Fun election facts

Poll workers, throughout the country, are poorly paid and poorly trained. Any system which relies upon them for the enforcement of no-campaigning zones is bound to fail. Similarly, most police officers can't be bothered with a task they consider to be petty.

There's a simple solution, though. The overwhelming majority of people involved in GOTV efforts are well intentioned, and would willingly abide by the law if they knew about it. In other jurisdictions with similar statutes, it's not uncommon to require that every polling place put up a pair of signs, 150 feet to either side of the entrance. The signs announce that it's a polling place, and that campaigning or the display of materials is prohibited beyond that point.

It works about 95% of the time. Poll workers, after all, can perform specific tasks on a checklist, and the signs go up before the poll opens, so they don't have to step outside when they should be manning the booths. The signs remove ambiguity - campaigners know where they're supposed to be, and police officers and poll workers can be prevailed upon to enforce the zones more easily when the violation is openly visible, and doesn't require the exercise of discretion. And the signs improve the visibility of the polling station for first-time voters.

It's so simple, in fact, that one is forced to conclude that the only reason we don't do this hear is that the political establishment has no interest in enforcing the law.

Illegal?

Fortunately, political campaigning is the sine qua non of free speech. If you don't like the calls, don't reward the candidates who employ them - that's a built-in corrective mechanism. But I can tell you that, complaints aside, they're an overwhelmingly effective tool, particularly in low-turnout elections like an off-year municipal primary.

They may annoy most of the people they reach, but some percentage of those annoyed voters would not otherwise have remembered to vote. They raise name-recognition for challengers. And they help the ground-level operations target voters for face to face turnout efforts. That makes them a particularly valuable tool for those who lack the advantages of incumbency.

I'm not saying you have to like them. But make them illegal? Why not just pass a law guaranteeing that incumbents can indefinitely renew their terms in office?

When I lived in Brookline a while ago, not only were there no lines drawn, but the police did nothing when I called to complain about workers campaigning too closely. During every election there were campaign workers, with badges and hats, standing in doorway to the polling place entrance telling people which way to vote. I'd call the police station and was told "unless they're holding signs *inside* the building, they're not breaking the law." At the doorway, giving voting advice was just fine and dandy, and they were exercising their right to free speech.

Luckily for me, saying "go fuck yourself" at the entrance to a polling place apparently is also covered by freedom of speech, because that's the response they got from me every time.

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who and the what now?