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42 million people in the United States speak Spanish as their native language, making up 14% of the population. As campaigns become more diverse in the United States, reaching voters in the language they understand best is essential. That is where multilingual voter outreach comes to rescue.
At CallHub, we recognize the importance of multilingual voter outreach in communication. In this article, we’ll highlight why it matters and show you how CallHub’s tools can help you connect with voters in their preferred language.
Why do we need multilingual voter outreach?
- Language barriers: Approximately 8.4% of U.S. residents speak English less than “very well,” making it difficult for them to understand English-only campaigns fully. Effective multilingual voter outreach helps bridge this gap.
- Voter engagement: Non-English speakers have nearly tripled—from 23.1 million in 1980 to 67.8 million in 2019. Engaging them in their native language taps this diverse, growing electorate.
- Legal compliance: Federal laws such as Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act mandate that jurisdictions with more than 5% language minority populations provide election materials in the relevant languages, ensuring multilingual voter outreach.
- Ensuring equal access and participation: Communicating in a voter’s native language builds trust. Poder NC Action, a Latino North Carolina-based voter engagement group, employed tailored communication strategies—making over 1 million calls and sending 1 million emails—contributing to 40% of Latino voter turnout in areas like North Carolina, showing the impact of relatable and accessible communication.
Latinos con Harris – Walz Campaign
| Kamala Harris’s campaign launched a bilingual WhatsApp channel—“Latinos con Harris-Walz”—to engage Latino voters directly. The channel delivered tailored content, including graphics, videos, and policy updates in English and Spanish. A selfie welcome video from campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez set a personal tone, and daily voice memos encouraged sharing it among families and friends to overcome traditional outreach barriers and boost voter turnout in key battleground states. Outcome: This multilingual voter outreach campaign boosted Latino voter engagement, strengthening her support among Latino communities. |
How does CallHub help with multilingual voter outreach
CallHub offers multilingual support, enabling users to engage with audiences in their preferred languages through text and voice.
Let’s learn how to set up each.
1. Text messaging
CallHub’s text messaging feature enables campaigns to reach voters effectively through personalized SMS and MMS communications. By using MMS, campaigns can share rich media like images, videos, and GIFs, making their outreach more engaging and dynamic. This method breaks through the constraints of traditional SMS, allowing for more detailed, compelling messages that grab attention and keep voters engaged.
A step-by-step guide to using CallHub’s text messaging:
Step 1: Log into Your CallHub account and sign in with your credentials. Go to text broadcasting or peer-to-peer campaign, depending on your campaign’s needs.
Step 2: Name your campaign, upload your contact list, and assign a number you need to start texting. Check the red arrows in the image above.
Also, read how to upload contacts on CallHub here.
Step 3: Compose your message:
- For SMS:
Next, jump to the script section, where you can write the script using the language options available. Currently, CallHub supports English, French, and Spanish. As shown in the image below, you can click on the dropdown to select from the available languages. Now, start writing your script.
Here, the message is typed in Spanish, and the NOTE mentions that when it includes special characters like é, it is sent using Unicode.
| Unicode is a system for encoding text that allows special characters from various languages to be represented. |
Please note that this can affect the character limit by reducing the number of characters that fit in one message, potentially increasing message costs due to the larger size of messages that contain Unicode characters.
- For MMS:
If you want to send an MMS instead, click on the “convert message to MMS” option or click on “Media” to upload any file you choose.CallHub’s MMS features allow you to send 1600 characters compared to 160 characters via SMS. You can also send HD videos, gifs, images, and PDFs as attachments to say more in a single message.
MMS helps reduce costs when you want to send longer messages or use Unicode characters. Simply click ‘Convert to MMS’ when setting up your campaign and you are good to go.
To know how to set up a text broadcast campaign completely, please look into this guide
- On the agent dashboard:
Now that your SMS or MMS is ready to be sent, let’s see how it looks from the agent’s point of view. This is how the dashboard looks like for agents.
Here the agent can see:
- Overview/brief of the campaign
- Script of the campaign
- Saved replies or automated replies(if any)
After understanding the campaign, the agent clicks the “Start Texting” button to interact with the people.
The screenshot below shows how the message will be delivered to the voters on their device.
2. Voice broadcast
CallHub’s voice broadcast feature allows campaigns to send pre-recorded voice messages or use text-to-speech conversion to reach voters directly via automated calls. Voice broadcast helps campaigns effectively engage with large groups through personalized voice communication.
A step-by-step guide to using CallHub’s voice messaging:
Step 1: Log into Your CallHub account and sign in with your credentials. Go to voice broadcasting.
Step 2:
- Upload recorded audio:
Once you click on voice broadcast campaign, go to sounds >> choose recorded audio from the dropdown in any language of your choice.
Here is a step-by-step guide on how you can upload a new audio
- Text-to-speech conversion:
Speech conversion is possible not just in English but in other languages as well. Click on the “Convert text to speech” option and enter your speech.
Once the speech is written, click on “Press-1/Transfer.” if you need a response from voters. You can also upload voice records and convert text to speech under “Press-1/Transfer”. This makes it easier for the agent to address only the required information from their end.
Here is a detailed article on how to set up a complete voice broadcasting campaign.
3. Agent dashboard
When a campaign is assigned to an agent, they receive a notification and can log in to begin their work. Once logged in to the dashboard, agents can select their preferred language for the interface.
Go to agent profile >> settings>> language>> select from the dropdown
Once the language is changed, the dashboard will look like this:
Searching for multilingual voter outreach software? We’ve got you covered
Reaching diverse communities requires more than just translation—it requires creating genuine connections. With CallHub, you get powerful text and voice messaging tools designed to engage voters in their preferred language, ensuring your message is heard, understood, and acted upon. Our multilingual support and easy-to-use platform make voter outreach seamless, scalable, and effective.Don’t let language be a barrier to voter engagement. Sign up for CallHub today and start building stronger, more inclusive connections with your voters!
