Though they moved in a long, long time ago, your neighbors will know?

October 17, 2016 5:24 PM

You have probably heard about one political party in New Mexico sending postcards warning voters that "their neighbors will know" who they voted for. However, I was under the impression that the only public voter information is whether someone voted, and not who they voted for. What else could one know about their neighbors' voting habits?
posted by Seeking Direction to Law & Government (12 answers total)

I think you were right in the first place. I believe the public record only reflects that a person voted, not how that person voted.
posted by maurreen at 5:37 PM on October 17, 2016 [5 favorites]

The postcard is (probably deliberately) misleading. It's possible that your neighbors could find out whether you voted, and they might be able to find out your party registration if your voter registration records one. In the US, we have the secret ballot, and they can't find out who you voted for.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:39 PM on October 17, 2016 [9 favorites]

In many states you can look up a person's party affiliation and whether or not they voted, but not specifically how someone voted. That is clearly a scare tactic. Political party preferences aside, Republicans have introduced measures to limit the amount of people eligible vote in the name of eradicating voter fraud, but it just so happens that the fewer people vote, the better it is for Republicans usually. That's why Democrats want early voting and Republicans generally don't. The New Mexico Republican Party could try to get away with this mailer on the grounds that there is nothing specific in it -- yeah, if Democrats win, people will know that some people voted for Democrats. But it definitely reeks of desperation a bit.
posted by AppleTurnover at 5:45 PM on October 17, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh, I should also add for clarity, you can often get the exact dates people voted, too. So you can see if they voted in primaries, general elections, special elections, whatever.
posted by AppleTurnover at 6:12 PM on October 17, 2016

What else could one know about their neighbors' voting habits?

I'm a poll worker. People can know your registered party affiliation (in some states you have to declare, in others you don't) and I think the big parties get the voter rolls which includes your name and address. So they can triangulate and get an idea of who on your street is D and R. They know if you voted. They can look up your campaign donations (separately, along with other demographics) and get a good idea of who you voted for but no, your vote is entirely private unless you tell someone about it.
posted by jessamyn at 6:30 PM on October 17, 2016 [1 favorite]

In Wisconsin, you'd need your neighbors' exact birthdays to look up their voting records, and even then it would indeed only show whether they'd voted (contact me if you want to see mine). Given vagaries of the registration system, it's not even that uncommon for an election or two to be "uncredited" because someone deleted a duplicate entry without merging the data first.
posted by teremala at 6:51 PM on October 17, 2016

Doesn't the text say, "When the Democrats win the election, and you didn't do your part... your neighbors will know."? If so, I read it as a ham handed GOTV effort. The assumption is you're a republican of course but you did not do your part to stop the democracts by voting. And your neighbors will know whether you voted or not.
posted by n'muakolo at 7:18 PM on October 17, 2016 [3 favorites]

In Illinois, we don't have registration by party. This means that everyone who votes in a primary election can choose whichever party ballot they wish to use (although they are only permitted to vote in one party's primary). Whether you voted in a given election, and which party ballot you used in a primary, is recorded and accessible to anyone who has access to that information. I haven't seen it available to the general public, but it's not hard to get access if you're working on a campaign. Neighborhood walk lists always have that information associated with each address you will be visiting. (It can be tempting to infer party identification by which primary ballot someone chose, but it's not uncommon for people to "cross over" for various reasons. I've done it myself, despite having a clear party preference.)
posted by DrGail at 5:40 AM on October 18, 2016

Which candidates one has donated to is also public record, and is presumably a better indicator of who's voted for what/who than just party affiliation.
posted by deludingmyself at 6:32 AM on October 18, 2016

Which candidates one has donated to is also public record, and is presumably a better indicator of who's voted for what/who than just party affiliation.

I am positive that the overwhelming majority of voters never donate to any political candidate.

If you've ever told a canvasser who you're supporting, that information is probably tracked somewhere. I actually enter that data into the Democrats' voter database sometimes, but I've never gone back to look at what old data I can access. Next time I'm on the database, maybe I'll look myself up to see what I can see. I would feel weird and creepy if I looked up other people I know, and it has never occurred to me to do that.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:28 AM on October 18, 2016

Which candidates one has donated to is also public record, and is presumably a better indicator of who's voted for what/who than just party affiliation.

Only over a certain amount in most states. Not sure about New Mexico, but if you donated $20, there likely is no public record of that anywhere. Each state has different disclosure limits but I think it's normally in the hundreds, not the tens.
posted by AppleTurnover at 12:14 PM on October 18, 2016

Response by poster: Marked resolved - thanks, everyone, for the clarification!
posted by Seeking Direction at 5:03 PM on October 25, 2016