New Gimmicks to Get the Ignorant to Vote

Awhile back we had a piece on the plan by Arizona officials to make all voters eligible to win a $1 million dollar lottery. It's a bad idea, but seems to be going forward.

Now, in Michigan, one political consultant wants to try and shame people into voting:

Michigan political consultant Mark Grebner is taking a different tack. His firm, Practical Political Consulting Inc., maintains a sophisticated list of Michigan voters. Grebner has mined that list to find people who are knowledgeable about politics, but don’t vote.

In partnership with Yale University researchers, Grebner is sending 80,000 voters notices warning that, if they didn’t show up to the polls, their friends and neighbors might be told about it.

His effort is also causing a stir. Detroit News editorial page editor Nolan Finley got one of Grebner’s mailers and complained about it in a column. Finley told Stateline.org that he normally doesn’t vote in primaries, because it would require him to identify with a political party, which poses problems for him as a journalist.

He said he doubted Grebner’s method would work and questioned the premise of shaming voters in a democracy where voting is “a responsibility, not an obligation.”

“In Michigan, we are now in the midst of probably one of the worst economic crises in the country. And that still won’t motivate people to the polls, so I don’t think nasty little letters to your neighbors will do it,” Finley said.

Listen, Mr. Consultant, we don't want these people voting. If they don't care enough to get informed and make it to the polls, leave them alone. Ignorant voters do not make for a better democracy.