NBC 4 reports on “allegations that fliers that say, ‘Skip This Election,’ are blanketing African-American communities.” Thanks to Mike S. for this scan of the flier in question. It looks much too slick to be a counterfeit — there’s every reason to believe that this was put out by the RNC, as stated on the disclaimer.
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The same piece was mailed to many in Va Beach-says from Republican National Committee. It was received last week. Is it an illegal piece?
It’s not illegal, absentee ballots are for those who will not be in their polling areas on Election Day. The deadline for absentee ballots ended on October 31. So whoever is putting these flyers out now is deliberately setting voters up to vote via absentee ballot when it’s no longer valid to do so. Per election law, their votes will not count.
I’m confused. Is the objection that a) the flier says “Skip this election,” and that someone is going to read that and decide to do so, or b) that it gives details on how to absentee vote? If the latter, are we really concerned that some person is going to see the sign, get on their computer and load up http://www.sbe.virginia.edu (as the flier suggests) and see the big red letters explaining that the absentee ballot deadline has passed?
Seems a bit complicated to me.
I am also confused by the absentee ballot comment? The flier I received clearly says vote Republican, Tuesday November 7.
It’s hard to find any more direct evidence of voter suppression than a party targeting mailers to African American Democrats with a headline reading “Skip This Election.”
*gives up*
You guys are unbelieveable. When you quit voting the graveyard and buying smokes for the homeless to go vote your way in big cities, then come and talk to me about some harmless flier.
“You guys”? Will, I don’t accuse you of committing crimes. Why are you accusing me of committing crimes?
I got one of those. I am white. I am not in an African-American precinct. And I was not confused by it in the least. I think it is terribly sad that ANYBODY could be confused by that – well, maybe really, really old people who lost their glasses. But other than that, all I can say is – pathetic – time for some remedial schooling.
I’m also white and got two of those last week. And since I live in Augusta County, I’m pretty sure it’s not an African-American community.
Also, I only received GOP mailings this election season, so I don’t think it was even targeted towards likely Democrats.
I didn’t find it offensive or confusing–on the other side of the flier I believe it said in large letters something about Dems not wanting you to vote, so the message was pretty clear.
To clarify, there are 3 things I find offensive about this flier drop:
(1) Throw-away value. Throw-away value is that part of a mailing your eyes necessarily catch even when you merely pick up the piece and throw it in the trash. In this instance, the “throw-away value” is a picture of a bunch of angry-looking white people with a big banner reading “Skip This Election” targeted at predominantly minority neighborhoods.
(2) Misleading advertising. If the recipient actually opens and reads the flier, it implies they can vote in absentia and gives them instructions on how to get more information. I do not think that the SBE website is misleading at all about the fact you cannot absentee vote. I think that most people don’t know what absentee voting is and how to go about it. The average person does not budget more than 20 minutes to vote, if they plan to vote at all. E.g., people tend to leave their houses about 25 minutes early to drive to their polling station before work or squeeze it in on their lunch breaks. Getting and believing in this flier the day before elections means that person is spending that 20 minutes trying to vote online via absentee measures. Provided that person STILL finds more time to vote during the day after wasting it thusly, he or she will probably be trying to catch the poll in the narrow after-work window before they close.
This is also why giving out incorrect polling station info can be so detrimental. It forces people to drive cross-town only to be turned away and lengthens end-of-day lines, wasting minutes and sometimes hours (e.g., Cleveland in 2004) and causing bottleneck delays that frustrate working-class voters and encourage them to not complete the process.
(3) Backhanding the Dem Base. Yes, it’s a weak attempt at intimidation and misdirection, easily foiled if a recipient actually cares about the electoral system enough to understand and participate in the political process. Most people don’t understand it and at least half do not vote. The demographics on the non-voting population show that most of them are (1) lower income, or (2) undereducated, or (3) belong to an ethnic minority, or (4) some combination of the above. In other words, the underclass and the working class, which are precisely the people that benefit the most from social programs that the Democrats support. Therefore, in the 20th century, they became a traditional part of the Democrat base when they are motivated to get out and vote. Targeting such a group with a message that the Dems don’t want them to vote is a flagrant attempt at making them believe they no longer have a representational voice.
The Dems have indeed resurrected the dead occasionally –it’s a trick the Republicans have adopted, so you can’t throw that stone without hitting your own party. But we have not (to my knowledge anyway) created or launched a fear campaign that targets the equivalent Republican underclass — e.g., the low-income white, fundamentalist base. Even if we did choose to do so, we would have less success because the white underclass has been historically less oppressed and suppressed, and therefore does not have the same psychological reactions to such tactics.
Offensiveness, however, is a sliding scale. All those points being made, I find this flier considerably less damaging and much more lame as a vote-skewing tactic than the last minute phone call campaign telling Dem voters that (1) they aren’t properly registered and thus can’t vote and/or (2) that their polling station has changed.