Thursday, April 03, 2008

Absoulutely non-rugby, rather, irritated about my voter registration form

So, here's the deal.

I've been an independent my whole voting life. There are philosophical things that I like about the Republicans, but when it comes to my day to day existence, I mostly support the Democrats. Recently though, I've grown weary of the shenanigans.

Like a zillion other Pennsylvanians, I'm excited about having a chance to vote in the Democratic primary. I got a voter registration form, so I could change my party affiliation from Independent to Democrat. It sat for a day or two, and then one day on the way to work, I was stopped by some people doing voter registrations in Suburban Station, and I said "heck, I better do this now before I procrastinate and I'm S.O.L". So I did. Yay!

Not yay. B@&**#*T. Less than 48 hours after handing this nice volunteer my voter registration form, I got a phone call from one of the two campaigns. The caller left me a voicemail and said "We heard that you were interested in supporting XXX. We also hear that you might be interested in volunteering! I'm your neighbor, I live in your area... call me!"

There is only ONE PLACE that the caller could have gotten my number ... my CELL phone number ... from my Voter Registration Form. Without a doubt, my data was harvested and forwarded on to a rep in my county... a "neighbor."

I have been receiving calls from this campaign every 2-3 days. Always the same thing. I've told them very clearly, "I'm not supporting XXX, I'm supporting DDD. Thank you for your enthusiasm, but please don't call me anymore". It hasn't stopped. It's as if my phone number, name, age, etc, from my voter registration form, has been loaded into a sales-lead of database. It's rude. Its NOT OK.

Most people who know me are aware of the candidate I support - however I have little doubt that both campaigns are doing this. Which is crap. What happen to registering to vote because it was both your civic duty, AND your privilege as an American?

My voter registration form is a government document. Its private. It's got all my personal info on it. ITS PRIVATE!!!! You don't have the right to harvest my information! YOU DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO TREAT ME LIKE A SALES LEAD.

So, to "my neighbor" who keeps calling me .... PLEASE. STOP. NOW. PERIOD.

2 Comments:

Unknown said...

Actually, I'm pretty sure voter registration information is public. Once you register, your name, address, party, and even age are available on a public database. I believe this is why including your number is optional. I'm pretty sure the number gets added to the public record as well if you do include it.

However, I agree with you that the way campaigns use this information is at times, obnoxious. Sorry you've had such a bad experience.

Just call me coach.... said...

And of course, yesterday, I received a call from the other campaign, using the same, exact call script.

I'm weary of all this.