Bogus Election Email

January 22, 2006 11:04 PM

Dirty Tricks Filter: Who would likely benefit from this bogus election email?

Interesting story here about a fake Elections Canada email incorrectly stating that people may vote on two days, rather than one day. If this were partly successful, and reduced the overall number of voters in a close riding, who would tend to benefit? Left, right, center, or nobody in particular? Why?

posted by weapons-grade pandemonium to Law & Government (5 answers total)

Well, presumably it was initially sent to a mailing list that the senders believed held primarily the names of their opponent's voters. However many of them waited till Tuesday before heading to the polling place missed their chance to vote.

If it were just spammed out at random, then it would benefit whoever's voters were less likely to have e-mail accounts; I'm guessing that would be the right, since pretty much all young people get e-mail and younger voters tend left.
posted by nicwolff at 11:33 PM on January 22, 2006

This reminds me of the Onion headline, "GOP Urges African-American Voters to Get Out and Vote on November 3rd".
posted by rossination at 11:40 PM on January 22, 2006

Not so funny, since Republicans really did that in PA in '04.
posted by nicwolff at 11:51 PM on January 22, 2006

I'd have to think that it was initially mailed out to a certain mailing list... Until (unless) they track down the source, we aren't going to know who it was intended to mess with.
posted by antifuse at 1:31 AM on January 23, 2006

Misleading "information" like this is most likely to be effective with voters who are isolated (elderly, for example), more naive, and/or don't have much media exposure (don't read newspapers, for example). To some extent, emails (as opposed to flyers handed out at malls) aren't the best way to do this, but email is certainly cheap. It may also be easier to trace.
posted by WestCoaster at 1:31 PM on January 23, 2006