Pro-Recall Group sends mailing with neighbors' voting histories -- massive privacy breach or crowdsourcing voter turnout efforts

The Greater Wisconsin Committee (a pro-recall group) sent out a campaign mailing listing the names of neighbors and their voting history, asking recipients to knock on doors and get the laggard voters out. Some voters are enraged by the tactic. Here's a copy of the mailing.

It's seems like a quasi-retro method of getting voters to the polls -- having their neighbors push them there. Sort of a crowd-sourcing of voter turnout. That is somewhat how they use to do it in the old days, before TV (also, for those who don't know, the secret ballot, also called the Australian ballot, only came into fashion in the late 1800s).

However, in the age of identity theft and major privacy concerns, this seems like a very risky campaign tactic. I think there's a good reason this came out in the last days, when campaigns are more willing to take a chance and when press miss the story (the internet might be negating that benefit). If it helps, we might be seeing this in November.

Update: Here's an even better story on the subject from Forbes.

The Wall Street Journal piece notes what every old school clubhouse politician could tell you:


Academic work has examined the use of these sorts of tactics in pressuring voters to turn out on Election Day. "Substantially higher turnout was observed among those who received mailings promising to publicize their turnout to their household or their neighbors," one 2008 study found.

"Exposing a person's voting record to his or her neighbors turns out to be an order of magnitude more effective than conventional pieces of partisan or nonpartisan direct mail," the study adds. "In fact, the turnout effect associated with this mailing is as strong as the effect of direct contact by door-to-door canvassers and by far the most cost-effective voter mobilization tactic studied to date."