters at a book party and registration drive it held for the debut of Ex Machina, a political comic by California writer Brian K. Vaughan.

No Cover

Patrons at strip clubs in 18 states are being solicited ... for their vote. Angelina Spencer, executive director of the Association of Club Executives, an industry group, has enlisted the clubs in a national effort to register voters, with "voter appreciation" parties at some of them this fall.

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