We suggest that in general the following canvass statuses be excluded by the phone bank administrator when creating a list for a phone bank. The exclusions should be tailored for particular phone banks. For definitions and consequences of various canvass statuses, please refer to our Phone Bank Canvass Statuses for Volunteers on the FDDC wiki.
You can exclude Canvass Statuses by time period. In general, we recommend using a 2 to 3-year exclusion period.
We do not recommend excluding any canvass statuses not listed below except for specifically targeted phone banks.
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Busy. We recommend excluding the Busy canvass status for a period of 3 months before the creation of the phone bank. This will also cause Busy canvass statuses created in early rounds of the phone bank to be excluded if the phone bank is refreshed.
Deceased. We recommend excluding the Deceased canvass status.
Disconnected. We do NOT recommend excluding the Disconnected canvass status. VAN will have already deleted the disconnected number. If you exclude the Disconnected canvass status, you exclude voters who have additional phone numbers in their queue.
Do not call. We recommend excluding the Do not call canvass status.
Hostile. We recommend excluding the Hostile canvass status.
Left message. We recommend excluding the Left Message canvass status for a period of 3 months before the creation of the phone bank. This will also cause Left Message canvass statuses created in early rounds of the phone bank to be excluded if the phone bank is refreshed.
Moved. We recommend excluding the Moved canvass status.
Not Home. The Not Home canvass status includes phenomena such as ‘mailbox not set up’ which tend to persist. Therefore, to make phone bank volunteers’ efforts more efficient and to concentrate on numbers that are more likely to be answered, we recommend excluding the Not Home canvass status from phone banks for which it is unlikely all numbers will be called.
However, if it is likely all numbers will be called, you should consider not excluding the Not Home canvass status.
Other Language. We recommend excluding the Other Language canvass status.
Refused. We recommend excluding the Refused canvass status unless you are interested in dialing as many numbers as possible.
Spanish. We recommend excluding the Spanish canvass status unless all callers in the phone bank are fluent in Spanish.
Wrong number. We do NOT recommend excluding the Wrong Number canvass status. VAN will have already deleted the wrong number. If you exclude the Wrong Number canvass status, you will exclude voters who have additional phone numbers in their queue.