Jim Ryun Source of KS Voter Caging

I just had to tell ya'll about this because its something that makes me crazy.

Last year around Christmas time - the Kansas GOP sent out what I'm sure they thought was a normal everyday fundraising email. What they mistakenly did was talk about all the great work they are doing and talked about their Vote Caging program.

This erupted into a huge thing here, here, here, and here.

BoydaBloc - a pro-Nancy Boyda blog just broke this story while going through Jim Ryun's campaign finance report disbursements.

"Not only is it unethical to attempt to deny someone their vote, it's also illegal.

Now, the Kansas Republican Party tried, and I'm sure Ryun will as well, to convince people "caging" is just a mailing term and that nothing untoward is occurring.

That just doesn't jive, though. To quote the web site of one of the firms Ryun has used:

We don't engage in creative design, printing or lettershop services. We don't sell mailing lists or involve ourselves in fundraising management. No, we do just one thing- caging."

To refresh, the tactic of voter caging is defined by the wiki

"Caging is a term of art in the direct mail industry, as well as a term applied to a technique of voter suppression. A caging list is a list or database of addresses, updated after a mailing program is completed, with notations on responses received from recipients, with corrections for addresses that mail has been returned undelivered from, or forwarded onward from."

National Campaign for Fair Elections is on the front lines on this with their Caging Prohibition Act that they are encouraging the US Senate to pass.

Reform Elections links to the Raging Caging piece that Slate did that talks about why this is something we should all be fearful of and see as a threat to our democracy.

"Vote caging is an illegal trick to suppress minority voters (who tend to vote Democrat) by getting them knocked off the voter rolls if they fail to answer registered mail sent to homes they aren't living at (because they are, say, at college or at war). The Republican National Committee reportedly stopped the practice following a consent decree in a 1986 case. Google the term and you'll quickly arrive at the Wizard of Oz of caging, Greg Palast, investigative reporter and author of the wickedly funny Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans—Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild. Palast started reporting allegations of Republican vote caging for the BBC's Newsnight in 2004. He's been almost alone on the story since then."

So, lets look closer at the evidence that BoydaBloc provided us with.

Jim Ryun's Finance Reports can be found here
Here are screen caps of the disbursement (you can click the images to make them bigger):




And here are screen caps of the websites for these companies
Washington Intelligence Bureau



Southwest Caging site screencaps:



Take a look at that "what we do" page a little closer. This is what it says they do as BB correctly recounts above.

Things like this don't just disenfranchise minority voters. They disenfranchise young voters. They disenfranchise our service men and women who often times move around to different bases or living on base or off base. It disenfranchises people who have every right to vote and whose vote we should embrace and encourage.

But the problem is that often times young people, minorities, the poor, these are progressive votes because they want to elect someone who will help them. Take their vote away - you get more Republicans.

This is despicable and disgusting. Say whatever you want about issues, do whatever you want about raising money, but stacking the deck by taking away the rights of voters to cast a ballot is wrong and someone needs to stand up and fix this. Right, by golly NOW.

Friendly Neighborhood Process Story

I thought given our recent discussions about Web 2.0 and new technologies I'd cross post this week's tech post over here.

Most people don't like process stories because they don't inform people about anything important or essential. I love them because they can actually teach those of us who are involved in non-profits, campaigns, or technology jobs key dos and don'ts. I like to learn new things from people who are infinitely smarter than me and on a couple of things (very few) I think I've got some game.

So let me talk to you about technology.

The Pew Research Center released a recent report about the growing role the Internet plays in political campaigns. I was reminded about this because I received my first email from the Nancy Boyda for Congress campaign this morning. The last email I received was the one telling me that because of an essential vote that needed to be passed, Speaker Pelosi nor Congresswoman Boyda would be able to attend a fundraiser being held in Kansas City. Date stamp November 8, 2007.

According to the Pew findings, the Internet is now the fifth highest resource people use in finding information about the Presidential Campaigns. It has nearly tripled in importance since Al Gore's run in 2000. And while television is the main source for political and campaign information Pew says its quickly "slipping" to a resource lower than what was used even in the 1990's.

And the internet is still a main secondary new source - the important thing about this though is in just two years - that stat has doubled.

Guess what? The Internet is not going away.

To read the rest of the post you can visit Everyday Citizen to hear about best practices and bad ideas for web outreach.