Not getting election junk mail - who to call?

Hello folks,

I got my sample ballot for the June election and the upcoming election. However my roommate and I (and perhaps other roommates in the house?) did not get our election junk mail - postcards re: endorsements, or for or against items on the ballot, etc.... I'm afraid my roommate and I have fallen off some kind of mailing list. Is anyone else getting their election junk mail?

I called the Voter Registration office of Sonoma County and spoke to two people there who could only help me with the sample ballot and check my voter reg (which I know is current for the past two years). They not help me or refer me to the right agency.

I'm thinking of calling the post office next. Any other ideas?? Anyone else experiencing this??

Thank you!

When you get election-related junk mail and when you get it depends on the "universe of registered voters" that the campaign selected when it produced the mailng list that went to the bulk mail house and then to the post office.

In order to keep mailing costs low, campaigns will limit mail pieces to only those most likely to cast votes for their side of the issue or candidate. For instance, if you are registered as a Republican or American Independent or Peace and Freedom party voter, you likely won't get anything from the Democrats. If you traditionally vote early in the absentee ballot process, you will get the early mail pieces and likely stop getting them once you've voted. If you traditionally vote late, meaning your absentee ballot gets to the Registrar of Voters in the final week of the campaign or at the polling place, you likely won't get the political mail until later in October.

If you are registered as No Party Preference (the second highest choice among Sonoma County registered voters, ahead of Republican) you might get everything or nothing, depending upon whether the particular campaign thinks you are worth the cost of contacting on behalf their particular candidate or issue.

Since older voters, those over 55, are much more likely to vote, the campaigns are most likely to include them in the universe of the mailing list. And since voters under 35 are least likely (according to studies) to be influenced by mailers and more likely to make decisions based on social media, the campaigns are often likely to exclude them from the universe of the mailing list.

The independent expenditure committees (referred to earlier) typically spend practically all their money on mailings that often generate controversy and collateral publicity. Thus making them popular with campaigns and often able to justify mailing to larger universes than the campaigns of the candidates themselves. I am not addressing the veracity of the information in these mailers, just explaining why they voters will see so many of them.

This year's election mailings seem late because absentee ballots can not go out until thirty days before an election, because Monday was a postal holiday and because the state voter information guide is so thick that it required delayed handling.

If you truly are dying to see the political mailings, go to the post office boxes inside the Sebastopol post office and fetch them from the nearby trash cans. Most campaigns make regular sweeps of the trash to see what their opponents are saying.

Probably more than you wanted to know.

Bleys W. Rose
Chair, Sonoma County Democratic Party