A Quick Guide to the Fine Art of "Tabling"

"Tabling" just refers to standing in areas with heavy foot traffic, asking people to take a simple action like sign a petition, call an elected representative, or make a small donation. It's an easy and effective way to mobilize lots of people fast, and to find new supporters. All you need are some good materials, something to hold them and, ideally, a few friends. You don’t even need a table! Clipboards or ironing boards work just as well.

The goal of tabling is for you and your friends to talk to as many people as you can and then to get those people to take action.

On Wednesday, we’ll be asking people to make phone calls to their senators to oppose the "nuclear option" and the nomination of extreme right-wing judges. For more background, click here.

Why do this?

If George Bush, Dick Cheney, and the Republican leadership are able to get away with the "nuclear option" they'll be free to nominate a string of judges so extreme they will set back progress on civil rights, environment, privacy, civil liberties, worker's rights and other issues by a generation.

But the nuclear option requires reinterpreting an age-old Senate rule, and to do it, they need the votes of 50 senators. To get 50 senators to support gutting a basic, time-honored democratic tradition -- requiring broad support for lifetime judicial appointments -- they are relying on the notion that this is an arcane procedural matter that most Americans won't even understand, let alone care about.

But if we can get the word out about the Republicans' plan, and make it clear to all of our senators that the American people are watching, we stand a very good chance of winning the 6 or 7 "swing" senate votes -- mostly moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats -- we need to stop them. Tabling is one of the very best ways we can do this.

Here’s how to table:

Step 1: Pick a time and a place

Here are two really important things to think about when you’re choosing a location:

• Is it public property? Tabling on public property is protected by the First Amendment. If it’s not public property, you should ask the owner of the area where you’re tabling. Places like side walks and parks are almost always public property. Places like parking lots and malls are generally not, thought they may allow outreach activities. If it’s public property, you should be fine. Some cities do have restrictions on certain types of political activity. If you are concerned, just contact your local police department.
• Will there be much foot traffic when we’re there? Different areas are busy at different times. While 11 AM is probably a bad time to be in the business district (lunch hour is a better bet), it might be a great time to be at the local university. Entertainment areas can work well in the evening.

If you’re having trouble thinking of a good place to table, here are a couple classics:

• Outside the super market, health food store, coop, or any other food market
• In front of the post office
• Sidewalk in the business district or Main street
• Almost anywhere on a college or university campus
• Sidewalk in the fun or funky part of town (you know, the place with a few good restaurants and bars and maybe a record store or two)

Once you’ve picked your time and location, invite the rest of the team. Be sure to be specific about where you’re meeting. It’s easy to forget to say which corner of the park you’re meeting in!

Step 2: Get your materials together

Download and make copies of the flyer, which has the call-in information for your state. Also print out enough copies of the script for your team. And it's a good idea to read the background info so you feel more confident. If you plan to use a table, make a big sign explaining what you're doing-- MoveOn members who went tabling to test our materials told us this was an effective way to bring more people over.

Step 3: Confirm with other team members the night before

If you're coordinating the tabling, you’ll want to know how many people to expect, so be sure to check-in with your team. Email better than nothing, but phone conversations work best if you want to ensure people will actually come. And it's a good chance to see if anyone is having second thoughts because of concerns or questions you can address.

Step 4: Huddle Your Team

Before you get going, your team should huddle together and spend 5-7 minutes going over the activity and then practicing.

For an overview, you don’t need to be an expert on the issue, you should just go over the materials you’ll be using, what you’ll you asking people to do (make a phone call) and the tips below. You should also go over your team’s goal for phone calls -- 5 people calling both senators for every team member.

Once you’ve done a quick overview, you should then break into pairs and practice approaching each other a couple of times. If they haven’t already, you should have members of your team make the call themselves so that they can tell people what to expect – and because we want all the phone calls we can get!

It’s important that you only spend a few minutes doing this overview. Some members of your team might want to spend more time going over all the “what ifs.” But you should be sure to let them know that the best way to figure this out is to actually do it.

Step 5: Get some phone calls made!

It’s easy. All you need to do is use the script and get people make a call.

Whenever possible, you should get them to make the calls right then and there – that way we’ll have an accurate count of how many calls we get made and people won’t forget about doing it.

Encourage people to use their own cell phones, if they have them -- this will allow you to have multiple people calling at once. And if you or other members on your team are willing to donate the minutes, you can also offer people without phones or minutes your own cell phone. That will make it even easier for folks and lead to more phone calls.

You should split up your team so that not everyone is facing the same way and trying to talk to the same traffic. It’s best to see where people are coming from and then set people up to talk to them. If someone is nervous, make sure they partner up with someone who is more confident or experienced.

Important note: If you’re using a table, you shouldn’t stand behind it. You should be out in front of it so that you can talk to people.

Step 6: Wrap up, then report your results

Be sure meet back up, so you can see how you did and exchange stories. Tally your results together and give them to the team leader, who will enter them into our system through the "report results" link on their team homepage (we'll post login instructions here when they're ready).

If you're coordinating, don't let people leave without checking to see how their experience went--especially people who are new to this. Sometimes people who have unrealistic expectations can be discouraged even if they did great, and it can be incredibly helpful to give them some context to understand their success. And if people had a tough time, it helps to know that as a group you accomplished a lot, and to suggest something that might help them next time.

Top 4 Tabling Tips

• Look each person in the eye and ask them to make a phone call. Shouting loudly at crowds doesn’t work nearly as well.
• Use the opening question. Ask each person but only keep talking to them if they stop or respond positively. By keeping this opening question short, you can talk to lots of people and let them say if they’re interested.
• Don’t get discouraged. A lot of people aren’t going to want to stop. That’s fine. Our goal is to find the 5 people that are willing to make a call and give them the opportunity. Often it will take an hour just to find these 5 people. But your senators will assume those five people represent many hundreds more who feel the same way, but didn't take the time to call.
• If you do want to use a table, an ironing board works pretty well, and it's very portable.

Return to the call-in day instructions page

Questions? Check out the Call-in day Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) or the more general Operation Democracy FAQ. Both pages have details about how to get in touch with us if your question isn't answered there.