Resistbot: Contact your officials by sending a text
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Really? is there even a slight chance that Rep. XYZ actually reads my letter and it doesn't get filtered out by an aide as "spam"? And furthermore, once read does my letter actually hold any weight against moneyed interests? It feels like an utterly futile and pointless exercise to pretend democracy still works.
Either way your message is "just" making it up to the member as a spreadsheet column, but text vs email vs letter might not actually make the difference you think. Some members might see letters as more serious, others might take texts as "oh my younger and more savvy constituents think X."
At the state level, this probably varies widely.
Do you have personal experience with how these are calculated or used? Good to know that some reps are actually using data haha.
Between January 1 and December 7, at least 19 states passed 34 laws restricting access to voting [1]. This should be a concern for any American citizen with the right to vote; don’t turn this into some politicized drama.
Let me be clear; this is the very foundation of our democracy. I find it simply appalling that there would be proponents for this.
[1] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voti...
It has always been an issue of deep division in the USA.
It is a politicized drama. Voter id laws are reasonable, the majority of Americans think so, and calling them "restricted access to voting" is literally true but dishonest.
"Resistbot" (from "the resistance") is kitsch, especially since the left controls the government.
https://225egw40g2k99t0ud3pbf2ct-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...
That argument goes both ways:
There is no solid evidence that voter id laws have any impact on voter fraud... Describing them as "anti-voter fraud laws" is literally true but dishonest and dishonesty is bad.
Plus the anti-voter id argument isn't even necessarily about turnout. Someone being unable to vote is still bad even if they weren't planning to actually vote. Many of these people are caught in a cycle of disenfranchisement. It isn't surprising that people who have historically had their voting rights infringed upon have decided to stop engaging with the system. One way to stop that cycle is to guarantee that these disenfranchised people will have the right to participate if they wish to do so.
Agreed. Republicans talking about widespread "voter fraud" are liars.
Similarly, a carbon tax is reasonable even though proponents lie and claim climate change will kill us all.
As I said upthread, it's "literally true but dishonest". Barring children from voting is literally voter suppression but calling it that is stupid.
> I don't think you can argue that adding unnecessary steps to voting, and making penalties for making mistakes harsher while making it easier to make mistakes, is anything else.
Reasonable people can disagree over whether showing an id to vote is "unnecessary". The fact remains that voter id laws are not unreasonable, not beyond the pale, most Americans support them, and this whole thing is a manufactured political drama.
Actually, no, it's not. Maybe this is pedantic, but children are not, and have never been, putative voters and therefore are not being suppressed.
Minority groups less likely to have IDs are voters, however. 8% of white Americans do not have government photo ID, whereas 25% of African-American citizens do not[1].
[1] https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-...
Also, where I grew up we literally never locked our doors. Ever. Never got anything stolen.
This is another one of those bizarre mismatches between American and European politics, I suppose. In much of Europe (and most of the world, really), photo ID is expected and it often isn't even free, like it is in much of the US if you qualify. It certainly isn't easier to get! Your own Wisconsin-based link provides information about an IDPP process that allows you to get a state ID without any identifying paperwork for free! [1] The argument is simply that some people might find it inconvenient to get to a DMV within a couple years! (Actually, the argument in your link is also that it's 'offensive' to require a photo ID to resemble its bearer - not an exaggeration, an exact quote.)
This is definitely an example of an American issue that is very, very weird from the outside looking in. There's a lot of political and mental energy spent on a very microscopic issue.
[1] https://bringit.wi.gov/free-id-and-identification-card-petit...
voting should be plentiful, accessible, subsidized, and unimpeded, not gatekept, especially not by a surreptitous effort to implement national id.
The question is why are we expending legislative effort on a non-issue when there are plenty of real issues that need to be solved.
I can imagine lots of edge cases, like a senior citizen who doesn’t drive and has an expired ID. Is it still sufficient proof of identity? Should a voter be turned away?
I suspect these laws are most popular among young people and people who drive—-in other words, people who maintain their ID for other reasons.
Right around the 70s iirc. That's roughly when the modern progressive wing of the democratic party started to coalesce, and they've always had a big focus on it.
Though it's a little weird how much heat it generates given that it's only a "top 5" issue for about 6% of people. [0] If that few people people even bring it up on polls, I'd expect any attempts to create drama out of it to fall flat much more than they do.
[0] https://apnorc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/AP-NORC-Decemb...
The two most recent Republican presidents got into office while failing to win the popular vote. Prior to Bush, that hadn't happened since the 19th century. In that context the GOP learned from those experiences that it's more important to have the right rules keep you in power than it is to actually have the support of the governed.
It's just weird how much culture warring happens over this when most people are ambivalent at best, and the types of voting restrictions we're talking about don't have much of an impact on turnout.[0] I suppose everyone has to have a hobby, but I guess I kind of expect this stuff to track things that are salient to the populace.
[0] https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/136/4/2615/628...
Convenience link to sci-hub for anyone wanting the full text: https://sci-hub.st/10.1093/qje/qjab019
- limitations on early voting
- limitations on mail voting windows
- criminalizing helping people return their mail ballots (including disabled people)
- sending mail ballots not specifically requested
- voter roll purges
When these are paired with stuff that isn't statutory (fewer voting machines per capita causing long lines at particular polling places), I don't think it's a stretch to think there would be aggregate impacts that are significant given the narrow margins that we often tend to see.
> given the narrow margins that we often tend to see.
Most elections really aren't that narrow (hence the high incumbency rate). The few that are just end up dominating the news cycles.
This is a big difference from the US. In many states you can just walk in and say your name to get a ballot.
The Texas law that requires you bring something like a bank or utility bill is considered voter suppression by opponents. [1] But this is just the same as the German requirement to bring a mailed voter notification.
It really isn't the same:
> An estimated 5.4 percent of U.S. households (approximately 7.1 million) were “unbanked” in 2019, meaning that no one in the household had a checking or savings account at a bank or credit union (i.e., bank).
From https://www.fdic.gov/analysis/household-survey/index.html
And that figure is only for entire households, there are more unbanked individuals, and it is very common for households to have adults that don't have any utilities in their name.
OTOH, a mailed notification only presupposes that an individual is on the rolls.
So, easier to comply with that I thought.
Since at least the fifteenth amendment (1870).
> Create Your Own Campaigns
> Go beyond writing to your officials and learn how to organize powerful text campaigns that drive action.
While there are some topics where I agree with both major parties, and many issues where both are near equally bad, I have yet to come across a national policy issue where Republicans are better than Democrats (even if the Democrats' policy is still not great). So yeah, I don't agree with one party 100% of the time, but I will support them 100% of the time over the alternative.
Asking nicely or many times won't do much because the people who run a society are the ones who control production, not the ones who mediate policies. In short, this is not the root of the problem.
If you are only willing to contact your elected officials using this bot and prior methods like letter writing and email were too much for you, then there is a decent chance that you are too lazy to take any other action.
Imagine if you had a manager who was only willing to tell you to work hard with a Slack bot. Messaging each employee individually would be too much work for them. Would you take that manager all that seriously?
The political system this claims to help was not created by and for the working class, it was thought out, designed and implemented by and for the bourgeoisie. It can't serve the majority even if it tried. There are no mechanisms for it, and, not only that, the whole system will prevent their creation. It's not about adding plugins, it's about changing the system.
This app was probably funded by the democrats to seem more radical and progressive, but is just a tool for aesthetics. They use these to gather well meaning non conforming professionals and citizens around actions that are ultimately inconsequential and also wont waste the opportunity to trigger conservatives while they're at it, adding kindling the useless culture war that owns the US.
If you had a team where the manager didn't ever do anything except send copy/pasted messages out via Slackbot and where the workers were in high demand from another manager who could offer them a lot more (as well as threaten their jobs a lot more), would you really expect those workers to be working in the interests of their manager?
As that is the state of American politics today.
Complain about Congress all you want, but fundamentally the people chose them and decide whether or not they get fired. Most people are just absentee managers.
I get form letters loosely related to the issue I complained about, and sometimes not even remotely related.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Resistance_(American_polit...
Tools like this just make all modes of contacting officials less effective. Zeynep handled this really clearly years ago: https://www.twitterandteargas.org/
How do I know this company won't leak my information? This is especially a concern for people they would not consider political allies. Is there a more anon way to use it than giving your phone number?
I wonder about this part near the top:
'“Resistbot is the smartest technology to emerge from the disaster that was the 2016 election. No one else even comes close.”
Debra Cleaver, Founder, Vote.org '
Is this meant to imply that the site or/and vote.org is anti-trump or anti-republican - or imply something else?
If a rep suddenly starts getting a thousand messages a day all supporting/opposing issue X, that's going to get noticed.
Generally a handful of messages is fruitless, but a persistent big batch can change policies, especially if it's between multiple alternatives the member is already OK with.
The important part is not the message, but rather the amount of effort put into the message. Someone using this bot puts in 2 minutes of effort and no money. Someone writing a letter puts in 20 minutes of time and a dollar for envelope and stamp. Someone who flies to D.C. and protests cares a lot more.
Why? The flying protester will remember in two years. The 2 minute texter will not. The flying protestor will vote and probably work on a campaign and donate money. The 2 minute texter might vote and probably will not do much else.
I've always struggled with the best way to be politically active, because so many things feel pointless. I generally just vote and donate money.
Your preferred candidate losing is a "disaster"?
That said, I don't see how this text widget is going to do anything.
2016 was an own goal.
https://resist.bot/news/2017/09/13/the-robot-of-the-resistan...