Maricopa County Elections Department

#BeBallotReady

The Ask

Commit Agency was engaged by the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office and Elections Department in early 2019 to provide marketing and advertising services to educate eligible voters about the upcoming elections. Using post-election voter satisfaction surveys as well as other primary and secondary research, the Commit team developed a strategic marketing communications plan designed to achieve critical goals and objectives regarding voter turnout and satisfaction with the overall election process.

In order to meet these goals, Commit created the Be Ballot Ready campaign that launched in January 2020 in time for the March 17 Democratic Presidential Preference Election, which empowered eligible voters to visit BeBallotReady.Vote to get all the information they needed about how and where to vote. The fully integrated campaign included advertising across broad awareness and targeted media channels including TV, radio, print, outdoor, digital and social. Due to the campaign’s overall success, Commit evolved the campaign to educate voters about their voting options (including voting at home) for both the 2020 Primary and General elections.

View Full Results

Achieved HISTORIC VOTER TURNOUT
for the 2020 General Election of more than
80% of registered voters.

Nationally recognized by the National Association of Counties for using creative marketing and communications tools to reach voters.

New York Times article stated, “Of all the battleground states, none is expected to have as smooth an election as is Arizona.”

Results

The campaign was deemed a tremendous success in educating voters about their options (thereby decreasing the volume of incoming calls from voters to the Elections Department) and helped achieve historic voter turnout for the General Election. In fact, a November article in The New York Times stated, “Of all the battleground states, none is expected to have as smooth an election as is Arizona. In the midterm elections in 2018, 79 percent of Arizonans voted before Election Day—a figure that jumped to 88 percent for the primary this past August.” Commit’s efforts resulted in more than 340 million digital and traditional media impressions across all three 2020 elections.

Not only that, but the Be Ballot Ready campaign received both local and national recognition, including a Silver ADDY Award in the "Political Advertising Integrated Campaign" category from the Phoenix Ad Club as well as being recognized by the National Association of Counties in the "Civic and Public Information" category for "using creative marketing and communications tools to reach Maricopa County voters and inform them on how they can #BeBallotReady for #Elections2020."

In addition to the Be Ballot Ready media campaign, Commit Agency also redesigned the iconic “I Voted” sticker that was released in time for the 2020 Primary Election. Instead of creating just one new “I Voted” sticker, Commit Agency designed a series of four stickers that were truly unique and stood out from a sea of the same. The highly-anticipated release of the stickers generated excitement and buzz among voters, many of whom posted stories and photos of their sticker on digital and social media after revealing which sticker they received.

In addition to stickers being distributed to voters who went to a polling location, the Office also included one of the new stickers in each early ballot mailed to voters who requested a ballot by mail.