A personal message from a friend is very different from a form letter from a party. I think you would be hard-pressed to show that the type of letter shown in this article is effective.
âŚwhat they found is that among people who received the mailers âsubstantially higher turnout was observed.â
Well, that would explain the 2010 GOP wave.
Admittedly, the mailers are a more cost-effective means of GOTV. I understand theyâd originally planned to canvas door-to-door. When the owner answered, the idea was to kick him in the nuts and tell him he has ugly children. Then hand him your 'Vote Democratic!" card.
Labor cost was way too high.
Snowden hasnât leaked those docs yet, âcos he knows itâll break the kiddiesâ hearts. 
The same style mailer hit us in VT yesterday, from the VT Democratic Party. The tone is a little different for those who have voted regularly, but the same basic information is providedâŚwith a bonus âWe will call you on Election Day to find out whether you voted, and why or why not.â Oh joy!
Well, the friend still responded to a creepy form letter (more preicsely, automated FB message) saying âwe know your friend didnât vote â nag him for usâ, so creepy still works.
On the form letter, again, thereâs good evidence on this. Quite a few academic studies and experiments by a variety of campaigns; Obamaâs campaigns have been particularly aggressive with this sort of thing.
Iâm not sure why Dylan calls it dumb. TPM has praised Obama for his campaignâs GOTV effort and use of technology, but this sort of letter is EXACTLY the kind of thing the Obama campaign did for their GOTV effort. Itâs only the wake of the Montana experiment that the technique is coming to the attention of journalists, apparently.
âNag him for usâ is different from âthis is a matter of public recordâ. Sorry if you canât see the difference. Tone matters even if the same message is being delivered.
Sure there is a difference. And the evidence is that the âmatter of public recordâ tone works better, whether or not you find that fact aesthetically pleasing.
According to the article itâs been tested as far as turnout. Has it been tested for effectiveness for the people sending it out? Even as a Democrat, receiving a mailer like that would piss me off enough to make me want to vote against whoever sent it. For a less politically active person, the kind who is more likely to not vote (and therefore to receive this kind of thing), I think that impulse would be even higher. Thatâs why itâs counterproductive - they could be very well driving votes for their opponents.
If the Democrats lose, they have nobody to blame but themselves. Anger motivates conservatives to vote. It motivates liberals to stay home and sulk.
That is harder to know for 3 reasons: the academics arenât supposed to be trying to change outcomes so they havenât tried to test that as much; vote choice is harder to measure anyway since itâs non-public (unlike vote / no-vote); campaigns presumably care, but they donât tend to share their results.
What is clear is that sort of thing has been tried in practice for several cycles now, usually by the most social science / data collection oriented campaigns. And they are expanding, not reducing their use of such nagging and nudging strategies. That suggests to me the people running campaigns believe it has worked in the past, and probably have more than a gut feeling to support that belief, but I have no independent way of knowing if they are correct about that.
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Iâm so sorry they hurt your feelings. Let me quessâŚyouâre a female.
So sorry youâre a douchebag. Let me guess - youâre a male.
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We all have the right to vote or not to vote. This is obvious harassment. Someone told me years ago you can go to the voting booths and do a protest vote⌠Just go into the booth and donât select anyone and pull the lever. I guess you coud do a blank ballot if its paper ballots. I would suggest anyone who doesnât like any of the candidates to do so. ITS TIME TO FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHT NOT TO VOTE!
Is there a black Jesus too?
Why donât we just pass a law making it mandatory to vote, like 90% of the world (where democratic governance exists) does. Put a mandatory $1000.00 fine on it. Then, the poor, working class and middle class will vote, because they sure as Hell canât afford to pay $1000.00. The 10% could care less about $1000.00. And the other 90% donât want them voting anyway.
These arenât âoutside groups.â This was sent by the Democratic Party itself and is a remarkably crappy way to get votes. If they canât win on their ideas, they don;t deserve to win.