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Really?
Who are all these "officials" who have "selected" me? How did I achieve this high honor? Did they vote for me? Select my name out of hat? Throw darts?
I suspect that the "selection" process was to copy my name and address, along with all the others on it, from a list of addresses that, like mine, were given or sold to them, without my knowledge or consent, by other "officials" who got them from somebody else. This probably explains the half dozen or so unwanted solicitations I get in the mail every day! I think this should be illegal, but nobody seems really to care what I think! The fact that I get the same "voter opinion surveys" over and over again, suggests that these lists are circulated without much regard to who the addressees are, whether they are interested, what their opinions actually are, or whether they exist at all.
One of the more egregious "official" survey organizations is "LWV," the League of Women Voters of the United States, whose latest mailing to me claims to be "Making Democracy Work." Their latest solicitation contains the notice:
|
POSTMASTER:
If undeliverable as addressed, |
ATTENTION RECIPIENT
Deliver Directly to addressee.
Obstruction of US Mail is |
Actually, Reg F010.4.1 and the official DMM are instructions on what do with undeliverable mail that the letter carriers should already know. The instruction is superfluous, but it probably looks important and necessary to members of the LWV who, to be honest, don't appear to be very bright. The penalty notice seems like an empty threat to me. Is somebody really going to go to all the effort to prosecute me if I get one of these addressed to somebody else and I simply throw it away? Would anybody even know? I think not!
On the other side of the envelope is:
 | Scan here and help us defend democracy today! |
What, do you suppose, does the QR code do? Does it really help the LWV defend democracy? How, exactly? Does somebody really expect me to scan a QR code that does something I don't know about? Why would anybody do that? Who knows?
Inside the envelope is a little leaflet that lists the Capitol telephone switchboard number and the web sites for the LWV headquarters and their web sites for LWV news and action alerts, candidate ballot and voter registration information. Also included is a letter from Alma Couverthie, allegedly LWV chief of programs. The salutation on the letter is "Dear Friend," and refers to "people like you." Do you suppose they really know who "people like me" are and have decided that "we" are their "friends?" Why would they think that? I am certainly not a woman voter!
Maybe what we have here is failure to communicate! This is my attempt to fix that!
The actual survey is a little more interesting. It has the same recipient address as the envelope, The "survey no." has 8,031,810,176,000,000,000 possible combinations! Wow! That's eight quintillion, thirty one quadrillion, eight hundred ten trillion, one hundred seventy six billion numbered surveys. approximately one billion for every living man, woman and child on this planet! At an average of one ounce per mailing, that's just a tad less than 251,000,000,000,000 tons of mail, the combined weight of between three and four billion modern aircraft carriers! Why so many possible numbers? One has to wonder just how much "24551 Permit No. 263" costs! Where does the LWV get that money? Not from me!
Then there is the "survey code," one of possibly one trillion different codes that, like the "survey no." is printed in three different places on this form, once in what appears to be machine readable font. Whom is the LWV trying to impress anyway? How? Why?
One possible clue is the tinted box on the last page of the "survey." It contains, among other things, the aforementioned QR code with the instruction, "Scan this code to make your gift online via credit card or PayPal! Donate anytime at lwv.org/donate." Just above are printed little check blocks for $20, $25, $35, $55, $100, and $___, with an asterisk between $35 and $55 and a handwriting script font notice that a gift at "this" level will really help! I'm a little confused about why they don't seem to think that gifts at the other levels will help, too!
There is other printing on this page, including questions 8 and 9 of the "survey." What really caught my eye, however, was the teeny tiny "fine" print at the bottom left corner that (without the superscripts) says:
[1] When, how often and how many times do they do this?
The nine question survey itself is pretty standard. The questions have single- or multiple choice answers that the respondent can select by checking boxes or writing on lines, or both. Some questions ask for opinions or plans, others assume the answers are facts, not open to debate. Some of them permit write-in responses. None suggests specific actions for the LWV to take or identifies ignorant, apathetic or lazy voters as the problem, or reasonable actions for voters to take as a possible solution. It looks like a "bitching opportunity" to me!
There are places to provide credit card and an email address if the respondent would like to give that information to strangers and a place for a signature, which of course provides an opportunity for it to be copied by unknown persons.
The format is not optimized for optical character recognition. This strongly suggests that the information entered is neither read, recorded, tabulated or used for any reasonable purpose. I suspect that it is simply ignored. I don't think that anybody really cares what the respondent thinks; what they want is a contribution in the return envelope. It is not prepaid; if you want to reply, or send a donation, you have to buy your own stamp.
I have been responding to (some of) these surveys for over a generation and I have never, ever received any results at the address to which the survey was mailed (if there have actually been any). If anybody reading this has had different experiences, I would appreciate hearing from you.
The LWV website confirms my impressions. The envelope return address includes the Internet address LWV.ORG, that doesn't work, but one on the survey form (where you are invited to write if you want the LWV to "respect your wishes") does. There are 13 major images on the website, 8 of them of people displaying slogans or signs. This seems to be a favorite activity of women to motivate other people to do something useful. No place on the website invites the viewer to take a survey. They do, however, have a link to donate by credit card or PayPal.
Since these people invited my opinion, my response is that their surveys are thinly veiled attempts to obtain contributions from donors by pretending that the sponsors care what they think, or that their input will have some salutary effect. In this particular case, The LWV appears to me basically to be a social organization, mostly of women, who employ this strategy to solicit money from essentially anyone who has some to spend on maintaining their website and other activities that seem good to them. Their discussions of current political topics and instructions about how to vote are probably marginally useful. I seriously doubt that the LWV as an organization has any measurable political impact, but I admit the possibility that I could be mistaken, at least about that.
The facts are, women registered voters in the United States have consistently outnumbered men, about 7,400,000 (enough to determine the outcome of any election) in 2022. The number of female voters has exceeded the number of male voters in every Presidential election since 1964. The proportion of eligible adult women who voted has exceeded that of men since 1980. This gap is greatest for voters younger than 45, but is reversed for ages 65 and up. Men with college degrees now tend to vote at a higher rate than women without, but there is little difference if they are both college graduates. In the last few election cycles, voter turnout was about the same for married people, but higher then single men for single and divorced women.
Women constitute only about 30% of our federal and state lawmakers, even though the gender ratio is about equal for people subject to the laws they make. Women are letting men make the laws! American women would do well to spend less time making signs and getting together in protest groups to bitch and complain and more time registering and voting responsibly on women's issues. If they had done that in 2008 when black voters were the deciding factor, the United States would have had a qualified female Vice President. If they had done it in 2016, we would have had a superbly qualified female President who would probably still be in office! Instead, there are female voters who openly support a multiply convicted felon whose contempt and abuse of women is known throughout the world! Ladies, what the hell is wrong with you?
The main threat to women in the United States today is that in a republic the voters usually get what they deserve, voter opinion surveys not withstanding!
That's my "voter opinion!"
LWV, You're welcome!
From time to time[1], the League of Women Voters of the United States allows[2] other[3] worthy[4] organizations to mail to our donors.[5] We carefully screen these organizations[6] and only permit[7] mailings from those whose activities[8] may be of interest[9] to our supporters.[10] If you do not wish to receive these mailings or would like to change the frequency or types of communications, simply write to us at the address on this form.[11] We will be pleased to respect your wishes.[12]
This, of course, is lawyer talk for "We share the information we have about you with others without your knowledge, agreement or consent. If you don't want us to do that with your information, write to us at our return address, tell us what you want us to do or not do differently, and we will consider (but not necessarily act upon) what you say." What they do NOT tell is you is:
[2] What actual control do they have over these "others" and
[3] Who are they?
[4] What is the criterion of "worthiness?"
[5] Will they NOT share your information if you don't donate?
[6] How? Which ones?
[7] What is the basis for this permission, and how is it granted?
[8] Which "activities" are considered?
[9] What constitutes "interest" and how is it identified?
[10] Who are considered "supporters" for this purpose?
[11] Note this is NOT the address on the enclosed envelope!
[12] To what form or manner, if any, does the LWV commit for this "respect" to take?