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Ted Cruz’s Presidential campaign prides itself on being data-centric and on integrating insights from political science into its tactics. In 2008, academics at Yale published an influential paper showing that one of the most effective ways to get voters to the polls was “social pressure.” Researchers found that registered voters in a 2006 primary election in Michigan voted at a higher rate if they received mailers indicating that their participation in the election would be publicized. The mailer that had the biggest impact included information about the two previous elections and whether the recipient and his or her neighbors participated or not. “We intend to mail an updated chart,” the mailer warned. “You and your neighbors will all know who voted and who did not.”
Insights from the Yale study have since been adopted by several campaigns, including MoveOn, which also faced criticism when it used the tactic to turn out voters for Barack Obama’s reëlection, in 2012. Given its obsession with political science, it’s no surprise that the Cruz campaign decided to adopt the “social pressure” techniques to turn out voters in Iowa for Monday night’s caucuses. On Saturday, Twitter came alive withpictures from voters in the state who received mailers from the Cruz campaign. At the top of the mailers, in a bold red box, are the words “VOTING VIOLATION.” Below that warning is an explanation:
You are receiving this election notice because of low expected voter turnout in your area. Your individual voting history as well as your neighbors’ are public record. Their scores are published below, and many of them will see your score as well. CAUCUS ON MONDAY TO IMPROVE YOUR SCORE and please encourage your neighbors to caucus as well. A follow-up notice may be issued following Monday’s caucuses.
Below that, a chart appears with the names of the recipient of the mailing as well as his neighbors and their voting “grade” and “score.”
A further explanation appears below the chart:
Voter registration and voter history records are public records distributed by the Iowa Secretary of State and/or county election clerks. This data is not available for use for commercial purposes – use is limited by law.Scores reflect participation in recent elections. [Emphasis added.]
After seeing the mailers, Iowa’s secretary of state, Paul Pate, issued astatement condemning Cruz’s tactic:
“Today I was shown a piece of literature from the Cruz for President campaign that misrepresents the role of my office, and worse, misrepresents Iowa election law. Accusing citizens of Iowa of a “voting violation” based on Iowa Caucus participation, or lack thereof, is false representation of an official act. There is no such thing as an election violation related to frequency of voting. Any insinuation or statement to the contrary is wrong and I believe it is not in keeping in the spirit of the Iowa Caucuses.
Additionally, the Iowa Secretary of State’s Office never “grades” voters. Nor does the Secretary of State maintain records related to Iowa Caucus participation. Caucuses are organized and directed by the state political parties, not the Secretary of State, nor local elections officials. Also, the Iowa Secretary of State does not “distribute” voter records. They are available for purchase for political purposes only, under Iowa Code.”
On Saturday night, Cruz responded. “I will apologize to no one for using every tool we can to encourage Iowa voters to come out and vote,” he toldreporters during a campaign stop in Sioux City.
The secretary of state was mostly concerned that Cruz’s campaign mailers appeared partially disguised to look like an official communication from the state government. Direct mailers always push these boundaries, and Iowans are bombarded with mail, and one way to get them to open something is to make it look more official. And, in Cruz’s defense, the mailer does clearly indicate that it’s “Paid for by Cruz for President.”
After looking at several mailers posted online, I was more curious about how the Cruz campaign came up with its scores. On all the mailers I saw, every voter listed had only one of three possible scores: fifty-five per cent, sixty-five per cent, or seventy-five per cent, which translate to F, D, and C grades, respectively. Iowans take voting pretty seriously. Why was it that nobody had a higher grade?
In Iowa, although voter-registration information is free and available to the public, voter history is not. That information is maintained by the secretary of state, who licenses it to campaigns, super PACs, polling firms, and any other entity that might want it. So was the Cruz campaign accurately portraying the voter histories of Iowans? Or did it simply make up the numbers?
It seems to have made them up. Dave Peterson, a political scientist at Iowa State University who is well-acquainted with the research on “social pressure” turnout techniques, received a mailer last week. The Cruz campaign pegged his voting percentage at fifty-five per cent, which seems to be the most common score that the campaign gives out. (All of the neighbors listed on Peterson’s mailer also received a score of fifty-five per cent.)
Peterson, who is actually a Hillary Clinton supporter, moved to Iowa in 2009. He told me that he has voted in three out of the last three general elections and in two out of the last three primaries.
“There are other people listed on my mailer who live in my neighborhood that are all different ages, but everyone on this sheet has the same score of fifty-five per cent,” he said. “Some are significantly younger and would have not been eligible to vote in these elections, and others are older and have voted consistently, going back years. There is no way to get to us all having the same score.” (Peterson also spoke with Mother Jones.)
If the Cruz campaign based its score on local elections, Peterson said, the number also wouldn’t make sense, based on his participation in those elections as well. A source with access to the Iowa voter file told me that he checked several other names on Cruz mailers and that the voting histories of those individuals did not match the scores that the Cruz campaign assigned them in the mailer.
I e-mailed Catherine Frazier, a spokeswoman for the Cruz campaign, and asked her what the campaign’s methodology was for arriving at its voting scores and whether the scores were fraudulent. “This was a mailer designed from public information and modeled on past successful mailers used by the Iowa GOP to turn out voters, so that we can have as high of a turnout as possible on caucus day,” she said. “I’ll leave it at that.” She did not explain the methodology used, nor did she answer my question about whether the numbers were made up.
The political scientist Lynn Vavreck, the co-author of “The Gamble,” a book the Cruz campaign has publicly stated it has studied for its strategic insights, said there was a major difference between the 2008 study in Michigan and what Cruz is doing in Iowa. “In the political-science work published in the American Political Science Review,” she said, “the mailing listed the elections (three of them) in which voters’ histories were being observed—and listed whether the secretary of state recorded that the voter participated that year. So it was more transparent than the Cruz mailer, which implied that it used public records but delivered voters letter grades, which are not part of the official file.”
It’s unclear how many Iowans received the Cruz mailers. Ideally, the mailers would go to potential caucus-goers who are leaning toward the Texas senator and just need some additional incentive to participate. In at least one case, that backfired. Independent Journal Review reportedthat one Iowan who received the Cruz mailer will now caucus for Marco Rubio.
Rubio’s campaign also sent out a mailer that employs social pressure to induce participation in the caucuses, but, notably, the Rubio campaign did not mention the names of the target voter’s neighbors.
The Cruz mailers have been widely condemned by Iowans. “I just wonder how many of these went out to people who might seriously believe they committed a violation or were embarrassed that their neighbors might know about their alleged voting record,” Braddock Massey, a Rubio supporter who lives in West Des Moines and received one of the mailers, said.
Donna Holstein, who was listed on one of them, was upset to learn that she had been given a failing grade and that her neighbors might be told whether she participates in the caucus. She told me that she has voted consistently but that she can’t this time because of a disability.
“I’m crippled, so I can’t go to the caucus,” Holstein said. She was not happy about being shamed in front of her neighbors. “That’s what you call a bully,” she said about Cruz’s tactics. “I wish he would quit.”
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