Get out the vote

[krasnoludek]

The topic at lunch in the faculty cafeteria today was the election. More specifically, the latest get-out-the-vote tactic by the Democratic Party in CT, which consisted sending mailers to registered Democrats saying "in the past X elections, you have only voted Y times", shaming people who haven't voted. The person most vocally complaining about this today was the faculty member that was a newly minted US citizen who would finally be voting in her first election. She was understandably miffed at having been chided for "not voting at all in the last 4 elections." Another faculty member got the same mailing, but since she had voted in all the last 4 elections, it featured the voting records of her neighbors, with their names blacked out like some top secret report, yet their addresses were still visible, so you could shame your neighbors. It rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, because most people don't realize that your vote may be anonymous, but whether you voted is a matter of public record.

The NYT editorial hits the mark:
...when the language turns threatening and creepy - “we will be interested to hear why not” - it can backfire, and has already produced many complaints. If Democrats had simply said, “you’ve got a great voting record, now keep it going,” or “you haven’t voted in years, but we really need you now” it would have served the function of a reminder without the threat. The Democrats, too often maligned as the party of Big Government, should be more careful not to draw comparisons to Big Brother.