Completely bizarre GOTV flyer

[crispini]

(Crossposted to BOR)

Okay, I got this extremely odd GOTV flyer in the mail and I don't know what to make of it. I have it scanned and will be happy to post the pdf if anyone wants me to. The complete text follows, my thoughts afterwards:

Dear Registered Voter:

YOU ARE BEING STUDIED!
Why do so many people fail to vote? We've been talking about the problem
for years, but it only seems to get worse.

This year, we're trying to figure out why people do or do not vote. We'll be
studying voter turnout in the May 1ih Municipal election.

Our analysis will be based on public records, so you will not be contacted
again or disturbed in any way. Anything we learn about your voting or not
voting will remain confidential and will not be disclosed to anyone else.

The chart shows your name from the list of registered voters, showing
past votes, as well as an empty box which we will fill in to show whether
you vote in the May 12th Municipal election.

We will leave the box blank if you do not vote.

DO YOUR CIVIC DUTY - VOTE!

(My Address) May 2003 May 2005 May 2007

(My Name) Voted Voted _____


Above information does not include early voting for this election.
Political advertising, paid for by New Voices.

So: My thoughts.

This flyer does not have any letterhead or any graphic content in any way. It does not look like it is the product of any "real" nonpartisan organization (such as the League of Women Voters or some such organization.)

There is no phone number or web address where I can find out the result of the survey. The return address is a mail drop in Casa Linda, in East Dallas.

Googling "New Voices" gets no particularly relevant results.

In short, this is a completely anonymous mailer.

Now. If indeed this is an organization interested in getting out the vote, why would they target ME, with my stellar voting history -- voted every election in the last 10 years, pretty much, including the runoffs and the little stuff.

Could it be because of my Democratic primary voting history?

Is this REALLY a GOTV effort or is this a closet effort to make voters paranoid, i.e. "Somebody's Watching Me!" ... Or do I have my tinfoilhat on too tight?!

Who on EARTH would have the money for this kind of mailer? It's not in an envelope, it has a presorted indicator on it and it looks like it has been sent out via some kind of mailing service -- it doesn't look like a "home grown" mailing at all.

I don't know, I have no answers, only questions, so therefore, this blog. Much weirdness. Anyone got anything?

(Oh, and another thought which I didn't post to BOR: "Paid political advertising?" That TOTALLY does not sound like a nonprofit to me....)

[hobbit709]

1. Sounds like another GOP dirty trick

Why won't they identify themselves? Report this to the elections people

[sonias]

2. Crispini we need a copy of that flyer please

We're hearing reports that people are also being told they must bring photo ID to the polls. That is not our current law. If you've lost your voter registration card, then you can use alternate forms of ID like a driver's licence but it is not currently required.

I'm going to pm you to get a copy please.

thanks

Sonia

[cosmik debris]

3. Just a thought

If it did not have a union label, it probably is NOT a Democratic Party Affiliate.

[Honeycombe8]

4. I got this flier, too!

Wasn't it just the oddest thing?

I didn't think it was to scare me off from voting, though. It ends with saying in all caps VOTE!

It noted my supposed voting history...but it noted elections only in 2003 and 2005, skipping all others.

So it looks like they were sending notices out to those who have a good voting record for state or local elections only....not national ones. They were not sending it to those who voted in November '06 (I voted then, too).

Could be that it is mainly Republicans who have a good voting record in my district for state and local elections. Or it could simply be that this is expected to be a low voter turnout, so they want to try to increase it. Or it could be that those who voted in 2003 and 2005 voted the way this group wants, so it sent the notices to those who voted in those elections.

Whatever the reason, it's a very odd flier. I'm not alarmed this group has this information, since it's available on my county's website, I think.

[TexasThoughtCriminal]

5. Are you in Dallas too?

I wonder if this is just a local mailer for the municipal election, or is it more widespread?

We got two of those letters in my household, also in Dallas. Very strange.

[Honeycombe8]

6. Yes. Dallas.

I think it was the first sentence that was alarming..."You are being studied!"

I don't know if it was sent by Republicans or Democrats, or neither. But I don't think it was to scare me off from voting. The best way to keep me, or anyone, from voting, is NOT to remind them about an election at all.

But this has all the marks of Republicans, IMO. There are probably more REGULAR Republican voters than Democratic ones, is my guess. And it didn't mention the election that had the huge minority turnout...November 2006. We don't register to a particular party in this state, so they may not be able to tell HOW we vote. Just whether we are REGULAR voters. Just my guess though. Very odd.

You think it was sent out ONLY in Dallas County?

[crispini]

7. Everybody I've talked to about it who has gotten it has been in Dallas.

Now -- have you ever voted in a Democratic primary? That is one way people tend to distinguish Rs from Ds.

Also, what on EARTH is the point of sending it out to people who have a consistently high voting history? It seems to me if you either want to target new voters, or intimidate people, you're not going to do either one by sending it to people who are going to vote anyway, regardless.

[crispini]

8. The plot thickens! And I am going to make a prediction!

Today I got a full color 8 1/2 x 11 flyer from the same people. Text:

You can make a difference in Dallas. Vote.

The question is simple: What kind of Dallas do you want to live in? Do
you want a Dallas with safer streets and economic opportunity? Do you want parks and green
spaces preserved and neighborhoods protected? If that's the Dallas you want to call home,
then the answer is also simple. Vote. Together, we can make the difference and create a
better Dallas.

Observations: It was illustrated with a bunch of nicely diverse stock photos. It has a GCIU union bug on it, as well as a recycling symbol. The goals are sort of vaguely neighborhood / citizen-centric... it's certainly not pro-big-business.

MY PREDICTION:

Zac Crain had some leftover campaign cash he didn't use and decided to do this as a sort of generic GOTV effort.

Here's why I say this:
1) Casa Linda is in my hood; Zac Crain lives sort of nearby too.
2) Who would have the money?
3) And NOT give it to a current candidate?
4) The sort of vaguely citizen-centric, grassroots feel of both mailers, kind of a populist message, but still sort of nonpartisan.
5) The apparent fact that this didn't seem to be well targeted ... as I said before, why would anyone with ANY political expertise target a GOTV effort at somebody like myself -- a die-hard voter. When it comes to generic GOTV efforts, I'm a waste of your money because my record shows I most certainly WILL vote, come hell or high water. (Not that I wasn't a fan of Zac ... I was ... but his campaign didn't exactly show a grasp of hard-nosed realism.)

And, finally, I can't find his donation records online, but I'm guessing that he probably DID have some cash left over, and this sort of does seem like an appropriate thing to do with it. And it seems kind of consistent with the tenor of that campaign.

Okay. That's my guess and I'm stickin' to it. Until I've been proved wrong. :D

[Mabus]

10. Look up expenditures in the second field set

that is labeled "Advanced Search for Contributions, Expenditures, Pledges, Loans". You can just specifiy expenditures for 2007. I would guess that the postcards and the postage were paid for this election cycle so the payment would have been made in the past few months (or weeks). Go through the expenditure records and see if notice a large payment for printing and/or mailing or postage costs.
http://www.ethics.state.tx.us/php/cesearch.html

[crispini]

11. How much do you think such a flyer would cost?

Bearing in mind that I have no idea how far it went, although friends in Oak Cliff got it too.

I looked for "New Voices" and didn't find anything under there. I pulled up large expenditures but there were so many I found it almost impossible to get through.

[Mabus]

16. Minimum 15K

What just occurred to me is this, it isn't advocating a particular candidate or issue on the ballot therefore whoever sent it out may not have to file with the Texas Ethics Commission.

In Kansas, if you don't advocate for or against a particular candidate(s) you don't have to file with our Governmental Ethics Commission. It's a loophole that makes it harder to track down these types of mailers. It happened to us a few years ago right before a city commission election. We were able to trace the postcards to a Florida polling company that just happened to have a contract with some local developers. Some stooge come forward and claimed he did it on his own and without the knowledge or financial help of any of his buddies.

fwiw, I did see some PAC from Las Vegas that had "voice" in its name that was registered in Texas but hadn't made any filings. I couldn't get very far with that information.

Is there any way you could post the mailings? I'd like to take a look at them. I'm pretty intrigued by this myself (I first saw a post in the Election forum).

[Honeycombe8]

17. I could try to post it tomorrow night.

We have a scanner at the office. So I could make it electronic. But I'm not sure how to post an electronic image here that isn't housed on the internet.

[Mabus]

19. I PM'ed cripsini my e-mail address

she'll e-mail the copies she scanned. I'll do what I can to help you guys track this down.

fwiw, you can upload PDFs and other picture formats onto free hosting servers like photobucket.com (there's a lot more out there but I use photobucket).

[crispini]

18. If you PM me your email address I can mail them to you.

I have them in PDF form but I don't know how to redact the address info on them (mine) so I'd rather not post them online. Let me know!

Interesting observation -- I really don't know that much about Texas election law. Maybe I should give the local county party chair a call.

[sonias]

9. Boy they had a lot of money if they did all of Dallas

Crispini, if you find that Zac was your donor for the flyer you might give him some feedback. Great intentions, not so great initial message. People do not like to be warned they're going to be "studied". The second flyer should have been the only thing they sent.

Sonia

[crispini]

12. I've changed my mind, I don't think that was him.

I've pulled up his latest campaign finance reports and they never had this kind of dough:

PDF:
http://www.ci.dallas.tx.us/cso/camp-fin/crain_apr11-07.pdf

[Lithos]

14. The politicans who have that kind of left over money

Usually have enough sense to know how to label/market them. This sounds like the effort of a politically inexperienced individual to the side of things, a would-be political wonk, who has some deep pockets. They probably showed their product to someone part way through as a "see what I'm doing" and got an education about what they need to do. Hence the stock photos on revision 2.

L-

[crispini]

15. Exactly. It doesn't sound like anyone with much political experience.

Just the fact that it doesn't seem to have been targeted well. It strikes me as somebody who JUST found out, "Hey, I can get people's voter history from the county elections office!" and sort of thought, Let me see what I can do with it.

Actually, I would really like to meet this person, because I am very, VERY interested in getting out the vote, but I think there are better ways to use your money than this sort of generic mailer.

[Melissa G]

13. Just posted this thread in Election Reform and on the Daily ER News thread

(which could use some recs, BTW) I was curious if this was happening elsewhere in the country.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x472265
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x472265#472270

[TexasThoughtCriminal]

20. Still a mystery, but here's some more information

I emailed my local neighborhood Dems group, and three others also received the first creepy mailer. I've been asking around, and so far the only ones I know to get it were voters in the City of Dallas, not suburb city voters of Dallas County.

I was at the county party office tonight, and they were aware of the mail pieces, but don't know who's behind it.

The Dallas Observer has blogged about it here and here.

[Honeycombe8]

21. Good work. I'm wondering if recipients were HOMEOWNERS?

The second, slick, less offensive flyer seemed aimed at homeowners.