Discussion: 'Vote Or Else' -- The Long History Of Groups Shaming Voters To The Polls

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Discussion for article #229556

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Our Lord loves the sinner as long as he don’t sin

He knows the thoughts you’re thinking

He knows with whom you’ve been

And our Lord loves this country

He’s with you at the polls

He knows the lever that you pull

He’s keeping track of souls

The way it used to be

The way it ought to be

The way it’s going to be again

When we’re in heaven, you’ll be sorry

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I wouldn’t call shaming people into voting “sinister”, stupid maybe, but not sinister. Trying to suppress the vote with a camouflaged poll tax is what I would call “sinister”

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Another classic, Eustace! All must be watched, identified and verified as worthy souls in order to cast a ballot in Jesusland!

Praise Juuu—eeeee—zus—uhh! ☜(ˆ▿ˆc)

http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/sites/tcdailyplanet.net/files/12/13/6a00d834516a0869e2017d3d96c880970c-800wi.jpg

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Sorry. Not me. Jill Sobule lyrics from “Soldiers of Christ”

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I understand the concept of telling people how they’re doing compared to their neighbors, but the tone is all wrong. The most effective way to do this is in the form of a friendly competition. “The average registered voter on your block voted 75% of the time; can you beat that?” is a great message. Our local utility sends us a graph showing how our energy consumption compares with the neighborhood average and it really did motivate us to make some improvements. But if they had threatened us, I doubt we would have responded positively.

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I got a flyer this week in the mail in Oregon (from Democrats, I believe) trying to shame me because I had only voted in “one of three general elections.” Well, maybe that’s because I only moved here three years ago! I was irked more than anything – I’ve voted in every general election since I was 18, many years ago. I’m a strong Democrat, but I don’t think this is a good tactic.

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Yup! Should have said, “IT’S a classic!” ; )

(And just like Jill: “I kissed a girl!”)

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Democrats hope blunt ads being distributed in Southern states like Arkansas and Georgia will draw more black voters to the polls.

And you know who doesn’t like this approach? The party of inclusion.

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The methodology could definitely be improved, but the message is spot on! Voting should be a duty as a citizen of this country. If Congress can authorize mandatory military service, i see absolutely nothing wrong at all with placing a duty on the American puiblic to vote. Don’t like the candidates? Leave them blank, but get to the polls and vote! It’s your responsibility as an American citizen! Hold our leaders acountable! Trust me on this. America would be a vastly different country if voting was a duty instead of casual right that you had to fight to protect.

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Fear is a good motivator and focuses attention amid heightened danger. Its use in promoting voter action, however, is wrong. A corollary to the fundamental right to exercise your right to vote is that a voter can sit on his “rump” and not vote without punishment. Moreover, this fails the very real problem of people deliberately not voting to avoid conflict in job promotion, among relatives or in other social circles. As much as 30% of the adult population deliberately withdraws from the voter pool in fear of retaliation or social rejection. This shows something is very wrong in the US, in a normal country like Sweden such behavior would be seen as perverse.

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Come on Dems, this is not the way to do it by shaming people into voting, because it just could have the exact opposite effect. I do want my Dems to stop being wimpy punching bags for the media and to stand up and start shouting the truth over and over again, about what they have done for the country, but I do not want them using dirty right wing tricks like this.

It would be much more effective if you sent out mailers that just told the plain old truth about what would happen if they don’t vote and the GOTP takes back the Senate. I am not against using a little of the right’s fear tactics, because making people fear the TRUTH about what those people would do for the next two years is not fear mongering. It is getting people to pull their heads out of their butts and off their couches and voting. You could start with the simple question of “remember what happened in 2010 when you didn’t think voting in a midterm election was that important?”

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How do we know that this mailer isn’t from the GOP?

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Posing as Democrats.

Making this your big headline is kind of a stupid idea at this time.

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This has actually been tested. For about the last 10-15 years a number of academic researchers as well as political campaigns have tested a wide variety of different messages and tones to encourage turnout. The Obama campaigns were especially active at this, lots of different ways of phrasing it were tried.

The data conclusively show that shaming and a negative tone are more effective than the sort of upbeat, “let’s all vote!” tone that you describe. It’s not necessarily what people expected, but the results are pretty clear.

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He knows when you’ve been sleeping,
He knows when you’re awake,
He knows when you’ve been bad or good,
So be good for goodness’ sake.

Still pretty fucking scary, after all these years.

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I hope there’s no identity thief living at my old house, where I also only voted 2 elections out of 4. Because I moved in between, thanks. It’s not even clear from my three letters and my wife’s two, who is sending the darn things or what they want.

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I must react differently to being shamed then, because it would tend to have the opposite effect on me. I would much prefer to be reminded of what I might face as an American if I don’t vote and they take over the Senate.

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Who knew that Santa worked for the NSA?

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Certainly, “best overall” doesn’t mean “best with everyone”. But campaigns really have studied this stuff.

For the 2012 election, one GOTV effort of the Obama campaign was even to send Facebook messages to friends of people who had identifed as Obama supporters, but had not yet voted (the lists are not only public but available real-time in most states), asking those friends to put peer pressure on the laggards.

I.e., Bob might have got a message on election day saying, “Hey, it’s 5pm and your friend Joe hasn’t voted yet. You both want Obama to win, so what’s up with him? Tell Joe to get himself to the polling place – or to call xxx-xxxx if he needs a ride – and vote just like you did!”