Writing a letter to the editor of your local paper or an Op-Ed will help raise awareness in your community, and could grab the attention of your elected officials. After the tips below, you’ll find talking points to help you craft your letters.

Some Tips for Writing a Letter to the Editor:

• Make it relevant. How will the Fair Elections Now Act affect voters? Connect your story to a local or national scandal if possible. Or relate your letter to a story that appeared in your newspaper recently about a public policy debate or election.
• Make it short. Most newspapers have a strict policy that letters be 150 words or less.
• Get to the point. State your point early in the letter and support your point with facts.
• Keep it simple. Try to avoid technical information and words most people would need a dictionary to understand.
• Your audience is the reader. Instead of focusing your attention at a reporter, editor, or expert who got it wrong, consider the central point you want people reading the letter to take away.
• Send letters to local weekly newspapers. The smaller the newspaper, the easier it is to get your letter printed.
• Be sure to include your contact information. Put your full name, address, email and phone number at the top of the page and sign the letter at the bottom if you are submitting by mail. The phone number is important for verification purposes. Each newspaper has different requirements for what information they want, so make sure you follow the specific guidelines.
  Go to http://ga3.org/campaign/coalition_letters for our letter to the editor tool.

Some tips for writing an Op-Ed:

• Length: Varies from paper to paper, but are usually 500 to 800 words. Guidelines are often published in the paper or on their website –or just call!
• First consider your audience and the purpose of the piece. Call on your members of Congress to support the Fair Elections Now Act or call on the members of your community to take action.
• Call out your elected official by name. They pay attention to what’s published in the local papers (especially when they are named!).
• State your argument in the first paragraph. Use simple sentences, and avoid jargon. Be coherent-make sure that your reader can follow your argument from point to point. Remember that most people don't read articles or Op-Eds all the way through, so make your most important points at the beginning.
• Evidence: provide concrete evidence to support your points, like the polling numbers found later in this toolkit, but don't overwhelm your readers with numbers or statistics. Using personal experiences and local statistics can be a powerful tool in convincing your audience.
• Op-Eds are not easy to get published, but following through can increase your chances: send an email and also a hard copy, via fax or mail, to the Op-Ed editor of the paper. Include your name, title (volunteer or paid position, if relevant), daytime phone number, address and email on the Op-Ed, a short byline at the end, and any other information the publication requests.

Getting Op-Eds published:

• Call the morning after the submission to make sure it was received.
• If you are writing for a local paper, link it to local issues so the paper will be more interested in picking it up.
• Only submit your Op-Ed to one newspaper; however, feel free to send variations on the same topic to other papers.

Don’t forget to let us know if you get published! Please send your published letter to the editor or Op-Ed to info@fairelectionsnow.org or fax to (202) 293-0202.

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