I’ve done it, and it works.

In 1990, I had just arrived back in the USA from working in the South Pacific for a decade.  Amazingly enough, people at church began to ask me who I recommended that they vote for.  I was flabbergasted.  I should be asking them, but no one knew anything, other than just voting straight party ticket.  Since I consider that the mentality of a sheep that just goes through life, being consistently fleeced until it finally gets to be invited to dinner, I decided to do something about it.
I called eleven friends and asked them to join me for coffee at a local restaurant on a Saturday morning.  I explained that I was tired of casting only one vote, and that one a largely uninformed vote, and that I wanted more clout at the polls.  I proposed that I would do the necessary research to help them cast a more informed vote, if they would in turn do three things for me:

1. Tell me what they knew about candidates that I might not otherwise know;
2. Vote as we all agreed and recommended;
3. Get ten more voters to do the same.

Ten of them signed on that morning, one said he needed to think about it, and he never did join.  And immediately, I had an influence of ten households (approximately 24 votes) beyond my own, and I felt pretty good about that.
It was such an easy sale, that I soon after talked to each one of them about repeating the process.  I asked each of them to ask their “downline” to get ten voters, and to feed us information back up the line.  Several were enthusiastic, some said they would, but they didn’t, but within a matter of a couple of months, we had over 100 households prepared to give serious attention to our recommendations.
We had a mayoral election coming up in our city, and the incumbent was so left-wing that she made Gov. Ann Richards look conservative!  We didn’t have our own candidate, but we did notice that a local businessman had filed to run for mayor, so we invited him to a dinner, on us, to discuss the race. 
I was thrilled to see about 90 people show up for the dinner.  We told the candidate that we were tired of hearing speeches from lying politicians, that we had something to say to him.  And then we proceeded to tell him we wanted a city government that lived within its means, that did not seek federal grants, that would abide by the Constitution, etc.  Seems pretty tame, writing it now, but it was radical in our town, because of the nutcase in office.  He agreed, that our reasons were precisely why he was running for office, so we asked everyone to vote for this guy, even though we didn’t know him very well.
He won by 37 votes, and we had our first victory under our belt.  Within a year, we had a membership of over 1,100 registered voters, and without spending a dime on advertising, we had candidates, including the sheriff himself, and the county judge, coming to us and asking for our endorsement.  I would say, “But I have no idea what you’re talking about.  It’s just me and a few friends.”  And they would say, “We’ve heard.  And we need your support.”  We won a few and lost several more, but we made our influence felt in the community, and it didn’t take a lot of money, it didn’t take an office, it didn’t take a political party, and it didn’t take expensive literature.
What it DID take was for one person to agree to be the spark plug to make it happen.  We did have monthly meetings, and I did put out a newsletter.  And, from time to time, I would make ten phone calls, and within a couple of days, over 1,000 people had received phone calls!
I regret that we had to move from there to a very rural county, and that my team of Independent Conservative Voters fell apart, purely for lack of someone there to be the spark plug.
It is SO easy to do, but then, it does take some attention to detail , and a willingness to recruit ten friends to “just do the right thing.” 
As a warning, one dear, sweet lady was so enthusiastic, she told me she was going to recruit 100 voters.  I begged her to recruit only ten, and then get them to get the 100, but she was sure she could handle it.  And she recruited a very large number of friends, but then found that she just didn’t have time to make 100 phone calls, and she soon lost interest when she found out that she had overextended herself. 
One of the keys to success here is that you keep it to a reasonable “span of control.”  Maybe your span of control is only four people.  Okay, you get four, and maybe they’ll get only four, and maybe their friends will get only four.  Does it surprise you to do the math, and learn that you are influencing over 84 households, or probably around some 200 votes!