North Carolina
WRAL-CBS-5 Raleigh-Durham:
NC Democratic Party uses ‘voter shaming’ to spur turnout
The North Carolina Democratic Party appears to be using a “voter shaming” tactic to spur turnout in this year’s election.
Voters in at least four counties – Wake, Durham, Orange and New Hanover – report receiving two different versions of letters from the party. One gives them a “report card” on their prior voting history – most are deemed “average” – while the other suggests the voter in question would be surveyed as to whether or not they cast a ballot in this year’s general election.
The letters use Democratic Party logos, and the survey letter is signed by Patsy Keever, who is given the title of “election day coordinator” on the letter. Keever is a former state representative who is a vice chairwoman of the North Carolina Democratic Party. The letters carry a disclaimer that they were “Paid for by the North Carolina Democratic Party.”
My reaction when I first heard about this: This is incredibly stupid.
Rush’s reaction when he covered this today: This is incredibly stupid.
Our reasons are a bit different, though. Rush thinks that it will backfire because black voters, who are already worked up into a paranoid fit of rage against photo ID to vote because they’ve been made to think that it’ll make it easier for the cops to pop them for their outstanding warrants, will be even more likely to stay away from the polls.
I think the reason not to do this is very simple. First off, because these mailers are going to white liberal heavy counties and not black counties, I don’t think the North Carolina Democratic Party is thinking about blacks, they’re thinking about white liberals. Wake County = Raleigh, the state capital and a bunch of Triangle tech concerns, Durham County = Duke University, Orange County = The University of North Carolina. New Hanover County is Wilmington on the coast, and it’s a swing county, so I don’t know what the Democrats’ calculus is there.
No, the reason you don’t do this is that it comes off as shitting where you eat.
