- A vote is a vote and the best way to insure it is counted is to vote in person
- Iowa has a lot of voting by mail, regrettably so in a good government sense
- It can be done with a degree of reliability depending on the jurisdiction but demographics in Iowa and sociological considerations make it costly in time and inefficient
- Flooding the zone can be a real problem even for the most assiduous county if vote by mail becomes the overwhelming thing
- Republicans should push satellite voting with only selective focus on vote by mail
- More important than anything – inoculate people beginning in the early summer with solid messaging (early voting begins in the Democrat states before Republicans get their ad campaigns going. Such will inhibit Democrat appeals.
After the disappointing midterm election there have been a number of articles in conservative publications we monitor calling for Republicans to use the turnout techniques of Democrats. Here are two examples.
Our view
Voting more than say a week early in person at satellite sites is one thing. Encouraging people to play an inherently fraud capable and contra-good government game of vote by mail a month before the election in some states which to be competitive in the Democrat gutter requires adopting their tactics of hectoring people who do not want to or should not vote, ballot harvesting (incentivizing payola) and all the other illegalities and shenanigans they employ creates a climate of . . . “well they all cheat” among the weak-minded people supposedly targeted and you are still just competing against gross tactics the least of which is to hurry up and vote a.k.a. “the bum’s rush.”
Lengthy time frames for vote by mail also increases costs or interferes with “buys’ of all sorts of media used to promote it wasting it on such a non-message when good messaging can raise all Republican votes. I have seen valuable mailers and broadcast time devoted ridiculously, repetitively, obnoxiously to VOTE NOW ~~ before the world ends ~~ from party, candidates and issue groups .
The effort is churned by consultants and or weak-minded party apparat who think paying or getting fees or wasting volunteers time and donors money hectoring people to vote early when the only definable results are getting gold stars for scaring the low-hanging fruit of Republicans who know how to vote and who would vote anyway into voting early. The people who spend much time doing this are only running up some numbers on “early voting” to get a gold star and still losing. The so-called “banking” is really just changing accounts. The whole thing increases the political turn-off.
Do you realize that phoning, a usual avenue for such GOTV efforts (actually all unsolicited calls) has a less than 1% answer rate! It requires computerized predictive dialing 12 hours a day with people at a phone bank who may just get a hang-up if the tell-tale computer gets a live answer. Such an actual contact rate might get a few jobs if you are selling siding or new roofing after a storm but in politics what you get is a general turn-off. Then there is the feature of delivering one of those ever so effective answering machine reminders — apparently thought valuable because people are shocked to discover an election is going on??
A household might get multiple calls every day for a month or more hectoring them to vote early. Oh there is the delightful threat that if only you vote early “we can take you off our list” and you will stop getting these calls. 1) it is a lie because there might be others in the household who have the sound good-government practice of not voting early and the household will continue to get calls and 2) it is an absolutely ineffectual statement and essentially a lie because issue groups and candidates will continue to call because lists are not updated and they are intent on calling “their” own list which overlap.
Door knocking? To the extent it is permitted (many multi-family complexes essentially make it impossible) You might get one 1 in 3 to 1 in 5 to be home and open the door in a single family neighborhood in the short window you might find people home, but you may not get in a key-key-controled complex . This is not to say do not door knock and there is no problem bringing up early voting (encouraging it in person) but spending much time on the mechanism of mail voting means other doors don’t get knocked with any messaging.
Inoculate people early with messaging. Call out the scalawags and their party. Give people a convincing comparative reason to vote in flyers, billboards, social media, broadcast, etc., and for something and we will win. Vote the most secure way, in person as provided by local jurisdictions. Offer rides if need be. Maintain vote by mail for shut ins and military but for others encourage in-person.
And how about this — a message to the effect: if you are going to vote early — vote against the party of inflation, insecure borders, crime, culture rot, etc etc. Inoculate people from the bad guys with good performance and early and constant effective messaging. Leave your vote early message at that rather than wasteful spending competing with, and in essence justifying, non-in person voting mechanisms open to cheating that make it convenient for Dems to have all the time in the world to use walking around money to solicit some ballot marks. Stop Democrats presumed effectiveness by shaming, law enforcement and legislative changes. Oh, and standing up for your own policies and repudiating theirs.
