It seems some people are surprised that they were able to buy data on who voted and how they lean.
I wasn't surprised because I worked on a campaign before. It's ridiculous how much information you can get about voters for not a lot of money.
You can get their phone number and email address that they provided with their voter registration, and the do not call list does not even apply (nor the do not spam list). You can call and email with reckless abandon.
It's kinda crazy how basically every law meant to protect people from spam has a special carve out for political campaigns.
> It's kinda crazy how basically every law meant to protect people from spam has a special carve out for political campaigns.
Electioneering is a golden goose of money. There are billions in Ad spend every election cycle and everybody is in on it - Facebook, Google, Twilio, Sendgrid, the telecoms, phone banks and call centers, nonprofits, for profits. Nobody wants the money to stop because is pure margin what they charge the campaigns for.
TV companies too, getting that sweet sweet ad money. I remember feeling in the 2008 Democrat primary race that TV had a split agenda. The nomination was definitely Obama's, but the TV reports kept talking about a race, because (my guess) it keeps viewers tuning in...
Some political campaigns are relentless. I was able to get a local city council candidate’s campaign to stop calling me but I had to threaten to run against their candidate in the next election. Haven’t heard from them since, YMMV.
Sure, and like other targeted ad buyers being sold bullshit, you simply take it for granted that the data you get is accurate. Meanwhile, looking through my SMS history, I have 8 texts from this week addressed to either my grandmother, who is 86 and recovering from a stroke, or her last boyfriend, who is dead, telling me about GOP candidates in Nevada. I have never lived in Nevada. She no longer lives in Nevada. He no longer lives at all. I haven't voted since 2004. If you're just going to go by my "mood affiliation" or cultural leanings or whatever, voter or not, I'm sure as shit not a Republican. Thankfully, Nikki Haley finally stopped bugging me when she dropped out.
You could say the same about emails between friends or emails from churches - they don’t cover things that aren’t within the intended scope of the bill.
Mainly the one that establishes the Do Not Call list (it exempts political campaigns from any penalty) and CAN-SPAM which exempts political emails from any penalties.
I don't really care about US elections in general, but your rules are broken. Here are interesting bits:
How do you know who didn’t vote?
We formed a Super PAC and bought the personal voting records of every American citizen from a data broker we found on the internet. It’s pretty fucked up.
How do you know who’s “blue leaning”?
We got your partisan lean from the same data broker who sold us your voting history. You wouldn’t believe how easy it was for us to get this stuff. So fucked up!
This rules. Can I give you more than $7.99?
If you agree with us that this is a pretty good idea, you can donate as much as you want during checkout for your 2024 Election Pack. Literally no limit, because we’re a Super PAC. This is the kind of crazy shit that happens when the Supreme Court rules that “money is speech” and corporations can spend unlimited amounts of cash influencing elections. If you want to make a very large donation, please email us and we'll work it out.
> bought the personal voting records of every American citizen from a data broker we found on the internet
The way they phrase this, it sounds like they physically bought a file containing these records, not e.g. access to some API that lets them send targeted messages.
If that is the case and that file can be bought so easily, I'm surprised some version of it hasn't leaked on the internet yet.
An email address, phone number, address and political leaning for every voting American? That would be the breach to end all breaches, probably both figuratively and literally.
I didn't work with election data but I dealt with Data brokers and they worked both ways. They offered API as a service access or a single bulk download for special pricing. I was surprised how relatively cheap it was considering all the data they offered.
it'll be breach of contract. Musk is promising that he will pay every valid voter in the swing states $47 if they fill out his form and certify they will vote for in the interest of the first and second amendments, if a eligible voter fulfills their part of the bargain and says to send their check to CaH, it's their right to do so. Musk can't just decide he doesn't like what they're doing with (now) their money and not pay up on his end of the bargain.
Huh. If this is true, I'm surprised this "program" hasn't yet caught on as a Tiktok "here's how to get $50 for free if you live in one of these states" trick.
Musk is running a similar program for people in swing states, paying them $47 to refer potential Trump voters. If he doesn't pay, or pays selectively, he's violating various campaign finance laws.
He’s paying a person $47 for every registered swing state voter that that person refers to the SuperPAC and that follows through on signing a petition to support first and second amendment rights.
It appears to be lawyered loopholes around paying people to register to vote directly. Which is illegal as you mentioned.
Sure plenty of people will sign it for the money and then forget about it, but some sliver of people that sign will feel some sliver of obligation to vote for the candidate that the petition obviously wants them to vote for. A sliver here and there could be enough to turn this currently close election.
With the lax finance laws we have I’m guessing China could install a regime that would actively help them take Taiwan for less than ten billion, to give one example. It would be cheaper to buy the whole US military than build one aircraft carrier.
It’s why this or anything like it should be very illegal and why Citizens United is a threat to US national security.
See, that’s the thing. Neither naughty ol’ mr car, nor the card game, are paying people to vote. Not technically. US election law is… not great. Note the digs at Citizens United in the FAQ.
All that means is that we don't have a one-person one-vote system. Some people's votes matter more than others. What we have is a case of civil inequality.
If we build a system where everyone's votes count the same (radical and extreme idea, I know), then each person will have the same fundamental incentive to vote.
Direct election of the US president would be an improvement. Expanding the House of Representatives as originally formulated, or similarly, would help. Making the Senate reflect the population better by dividing populous states, and/or a statehood option for Puerto Rico and DC would help. Striking down gerrymanders would help.
More contested down-ballot races would help. No excuse for the parties to not have strong organization and candidate recruitment at that level. No changes to laws needed for this.
Correct, and that’s a good thing! Intelligence is not evenly distributed among individuals, and susceptibility to psyops and propaganda is a huge issue. The plain truth of the matter is that a majority of people simply aren’t qualified to weigh in on national issues. True democracy works when you’ve got a small group of like-minded individuals of roughly equal stature (13 original colonies) but not when you’ve got an entire empire (Roman republic)
No, devolving powers to the states is what makes it a federation. Having a state-representative legislative chamber makes it a federation. Electing a federal president via popular vote does not indicate defederation any more than the existence of the House of Representatives does.
The states negotiated terms before they agreed to join. Not having a popular vote is part of the reason why we have a federal system in the first place. People can argue pros and cons, but it's fairly meaningless since we're already in an established deal, and it's very unlikely that the many states will agree to undo that deal.
Electing a president via popular vote would give populous states disproportionate influence over the country compared to other states. That is important because the president could do obnoxious things against the best interest of any particular state, especially ones with less influence. The stuff happening to your home state is way more relevant to your life than your political party or special interests.
> Electing a president via popular vote would give populous states disproportionate influence over the country compared to other states.
It would give every human, who has the right to representation, exactly proportionate influence. The weird fashy retired cops in Idaho will have to settle for having the same number of senators as Californians have.
The formula is this: YOU learn all by yourself what all electable candidates say they want to do. YOU figure out all by yourself which ones LIE. One lie is enough, if they do it they keep doing it.
And then YOU chose which election program you want to vote for.
Ideally you chose what is best for the country but this is rather challenging for people. We can forgive them for being stuck thinking only of themselves.
Why would it be perfectly obvious if one is ordering food but not for elections???
Food might taste bad and you might get food poisoning. A bad choice doesn't mean years of suffering.
Does one not look at the menu card? Or do you ask your mum what to order? Do you roam around the restaurant looking what other people are eating? Do you order what CNN is screaming at you?
If people scream at you from all directions that you should order the snails in garlic butter, does that mean you will never have to look at the menu the rest of your life? You can just eat snails every day, everyone else is eating snails every day???? Why are you not eating snails?? It is the nr 1 most sold food! Don't you want snails to be the nr 1 food?
Then the restaurant switches to the cheapest worse possible snails because people will order it anyway because other people will order it.
Is this a display of good taste?
I hate apple but I buy iphone because they are good enough for what I need. I might get an android phone some day. They are good enough too.
I did actually look.
With elections no one is looking. People have no idea. Non of them! There is not one journalist who knows anything.
For each million voters one or two have watched a single video from a candidate other than the top 2. A video by a 5 year old on tiktok gets more attention online than the entire list of election programs.
I could see logic in getting advice from an expert on something or from your mum but if they know absolutely nothing about the topic?!?!
The voter is therefore brainwashed into irrelevance, she won't influence elections in any way.
This seems like a brazenly false statement. Also genuinely worrying, as you're discrediting all journalists based on... your feelings? Something that has been pushed for over the last 8 years by one party under the guise of labels such as "fake news" and "mainstream media".
Maybe you meant to say "everything", but parroting anti-news propaganda is only making everyone less informed and only benefits the side that isn't campaigning in good faith.
i go over the lengthy list of registered candidates then try to find the article about them.
If the article exists it doesn't really get into their program.
You can see how many facebook likes and youtube views they have.
Jill Stein has 10k views on her most popular video. The nr 1 video in google about afroman running has 1k views. He is a famous person. There are countless other candidates.
The presidency is not the only election on the ballot.
And if you ask people who don't vote why not, very few of them are going to mention the electoral college. I would wager most people who don't vote couldn't even explain what the electoral college is.
In many districts, your vote for US House and Senate seats largely doesn't matter, either. For many people, those are the only elections they are thinking about when it comes to November.
Senate seats are elected state-wide, so they largely go the same way as the presidential vote. If you're in a deep-red or deep-blue state (i.e., nearly all of them), your individual vote isn't going to make a difference.
House seats are district-specific, but:
a) the re-election rate of incumbents is over 90%
b) districts are often drawn to lock-in control for a specific party
State senate and house seats are often no better.
However, much to the credit of the sibling response, there are all kinds of local and regional races as well as ballot initiatives that are important.
Setting aside gerrymandering (which is a huge issue), the reelection rate doesn't tell the whole story. By what margin are House candidates typically winning? I'm sure there are plenty of landslides, but also lots of districts that were decided by a few percent -- and those who don't vote could be a deciding factor in those races if they chose to vote.
Or if we analyze this from an opportunity cost perspective, IMO voting is always the right choice. Maybe there's an 80% chance your vote "doesn't matter", but the cost is only 15 minutes of your time every 2 years. Isn't the 20% worth the risk? (OK, I am lucky enough to live in a state where voting lines are short. I understand it takes more than 15 mins for some people.)
Bottom line: Turnout reflects the odds that an individual vote will impact the outcome.
In most races, there is little doubt (more than 80% odds) as to who will win. And this extends all the way down to the local level. And voters, candidates and political parties all know this.
Probably they couldn't explain it, but many of them will have taken to heart the idea that "my vote doesn't matter". Which is especially sad, since like you say there are potentially all kinds of local and regional races and ballot measures their vote could in fact have impacted.
It's interesting how Occupy Wall Street was ridiculed by the press. I think they were onto something even though I don't agree with almost everything else they also believed in.
I wasn't surprised because I worked on a campaign before. It's ridiculous how much information you can get about voters for not a lot of money.
You can get their phone number and email address that they provided with their voter registration, and the do not call list does not even apply (nor the do not spam list). You can call and email with reckless abandon.
It's kinda crazy how basically every law meant to protect people from spam has a special carve out for political campaigns.