Last week I mentioned the elaborate advertising campaign the Elections Office conducted last fall to convince poll voters to switch to vote-by-mail before the November election. Yesterday I obtained the detailed budget and project plan. They budgeted $315,500 for the campaign which included: consulting, newspaper, radio and web banner ads, printing, T-shirts, direct mail, and "Ambassadors" to staff Primary Election polling places. The campaign was aimed at certain demographic groups: young people, first time voters, independent voters and "Women, especially single women".
That's a shocking expenditure of public funds to push the partisan-inspired mail-voting plan and to perform a get-out-the-vote campaign targeted at specific groups of voters.
How did the Ambassadors do? This self-congratulatory primary-night press release claimed
We had so many people switch to vote-by-mail we started running low on forms in some polling placesAs it turns out, they convinced only 595 voters to switch. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 18, 2007 12:10 PM | Email This
I just got, and sent back, a request by mail from King County to supply a valid registration signature for VBM. I have never voted by mail but I complied as they said my VBM vote might not count with an "old" signature on file. So I assume that VBM is here or going to be shortly.
So we are trying to convert people who will either VBM or not be able to vote?
Like I said. I'm a little confused.
Perhaps this $315,000 should be divided up 6 ways and reported to the PDC as "in-kind" contributions to their reelections?
Or better yet, maybe they should reimburse the taxpayers for their PR campaign aimed at helping themselves justify their actions. Fat chance!
Posted by: MJC on May 18, 2007 01:33 PM350 forms and 595 sign ups - seems par for the course for KCRE. I wonder how many times they "found extra forms"?
Posted by: SouthernRoots on May 18, 2007 01:54 PMI have a brilliant idea for next time: we could save a lot of damage to the environment by just paying people to switch. I bet they'd do it for a lot less than $529 apiece, too.
Personally I love voting by mail. It lets me sit down in front of the computer and research issues while I have the ballot in front of me.
The "creative counting" problems down in King County are a separate issue.
http://www.pinktentacle.com/2007/05/bra-to-boost-voter-turnout/
Much more cost effective.
Posted by: ronin on May 18, 2007 04:05 PMNo one is proposing an intrusion on your idyllic and antiseptic voting methodology. Voting by mail will continue to be an option no matter how much some of us dislike it. The issue is that we who prefer voting at the polling place are losing our ability to do that. The issue is that universal voting by mail places the entire vote counting operation beyond the reach of "we the people" and buries it completely inside Big Brother Ron's corrupt organization. The issue is that the stealing of elections becomes cheaper and easier the more when the electoral process becomes centralized.
I wish you would come out of your isolation long enough to join in that fight.
Posted by: huckleberry on May 18, 2007 04:07 PMYou could do like most people do and sit down at the computer in the months leading up to the election and research the people and issues.
Then go to the polls to vote you can see all your neighbors and friends, eat coolies, drink coffee, B.S. and indulge in the things that make neighborhoods neighborhoods.
I commend you for researching the issues before you vote, but one doesn't need to have the actual ballot in order to do this research. Every voter already gets a voter's pamphlet. The voter's pamphlet could include a sample ballot. California has done this for years. When I lived in California, I always marked up my sample ballot when I did my research and then I brought the sample ballot to the polling place.
That's much more secure, reliable and cost-effective than voting by mail.
Posted by: Stefan Sharkansky on May 18, 2007 04:19 PMI suspect the VBM "Ambassadors" were a lot less like impartial elections staffers and a lot more like the Gorebots that have been programmed with Al Gore's message and sent out to spread it to the masses.
The Gorebots know they should look for the gullible type that thinks that they are being told a message out of simply the honest goodwill on the part of the speaker. Students fit this profile well, as they are usually willing to believe what they are told by their teachers without independent verification.
The Left is entirely based on these sheeple who listen to "Ambassadors." If even a small percentage of all of the Left bandwagon victim classes and indoctrinated youths decided to think for themsleves, they'd be out of business for good.
I agree that in principle your solution is probably a better one. I have no problem with placing restrictions on voting if those restrictions result in polls being more accurate. Even if that means me reporting somewhere and producing ID.
As for "coming out of isolation" though -- I never considered that hanging around in the local elementary school could be an act of, well, anything at all. To me it's just one less line to stand in.
So, 595 is only the number "actively" signed up. The number "passively" signed up must have been much larger, don't you think? After a while, all that jogging in place while talking to voters must have exhausted them, so they stopped "actively" signing them up.
This is another of the uncounted quantities of false, irrelivant or meanginglesss press releases by government agencies.
Why the press prints them is beyond me. Recently there was a "news" article saying 86% of motorcycle fatalities were cyclists who had not taken the "state safety course." If 86% or more have not taken the course then taking the course would make one less safe. Agencies ALWAYS give statistics that sound like they are doing someting good but they just need more money to do better.
Posted by: Ron A. on May 19, 2007 12:28 PMThe law was originally passed to benefit widespread rural precincts where trying to establish a single polling place to accommodate a handful of voters spread all over the place (the precinct up at Snoqualmie pass is an example) just is not practical.
Posted by: Desert Rat on May 22, 2007 12:56 PM