By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
A New York based political committee has been accused of sending what many see as an intimidating letter to party voters who have chosen not to vote in previous elections. Whether this is considered peer pressure, inducing worry, or encouraging others to vote has not diminished the controversy and shows an insight into some of the tactics political parties use to generate more votes to their cause. Letters such as this raise questions as to the ethics of shaming voters to vote. The right not to vote is considered a lawful option of the electorate.
The New York State Democratic Committee mailed a letter last week to voters reading:
Dear [voter]:
Our records indicate that you are registered to vote in Kings County:
Who you vote for is your secret. But whether or not you vote is a public record. Many organizations monitor turnout in your neighborhood and are disappointed by the inconsistent voting of many of your neighbors.
Here is some of the information you may need to vote:
- The polls are open from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
- You can confirm your voter registration status by visiting
- https://voterlookup.elections.state.ny.us/votersearch.aspx
- If you have any questions about voting, please call 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683).
We will be reviewing the Kings County official voting records after the upcoming elections to determine whether you joined your neighbors who voted in 2014. If you do not vote this year, we will be interested to hear why not.
The letter reportedly included a voter report card grading a voter’s participation. Reportedly, these notifications were mailed out to one million registered Democrats who did not vote in previous mid-term elections. The grades consisted of: excellent; good; fair; and incomplete.
Included was a phone number for Election Protection, a nonprofit, nonpartisan voting resource organization. Election Protection spokeswoman Marcia Johnson-Blanco said the organization had nothing to do with the letter, but has received 400 calls from voters concerned about it.
The political committee, chaired by Governor David Patterson, defended the letter calling it a common practice throughout the country.
In a deflection, Peter Kaufman, a spokesman for the committee stated:
“This flier is part of the nationwide Democratic response to traditional Republican voter-suppression efforts, because Democrats believe our democracy works better when more people vote, not less. The difference between Democrats and Republicans is they don’t want people to vote and we want everyone to vote.”
The Associated Press reports:
“The letter relies on peer pressure and the possibility of surveillance to encourage turnout – a tactic that research shows is highly effective compared to more costly and time consuming get-out-the-vote efforts like phone calls and door knocking, according to Costas Panagopoulos, a political science professor at Fordham University.
The practice is becoming much more widespread, and similar letters have been reported this election year in Alaska, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Colorado and Iowa.
Panagopoulos noted that while they succeed with many voters, “these heavy handed social-pressure messages do generate considerable backlash.”
‘Shaming people to vote works,’ he said. “It’s remarkably effective. … It’s not enough to ask people to be good citizens. What you have to tell them is that their actual behavior is being monitored.”
Such a system does however lend credence into the notion that, like the political tactics used in the mailing of such letters, some of the practices that could come light if voter choices are ever made public, and if in the immediate sense should the right to vote or not to vote be not be subject to public records requests.
By Darren Smith
Sources:
Washington Times
Associated Press
The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.
DBQ, that’s nice. Carry on.
@ Annie
1. I don’t use Twitter
2. I never heard of your complaint about a lie until YOU brought it up.
3. This blog is not about you.
Hell in a hand basket! The Apocalypse! Get yer beans and rice and don’t fergit them bullets! Down to the shelter ASAP!
DBQ, perhaps if your buddy didn’t spread LIES about other RIL commenters on Twitter one wouldn’t have the need to set the record straight. I see you ignored that part. The ‘Recruits’ surely have been a wonderful addition to RIL, haven’t they?
” I am put in the position of defending myself by setting the record straight as to what occurred on Twitter.”
Perhaps if you didn’t contact commenters via Twitter and send uninvited communications off of the blog, you wouldn’t have to do so.
But…..whatever….
This has nothing to do with the topic at hand….as usual.
Voting is a right, not an obligation. Right now, we are being bombarded by the RINOs telling us that we MUST vote for the pablum choice of the month…..or else….the sky will fall or something. I vote or NOT vote based on my own personal preferences and on the basis of what I think the candidate will be offering to ME. Not based on some sort of party loyalty drummed up by fear and loathing. I may vote for some slots on the ticket and not on others. Right now we have a whole slew of people running for a Judge position. I know nothing about any of them and therefore will just skip it. It isn’t anyone’s business IF I vote or if I don’t vote. The RINO’s can just STFU and stop trashing conservatives.
Frankly, when there is no difference between the choices that are served up, I see no point in voting. If we are going to Hell in a handbasket, we might as well get the trip on the road and get there faster, so we can get out quicker.
This is not shaming, it is intimidation. It is not about getting out the vote in general, it is about trying to force people to vote for a certain party. Notice also that the letter claims to be from a neutral “get out the vote” organization, but actually comes specifically from the Democratic party.
If the Democratic party wants people to vote for them they can put up candidates who meet the needs of ordinary people. They can offer to drive people to the polls. They can offer a convincing argument for why one should vote for them. It speaks volumes about the quality of their party that intimidation is their tactic of choice.
Democrats do their own share of voter disenfranchisement. If you’re in a third party you will know how difficult and how much push back you get from both legacy parties to even get or stay on the ballot. So please spare me the propaganda that Democrats want people to have the right to vote. They want you to have the “right” to vote Democratic.
Both legacy parties act in a shameful matter to suppress the rights of people to vote as we wish, or not vote in protest of their crappy candidates. That tells me it is important to vote for third party people or if one must vote legacy party, vote for someone you truly know will represent you.
The oligarchy is still afraid. We can take that as a hopeful sign and use it to our advantage.
And Haz, nice strawmen. I did not ask you to post any personal identifying info. I actually told you how to REDACT it before posting the supposedly threatening letter from Trumka and his assistant to your wife. I still call baloney on that.
Haz, “threatening” tweet? Really? I was correcting a LIE perpetuated by your buddy Spinelli on Twitter saying I was a Workman’s Compensation recipient and was cheating on it. I have never been on Workman’s Compensation. Now I see you feel the need to bring this drek here to attempt to discredit me, same tactics as Spinelli, BTW. I thought we were not supposed to bring things from off ths blog here to RIL. Because Haz did so, I am put in the position of defending myself by setting the record straight as to what occurred on Twitter.
How did you get the link to post as a photo without just being a link?
Karen:
All I did was insert the URL to the photo in the dialog box. I didn’t expect that the photo would post (hence my comment apologizing for not knowing how to post a photo), but it did. More luck than skill.
I would ignore anyone trying to get you to post personal information
Correct. Within one hour of my first ever comment on Professor Turley’s blog, the commenter called “Annie” found my twitter identity, created a twitter account in the name of “Annie” and sent me a threatening tweet in which she identified herself as “Annie from Turley”. I duly reported it to Prof Turley, who I believe addressed the situation. So no, I will not post anything containing personal information on this blog. Or anywhere else for that matter.
How did you get the link to post as a photo without just being a link?
Karen:
All I did was insert the URL to the photo in the dialog box. I didn’t expect that the photo would post (hence my comment apologizing for not knowing how to post a photo), but it did. More luck than skill.
i>I would ignore anyone trying to get you to post personal information
Correct. Within one hour of my first ever comment on Professor Turley’s blog, the commenter called “Annie” found my twitter identity, created a twitter account in the name of “Annie” and sent me a threatening tweet in which she identified herself as “Annie from Turley”. I duly reported it to Prof Turley, who I believe addressed the situation. So no, I will not post anything containing personal information on this blog. Or anywhere else for that matter.
I scoff at these posts. No party affiliation, no problem. You all play right into the dualopoly.
It has always pissed me off that the government chooses to make my voting participation available to political parties who, in turn, make it available to my neighbors (precinct captains). If I wanted someone to know I’d tell them.
The GOP robs minorities of the right to vote, and Democrats are racist for defending minority voting rights?
——– ———————-
A reasonable argument can be made that being disenfranchised from society is far worse than not being able to vote. And by continuing to oppose only the laws on voter Id, but doing nothing to remedy the underlying problem of people without identification, who is really causing the most harm?
No one is being robbed of anything. Why can massive operations to transport people to the polls be mounted, but not one to take needy people to the DMV? Which provides a better long term benefit?
Carlyle Moulton, “How about as piece de resistance all who do not vote are considered to have voted for the none of these option and if none of these gets after distribution of preferences more than 50% then the office is left unfilled.”
Since less than 50% of eligible voters vote, then all offices would be vacant. You should at least show up and cast a ballot in order to have your vote counted. Polls show the least likely candidate. Vote for only that person, your ballot will be eliminated early but your ballot will be counted in determining the threshold (50% + 1). The potential problem with that is if everyone who didn’t like the slate did the same and the least likely ends up winning on the first ballot. 😀
Haz,
“Nothing like the subtle racism in that statement, is there? Democrats, mostly white Democrats, believe that minorities are too stupid to get an ID card.”
Wait what?
The GOP robs minorities of the right to vote, and Democrats are racist for defending minority voting rights? And you are the one suggesting that people who find it difficult to get id cards are stupid, not Democrats.
I know – Republicans are all bad and mean, lol I live around them and they beat my door down and intimidate me. I live in Cape Girardeau and David Limbaugh has Fellowship Halls in Churches Named after him and his Firm is down the street. It’s awful. We all get together, all the Churches and do Handel’s Messiah at Christmas Time. Maybe we will do a Flash Mob at the Polls on Tuesday for Practice and use Jason Smiths Name to the tune of the Hallelujah Chorus far enough away that no one can call it undue influence. Yeah, that’s what we will do 🙂
The letter was inappropriate and offensive. First, it is a thinly-disguised form of intimidation. Second, my reasons for voting or choosing not to vote are not subject to the review or approval of any other human being.
After Act 10 passed, 1/3 of teachers left the Wisconsin teachers union.
Said one teacher, “I realized that it was all political and not about teaching.”
“I worked with a young teacher who was thinking of leaving the union and she was actually scared to leave,” Deena Ferguson, a teacher at Fox Prairie Elementary, in Stilton, told the site, adding that WEAC often uses fear to recruit new teachers, suggesting they need protection from administrators.”
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/10/19/one-third-wisconsin-teachers-have-dropped-union-since-gov-walker-ended/
From the above link, in a Wisconsin case:
“Teacher union bosses and school officials ignored state law and U.S. Supreme Court precedent to illegally coerce this teacher into full-dues-paying union ranks against her will,” said Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work. “This case underscores just how important Act 10 is in protecting Wisconsin public employees from forced unionism abuses such as this.”
National Right to Work – a legal defense fund. Here is a list of teachers who were illegally charged dues but had opted out, and teachers who could not get out.
http://www.nrtw.org/press-release-categories/teacher-unions