Sunday, November 02, 2014

CT Dem State Central misteps with mailers

Image via CT News Junkie

Democratic State Central recently sent out a couple of mailers that address the recipient's recent voting record, in what was called "tone deaf" and "creepy" by some. "Big Brother" was mentioned in reference to the mailers.

It turns out that while everyone's actual VOTE is a secret matter, the fact of whether you voted or not is listed on publicly available voting records.

It means that anyone can find out if their friends or relatives or political rivals have done their civic duty by voting, or if they're hypocritical idiots who complain endlessly about their elected representatives yet do nothing to change anything.

I was aware of this for many years, after a dear friend who shall remain nameless chided me on missing several local elections in previous years. Since that moment, I've been very good about voting, even to the point of voting early when I knew I was going to be traveling on election day.

But many Democrats are somewhat shocked and offended by the tone of the mailings.

I understand that in a close election you need to do as much as possible to get people to show up at the polls. Using voting records to guilt people into voting probably isn't the most effective way of doing it.

It was a mistake, probably a bit embarrassing for State Central and the person who was responsible for it. But will it negatively affect the results of Tuesday's election? Very doubtful.

Read the article on CT News Junkie for a very in-depth examination of this relatively minor controversy.

And be sure to get out and VOTE on Tuesday...

Or we'll all know!

2 comments:

tim said...

It is effective. Check out reporting back in 2010 in the NYTimes...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/magazine/31politics-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

CT Bob said...

Interesting read. Hal Mal!