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Chicago Democrats supressed more turnout than the GOP could’ve ever done

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* David Ormsby dug up a memo from House Speaker Michael Madigan to Democrats dated October 31st. The memo included details of the “Sporadic Voter Program,” which was designed to increase turnout…

Turning out Democratic voters who have a history of voting in presidential elections, but who did not vote in the 2010 election cycle, could prove to be a major key to victory for Democrats in 2014, particularly in close races.

Polling:
We began the sporadic voter program with polling to determine what issues would motivate sporadic voters to get to the polls during an off-year election cycle and which sporadic voters we could most easily motivate to come to the polls.

Mail:
Given the makeup of the sporadic universe, it was determined that the best way to specifically target these voters was to send mail directly to each voter. Our mail program focused on 4 distinct groups of voters:

* Chicago minority universe: 5 pieces to 177,228 households, targeting 195,958 individuals within these households. Overall, we mailed 886,140 pieces to this universe.
* Universe outside Personal PAC birth control universe: 5 pieces, including one social pressure piece, to 103,015 households, targeting 127,938 individuals within these households. Overall, we mailed 515,075 pieces to this universe.
* Downstate universe: 7 pieces to 56,418 households, targeting a total of 63,872 individuals within these households. Overall, we mailed 394,926 pieces to this universe.
* Statewide universe: 3 pieces, including one social pressure letter, to a universe of 324,204 households, targeting a total of 377,461 voters within these households. Overall, we mailed 972,612 pieces to this universe.

In total, we sent 2,768,753 pieces of mail for the campaign.

Digital:
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pandora as well as video and display ads were matched from the voter file… The advertising has resulted in more than 79 million impressions to date, … including 5 million views of our television commercials online. By Election Day there will be more than 120 million impressions to our targeted universe.

None of it worked.

* But there’s something that Madigan and other Democrats appear to have overlooked. The Chicago Board of Elections is obviously woefully underfunded.

Remember the tales of one to two-hour waits during early voting? There’s no better way to depress turnout than making people stand in line for two hours. Lots and lots of people just don’t have the patience or commitment to endure something like that.

Mayor Emanuel, members of the city council and many others were enraged by the GOP robocall effort that they believed caused lots of Republican election judges to skip election day, thereby causing confusion and long lines.

OK, maybe that happened, maybe not. But the hard truth is there are always long lines on election day in the city. The Board typically recruits and trains 10,000 judges or so. They need more judges to speed up the process.

People ride by the polling place in the morning and see long lines and can’t vote because they’ll be late for work. They wait until after work and see even longer lines and just give up and go home.

* And remember the city’s same-day registration/voting problems? Some people waited in line until 3 o’clock in the morning to vote. Who knows how many more saw those lines and walked away.

Why did this happen? Well, the new state law mandated a minimum number of same day polling places. Cook County opened far more than the minimum requirements and didn’t have the sort of problems faced by Chicago, which operated at the bare minimum level.

* In contrast, there’s almost never a line at my polling place. This year, three people were waiting in front of me and I was astonished. If the line had snaked out the front door and wrapped around the building, as it often does in Chicago, I probably wouldn’t have voted and made a mental note to vote early or by mail next time.

I absolutely hate long lines. This goes back to the days when my parents worked for the Department of Defense overseas and we were forced to wait in endless lines to buy just about anything or to accomplish any government-related task. I told myself I would never, ever work for the federal government when I grew up. No more lines!

I cannot possibly be alone in this.

So, Speaker, Mayor, City Council, whomever, if you want more people to vote in Chicago next time, find more money to hire more judges and open more polling places to reduce the freakishly long lines.

This ain’t rocket science!

/rant

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:05 am

Comments

Oh great.
MJM is bored with mastering this universe, he now is targeting others he is forming in his own mind.

Comment by VanillaMan Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:11 am
Great rant and how right you are, Rich!

Also - it is possible that the lines were even longer in the areas of the city of Chicago that vote Dem. This is very anecdotal, not scientific, but here goes: I was at a lunchtable on election day with 4 coworkers who live in the city. The two who live on the south side (greater % voting for Quinn) had an extra long wait time. One who showed up to vote at 6:30 AM was even told to come back in an hour. She couldn’t; she had to get to work, and planned to vote after work. The NW side and Lakeview folks at lunch had a normal city line.

Comment by Robert the Bruce Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:13 am
By Election Day there will be more than 120 million impressions to our targeted universe.

…and Planet Earth will be reduced to one of my satellites!

Comment by VanillaMan Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:13 am
How does Madigan know what the Personal PAC birth control mail universe is? Personal PAC is an independent expenditure committee, and they are not supposed to coordinate with Madigan.

Comment by Sage Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:14 am
I didn’t know that party organizations could coordinate with outside PACS.

Shows you the fantasy of “no coordination” with candidates. The party coordinates with candidates, the party coordinates with PACS.

Comment by Wordslinger Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:15 am
I notice MJM didn’t work any human contact into his junk mail/internet ad plan.

Comment by crazybleedingheart Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:16 am
===But the hard truth is there are always long lines on election day in the city.===
I live in the city and vote on election day. I don’t know where these long lines are. I know there are media stories about polls opening late and certain polls screwed up but I actually think most are run pretty efficiently and don’t have long lines. Obviously the early and same day polls had some major problems.
I am all for making sure every polling place is run efficiently and there are no long lines anywhere. But I am not so sure it is as blatant as has been reported. But maybe I am just not seeing it.

Comment by Been There Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:16 am
Also, MRE could have lifted half a finger to make voting easier for a lot of people in the City. He didn’t.

Comment by crazybleedingheart Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:17 am
== I live in the city and vote on election day. I don’t know where these long lines are. ==

Are you white?

Comment by crazybleedingheart Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:20 am
Do you believe Rahm didn’t restrict the number of places to register and vote on same day for his pal Rauner?? Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. But I would love to know the back story as to why the entire City of Chicago had only 5 places you could register and case a provisional ballot on same day.

Comment by yo Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:23 am
Is it possible that Madigan, Emanuel and other Dems actually wanted their GOTV effort to fail just enough to insure that Quinn would lose?

Comment by Secret Square Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:23 am
You mean the same day voter registration actually backfired? Oops!

Comment by Empty Suit Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:27 am
Well, secret square, MRE gets 4 years of the Rauner Baron, and after everything has been bought and sold, MJM gets an easy mandate for Lisa.

It doesn’t even take a conspiracy, as much as a marked lack of motivation and an ill-concealed desire not to have to deal with Quinn anymore.

MRE and MJM didn’t lose as a result of the election. If anything, they’re stronger.

That’s not worth ignoring.

Comment by crazybleedingheart Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:28 am
Of course it’s all hot air from MRE. The last thing he wants in the impending mayoral election is seamless no wait voting. As has been the case for decades in Chicago - low turnout helps entrenched Machine candidates. While the Machine is certainly nowhere near what it used to be - low turnout still helps them.

Comment by Short but Slow Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:35 am
So will the Attorney General investigate DPI Chairman Madigan’s illegal coordination with an “independent” PAC?

Comment by Cassiopeia Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:35 am
What I find so ironic is that the Chicago/home base trivialness.

You look at how each House race is run, and the understanding of numbers and windows and execution of those parameters…and you see the most important aspect of this plan left to…chance.

“Sporadic Voter Program”

I mean, that’s a lame name I would make up to mock uncontrolled GOTV.

“I’m calling in my Pluses. They’re Sporadic. I have no clue. The judges need lunches.”

Sporadic?

But to the credit of the Rauner Crew in the flip side of this, and in the face of a strong Democratic stand in the GA especially, Rauner did better, everywhere, than Brady did.

By the dismal Chicago turnout numbers, it can be seen in hindsight why they felt very comfortable. The raw ballots weren’t even close to need possible pluralities for Quinn, and margins increased for Rauner everywhere, allowing Rauner to pull away for good.

For the Dems, in a hotly contested, high profile race, in the macro, “lesson learned”?

For the legislative GOP, a hotly contested statewide race, versus the micro managing of districts by Dems in the specifics, will not bring about Dem seats flipping too.

This failure in Chicago should remind us all that the only pluses that count are voted pluses, and if you are “Sporadically” driving your pluses home, no matter the party, you lose. Period.

Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:36 am
“It doesn’t even take a conspiracy, as much as a marked lack of motivation and an ill-concealed desire not to have to deal with Quinn anymore.”

Depending upon the enthusiasm, or lack of it, MRE and MJM have for the next Democratic POTUS nominee, whomever she or he may be, I would not be surprised to see a repeat in 2016….

Comment by Secret Square Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:38 am
Yes, I can personally attest to the high incidence of ill-equipped and ill-prepared election judges in Chicago on General Election Day. These “volunteers” played a substnatial role in dampening same-day voter registration efforts. Not good!

Comment by Black Ivy Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:38 am
Now that this line of thought is out and under discussion, there is a fairly widespread assumption among my circle of friends that no great effort was made in Chicago to get out the vote among Quinn’s “base” for the simple reason that it is convenient for the Demo leaders to have the bumbler out of the way and a Republican in. That way the other party takes the heat for all the bad things that is about to descend upon us regardless of who wears the Governor mantle. Most legislative seats were safe, and that is what concerns MJM the most. I kind of agree with this point of view and think the next couple of years are going to be interesting.

Comment by Skirmisher Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 11:41 am
No one likes to fund election authorities, we have the same problem in Aurora…

It isn’t sexy to fund them and voters pay the price.

Comment by OneMan Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 12:06 pm
This election day seemed worse than prior election days due to equipment malfunctioning.

I had several cases where the ipads for voter records were not working. That slowed things down.

There was also a shortage of judges. At two of the precincts I covered, they had only two judges for at least part of the day. There were shortages everywhere.

I saw major problems at only at one polling place (which included two precincts). However, oddly those long lines actually seemed to encourage people. I didn’t see anybody leave those precincts. It was almost like the extra effort to stay made people feel as if they were accomplishing something. People were cheerful.

For what it is worth, I agree with Rich. I hate long lines. I would have left.

I was disappointed in the efforts of the Gov. at GOTV. My wife was never called by anybody other than me. She ended up being too busy (partly because she had to cover taking the kids to school and other household tasks that I normally help with but was unable to assist with given my election day obligations). There was simply no visible effort in Chicago by Quinn’s team to get people out.

One final note — while I saw nobody from Quinn, I did see people for candidates in the municipal races. It seemed like Chicago Democrats were more concerned with the next election than with this one.

Comment by Gooner Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 12:07 pm
Here you go. You have multiple problems every Election Day with judges and polls opening. Then you add to the mix, same day registration and voting. They can’t manage what they’ve got, and it got a lot more complicated. More manageable areas…managed better. It backfired. I suspect you won’t see this again for a while. Now it makes sense why it was set up for only one cycle. Experiment gone bad for it’s purpose. Probably even helped the other side. Weird to say this, but…uh,…Thanks?

Comment by A guy... Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 12:15 pm
===Are you white?====
Yes as a matter of fact. Except on sunny days or when I am embarrassed and turn red. I have driven through and worked a lot of different neighborhoods on election days and have rarely run into lines. At least not for 30 years. I guess you are inferring that in non white neighborhoods there were lines. That could be. I guess it’s also another example of the weakness of the committeemen throughout the city. It’s their job to get judges to sign up.

Comment by Been There Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 12:17 pm
Apparently the Democratic sporadic voter effort worked. On the other hand, GOTV was non-existent.

Still, one side had twice the money to pay staff and canvassers.

Comment by state worker Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 12:26 pm
This will not be a problem 4 years from now when Lisa runs for Gov.

Comment by justthefacts Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 12:27 pm
=== state worker - Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 12:26 pm:

Apparently the Democratic sporadic voter effort worked. On the other hand, GOTV was non-existent.

Still, one side had twice the money to pay staff and canvassers.===

LOL. Which side? The one with all of the patronage jobs in the city, the county and the state who get Election Day off?

Count the money we the taxpayers put into the formula and the new conclusion is; morale problem and lack of motivation to support this particular Governor. BTW, it’s a lot more than twice as much, but we’ll have to ask the Comptroller for the exact figures. Oy Vey.

Comment by A guy... Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 12:37 pm
I liked to see the real statistics on the number of veters per precinct throughout the city. Sounds like an urban myth to me.

Comment by Apocalypse Now Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 1:16 pm
The paradox is that the employees of the Cook County Clerk’s Election Department routinely complain that they are underpaid in comparison to their counterparts at the Chicago Board of Elections.

If Chicago wants to free up a few dollars, cut the sizeable paychecks to the three election commissioners. They earn excellent salaries for a part-time job.

Comment by Upon Further Review Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 1:24 pm
–This will not be a problem 4 years from now when Lisa runs for Gov–

You mean in 2 years when she runs for senate

Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 1:45 pm
===A guy===
I’m talking about workers to help GOTV. Statewide. The pluses. Were there more Dem staff, canvassers and volunteers to make this happen? Usually there are, but this time GOTV was weak and there was a usually strong paid Republican ground game.

It appears that the sporadic voters did get out.

Comment by state worker Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 1:59 pm
At the end of the day, Rauner and MJM are kindred spirits;dealmakers, if you will. Dealing with idealogues like Quinn is next to impossible and get anything accomplished.

Comment by Madison Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 2:11 pm
Good points Rich. Don’t know if this is more the Mayor or the Country Clerk to fix. It is interesting that most of Cook county was fine.

Comment by walker Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 2:54 pm
Not surprised same day voter registration failed so miserably. The advocates didn’t pay attention to the logistics necessary for the attempt, and as a result, same day voter registration crashed and burned.

It’s all about location identification. If you can’t easily ID where an individual is domiciled, you are going to have issues. And on election day, that means delays.

Just as a point, the State of Illinois (CMS) can’t even get a comprehensive inventory of all the properties the State has an ownership interest in.

Actually, they could, but they’d have to be a lot smarter about it. Last time they tried using a ‘one size fits all’ structured data environment, and that failed miserably.

There’s lessons there for same day voter registration.

Comment by Judgment Day Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 2:59 pm
RIGHT!!!!!!! the Republican whatever thing is awful but the three stations in Welles park for hundreds of voters and the rest of the 5 provisional sites just like that, that’s just plain Langdon Neal incompetence. the hearings should be so interesting!

Comment by Amalia Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 5:52 pm
Guy speaks for “we the taxpayers.” And everyone else .

Because as we all know, every Cook County public employee took the day off on an election day.

Guy has told us in the past that busses of South Side citizens go from precinct to precinct committing felonies in the service of “voter fraud.”

Because he can’t figure out how else he’s been a chronic loser.

Comment by Wordslinger Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 6:44 pm
Chronic loser Sling? The GOP does OK where I live. Your argument in this is a loser dude. The DMV in our area closes on election Tuesday. Look it up.

Comment by À guy Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 9:57 pm
Absolutely, 100% correct, Rich.

But it’s so much easier to give contracts to cronies (such as handling the mailers) and then just complain afterwards. It’s not like those in office show any interest in solving real problems as opposed to just posturing. Still, we know they don’t really care about governance, but it’s a bit surprising they don’t take the elections more seriously.

Comment by Harry Thursday, Nov 13, 14 @ 10:49 pm