Political Spam & a Revised Davis Ballot Flyer

By Alan Hirsch

This is my revised ballot flyer (see below) posted earlier here and on the Facebook Group Davis Ballot Talk.  I have changed my endorsement for US Senator to Adam Schiff from Katie Porter.  Porter has taken the unprecedented move of selling her donors list PRE-Election, the most assured way to create spam to her donors.

In the political world there is an awareness of donor annoyance with spam-but it’s the tragedy of common’s playing out.

This intel comes courtesy of Vera Sandronsky (my wife) who has studied the issue and written in the Enterprise about other ways to give politically- i.e. non-candidate giving –  It will likely be more effective and reduce spam: give to grass root groups building local civic involvement infrastructure (like Sister District, Indivisible, Walk the Walk, etc.)  instead of pop-up candidate efforts that appear and go away bi-annually.

But even for candidate giving changes are coming, and donors have choices…

I share below from Halley Bash’s  of Donor Hub newsletter : –

“We all know firsthand that our inboxes and phones are flooded with fundraising asks from candidates and PACs whose lists we've never signed up for.

“It's common practice for campaigns to sell and swap donor data after their election is over, but Rep. Katie Porter has now set the precedent of selling donor data in advance of the March 5 California Senate primary election.  Politico reported this on Friday.

“What does this mean?

• Expect even more unsolicited fundraising emails and texts in Q2-Q4 than you've already been receiving in Q1
• If you fundraise for candidates, it is worth considering adding the option for donors not to share their contact information with them via ActBlue. Steps on how to do that can be found here.
• Some donors who want to donate to candidates and not get political fundraising spam are now ditching ActBlue and using Oath for their political donations, which by default does not share donor contact info with campaigns.

“This is a major betrayal of Porter’s supporters that directly contradicts her well-earned reputation as a consumer advocate. If a corporation sold its customer data in exactly the same manner, Congresswoman Porter would rightfully take it to task for exploiting consumer privacy. Donors to political campaigns deserve better than to have their contact information sold off without their knowledge or consent. I suspect that Congresswoman Porter agrees.”

“Josh Nelson is the CEO of Civic Shout, which helps Democratic campaigns and progressive nonprofits grow their opt-in email and SMS lists. He played a pivotal role in pushing back against Gmail’s pilot program to allow political campaigns to send spam email, and has helped lead the fight to pressure technology vendors to crack down on spam and scam fundraising tactics. He has repeatedly praised Rep. Porter’s leadership in the fight against fraudulent fundraising emails.”

Download Davis Neighborhood Ballot Rec v4 2 page 2024 03 05