How to write your representatives using Chat GPT in 3 easy steps

Many of us spend hours a week spiraling in anxiety about politics, doom scrolling, reading comments sections and carefully crafting responses on social media and news sites. Yet we don’t write to our government officials because it feels foreign and futile.

We’ve got to get over this. Our elected officials are interested in our opinions — certainly more than anyone on social media is — because they want to stay in office. And there’s never been a more critical time to let them know what we want than now, when America is so divided.

Turn Chat GPT into your activism assistant

Let’s employ Chat GPT to help us do our job as citizens and lessen the mental load. You can open a new account here.

While Chat GPT is amazing, it’s important not to let it do all the writing for you. A robot’s words won’t sound like a real constituent, so your letter might be disregarded. Don’t outsource your voice, just outsource the heavy lifting.

If you’re not sure which issue to write about first (there are so many!), you can start by telling Chat GPT your intention to write your representatives today, list out the top issues bothering you, and ask for help deciding which issues have timely, specific actions you can ask for by writing a letter.

Once you have a semi-solid idea of what you want to say, here’s what to do with it.

Follow these 3 steps

1. Input a prompt that includes the following. This is an example — you may need to try it a few times before you’re happy with the response:

   1. I live in ZIP code _______ and I want to write my elected representatives about my position on the issue of _______, which is _______.

   2. I don’t want you to write the letter for me; rather, I need an outline to help me structure my own letter in my own voice.

   3. Give me an outline for a brief letter that includes:

      1. I am a constituent living in _______

      2. A list of 3 very brief facts to support my position. These facts should not be complete sentences, just short bullet points.

2. Write your letter from the outline, keeping it short, polite, and sounding like yourself. Legislators can tell the difference between AI and human letters (source).

   1. Copy the outline into a word processor and fill it in with your name, mailing address, email address, and today’s date.

   2. Flesh out the letter using the outline in your own voice. Write like you talk. Your representative should know the style of their constituents, so don’t try to sound like someone you’re not (and certainly not like a robot). Rephrase Chat GBT’s bullet points into how you’d say them yourself.

   3. If applicable, include a relevant personal story or the fact that you voted for them, contributed to their campaign, etc. If not, skip this.

   4. Once your letter is written, prompt Chat GPT again with something like:
      Here is the letter I wrote. Please identify the relevant elected officials for this issue, and duplicate this letter for all of them with their contact information in the appropriate place.

3. Send your letters.

   Copy and paste each letter out of Chat GPT and into a word processor, your email client, or both.

Decide how to send your letters

Decide whether to send your letters via snail mail, email, fax, or all three. There are pros and cons to each:

Snail mail

• PROS: More impactful. Harder to ignore. The extra effort you put in makes the office take your letter more seriously.

• CONS: Requires a printer, envelopes and stamps. You’ll have to write out your return address and the address of each office on the envelopes. Slower delivery time.

Email

• PROS: Easier on you, so more likely you’ll do it. Faster delivery time for urgent matters.

• CONS: Less personal, so they may be taken less seriously. Easier to ignore.

Fax

• PROS: It’s a physical document that lands in an office, and it shows that you put some effort in (because how easy is it to send a fax these days?)

• CONS: You’ll first need to convert your letter to a PDF and then use an online fax service like Fax Zero. There is a small fee to send it without an ad… but maybe the ad makes it feel even more authentically from a normal human being!?

Hybrid approach

• Chat GPT suggests you take a hybrid approach, sending the same exact letter via email and then via snail mail for double the impact.

What happens now?

Enjoy the dopamine. Sit back and avoid the chaos in the media for a while. You just flexed your citizenship! And that’s way more important than obsessing over every current event.