That’s the underlying message of a bizarre new Get Out the Vote effort that’s supposedly coming to Virginia this week.
Just when you thought that you’ve heard it all.
Bill Sizemore in The Virginian Pilot has a remakable story this morning about the “Know Campaign” that will be sending mailers to 350,000 Virginian households that will include your voting history and
That of your neighbors as well.
The theory is that you’re more likely to vote if you’re worried that your friends will find out that you didn’t.
“Shame on You!” as a GOTV tactic.
Debra Girvin, executive director of the Know Campaign, observed that “research shows that this tactic can drive people to the polls…we figured ‘let’s give it a try.’”
If you assume that the story isn’t an elaborate hoax (though in politics truth continually outpaces our imaginings), it’s pretty frightening.
Girvin won’t tell the reporter who the “we” that “figured ‘let’s give it a try’” are.
Nor will she reveal who’s in the organization or the foundation that’s purportedly paying $150,000 to fund the activity.
So much for transparency.
It sounds like a joke- having a “Know” campaign shrouded in secrecy.
I doubt that such an effort will increase turnout very much.
But if it really does occur, there will be a lot of surprised and maybe ticked-off Virginians.
Who may demand to “know” just who’s behind this stuff.
Actually you may be surprised. There has been some academic research in the last couple of years that shows that this could have a big impact.
http://www.apsanet.org/content_51091.cfm
[...] Holsworth over at Virginia Tomorrow dredges this tidbit up from the pages of the Virginia Pilot: Bill Sizemore in The Virginian Pilot [...]
Plenty of people don’t own firearms.
Plenty of people don’t own printing presses.
Plenty of people choose not to exercise speech at all.
Coercing people to exercise a right is no different that coercing people *not* to exercise one. The same arm-twisting is being applied… and people have the right not to exercise the same.
That’s America, folks.
Many voters actually think their voting history is private, when they think about the issue at all. Hah - not at all! Everyone who’s anyone in politics can type your name into a little desktop app and figure out exactly which primary, special and general elections you’ve voted in for the past gazillion years. They buy this information from the state.
In California, where Meg Whitman of eBay fame is running for Governor, it’s actually caused her some trouble. Apparently she hasn’t been voting for a large part of her adult life.
Personally I think it’s revolting that states are allowed to sell the names and addresses of the people who show up at the polls. No privacy.
Someone ought to ask Del. Brenda Pogge or her husband about this. They control the internet domain name the “Know Campaign” is using. Perhaps they can offer some insight…
Ahhh …. another chance to bet…
I will wager that Debra Girvin is a transplanted liberal northerner in Virginia. I’ll take any reasonable bet. Why? Because only some dipstrick who had run away from some ecomonic basket case up north could come down here and try to pull this stunt to try to get her way.
I haven’t seen this exact speces of Carpetbaggerum Dumbasis in Northern Virginia. Any chance that this plague or rodents has settled in RoVA?
Bill Sizemore followed up on this and Delegate Pogge says that the name was simply hijacked from a previous unrelated initiative and that she has nothing to do with the effort.