4 ms·
Your voting history is publicly available (nothing about who you vote for, just whether or not you vote in a given election year). There have been several studi
by jtorsella 4y ago
Your voting history is publicly available (nothing about who you vote for, just whether or not you vote in a given election year). There have been several studies showing that messages along the lines of “Your voting history is public, make sure to vote this year.” Or “keep up your voting streak!” are extremely effective, I believe the most effective single messages we know of or at least the most well-known ones.
Both parties and countless civic orgs do this now, it’s been a major thing since 08.
The original experiments were randomized, but usually if you’re getting the message now you’re part of a target demo someone wants to turn out.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoWhy on earth is it publicly available? Something like that could be abused pretty easily. I guess it lets non-voters verify that no one has stolen their vote, but still..
- tester756 4y agoMany things could be "abused pretty easily" but are they actually abused?
- daemoens 4y agoI can't think of anyway on the spot of how this could be abused. They still don't know who you voted for, just that you voted. Are there any common abuses of this data?
- arealaccount 4y agoSome of us don’t want to support any of the people on the ballot. Being forced to write down support for an entity that you don’t want is a psychological hack. Now you can’t just tell the “vote or die people” that you already voted to get them off your back.
- bawolff 4y agoYou can just spoil your ballot.
- Spooky23 4y agoJust don’t enroll in a political party. Political people want to turn out votes for them. In states with a closed primary that has some blowback. Where I grew up, the Republican primary was the election. Where I live now, the Democratic primary is the election - the only GOP candidates are clowns with no organization.
- thehoff 4y agoI haven't enrolled in a party and I get probably 6-12 a day now (from both sides).
- gus_massa 4y agoIsn't it possible to put an empty ballot? We use envelopes here to hide the ballot from the people in charge of the voting slot. We can put an empty envelope, or with ballots of two different parties that make it void, or with a nasty letter about the policianos, or like in Brazil where they "elected" a rhino for major https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cacareco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cacareco
- bobbylarrybobby 4y agoYes, you can definitely cast an empty ballot (at least in New York).
- mancerayder 4y agoSold to ad tech agencies who can match it with whatever other information about you they already have. It's a binary yes, no, so maybe abuse is too strong a word. There's limited use.
- idlewords 4y agoThe voting system is a complicated balance between keeping your individual vote secret and making as much of the process transparent and public as possible. This kind of information being public is likely a check against ballot stuffing.
- williamcotton 4y agoThere's a near universal knee-jerk reaction to public accountability that is going to be the end of this republic...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- smitty1e 4y agoIn Virginia, the pollbook isn't secret, and technically any observer can challenge anyone showing up and trying to obtain a ballot. This hasn't happened in my 10yrs of working as an election officer, but still.
- djbusby 4y agoYou still doing that? Would love to peek at your blog. Edit: from your KeyBase to Twitter to https://theothermccain.com/ https://theothermccain.com/
- smitty1e 4y ago"That" being an Election Officer? Yes, I'm supporting Tuesday. The actual blog isn't something I contribute to frequently anymore. (a) Working on the PhD thesis proposal, and (b) haven't had much to add to the conversation lately. Everyone who can legally vote on Tuesday should, though.
- daemoens 4y agoI can't think of anyway on the spot of how this could be abused. They still don't know who you voted for. Are there any common abuses of this data?
- nmeagent 4y ago"I know you'll probably vote for $foo. If I check after the election and find that you did|didn't vote, bad thing $bar might just happen to your friends and family." Edit: It's probably not a particularly good threat, but it could maybe be used to suppress certain targeted demographic groups that tend to vote one way or the other.
- Analemma_ 4y agoThis seems like a pretty ludicrous threat to make. You could just submit a blank ballot or vote for the opposing party and your hostage-taker would have no way of knowing.
- nmeagent 4y agoRight. It would probably be more effective for getting someone to just stay home.
- daemoens 4y agoYou would have to do that on a pretty wide scale for it to be effective and would be caught pretty quickly after going after just a couple people.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoNot being in the business of voter suppression, I couldn't tell you anything authoritatively. But if I was, I'd use the data to find who has a spotty or non-perfect record with the hypothesis that they're more susceptible to suppression methods than someone with a near perfect record. Then the next step would be targeting locations that lean towards one party or using a combination of retargeting ads +obvious party selectors to run a BS phone or ad campaigns that disenfranchise or provide misleading information. Like this. Which was a real thing that happened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Canadian_federal_election_voter_suppression_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Canadian_federal_election...
- Analemma_ 4y agoHaving public "who voted" records which can be compared against other public residency data is a transparency countermeasure against ballot fraud.
- Spooky23 4y agoFOIA laws. Voting integrity depends on transparency.
- blarg1 4y agoI wonder if someone could check who hasn't voted and send in mail in votes for those people?
- Fatnino 4y agoOr just have mandatory voting. You need to prove that you turned in a ballot when you pay your taxes if you incur so e penalties. Don't care who you vote for. Turn in a blank ballot, doesn't matter. But you MUST turn in a ballot.
- evolve2k 4y agoThatd make a fun little site, search my record and then displays a nice graphic of my streak. Reminding me a bit of GitHub commit graph, but obv much less data points.
- sidewndr46 4y agoThis isn't quite true at least in most of the US: if you never register to vote your voting history isn't public. If someone asks, you can always just say the IRS required you to give up your right to vote. This is a real thing done for some groups.
- jtorsella 4y agoInteresting caveat, I didn’t know that.
- TheNewsIsHere 4y ago> If someone asks, you can always just say the IRS required you to give up your right to vote. This is a real thing done for some groups. I am aware of special exemptions to paying FICA, income, and other normal taxes for certain religious orders and clergy who have elected not to participate in things like Social Security. But can you cite more information about what you mean by “the IRS required you to give up your right to vote?”