collaborative storytelling that is equal parts critical and creative
PRIVATE PARTY?
Lizzie Shackney
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Just a reminder, it’s a secret who you vote for, but it’s public record whether or not you vote. Please remember to vote!
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We were instructed to practice the script six times each, under six different conditions. My partner and I found a seat on a rock. Liza played the supporter, eager to partake in the conversation.
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I played the undecided voter, choosing between characters on a roster of “People We Could Peer Pressure Into Supporting Us.” I chose a suburban mom in her thirties, kids bursting out of the door into the yard when I opened it for Liza. I usually voted Libertarian, I explained, and my partner frowned. “This is a consequential election,” Liza said. “Maybe you feel like you’re making a choice that affects you, but the results of this election won’t hit hardest in Austin. These results will affect rural areas where hospitals are closing; they’ll be felt along the border when asylum seekers are denied their due process. Voting for Dikeman, well, you’re essentially voting for Ted Cruz.”
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It worked. Within minutes I was persuaded, as far as she could tell. We got along nicely, and she left my pretend door feeling accomplished.
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I see that you voted in 2016. Thanks for being a voter!
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I noticed that you didn’t get the chance to vote last election, but I want to make sure you have everything you need to vote this time around.
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Hundreds of field organizers in attendance at the all-staff training performed similar scenarios across the lawn. We were practicing the Beto for Texas campaign’s social pressure script, which was social-scientifically engineered to peer pressure a registered voter into casting their ballot. Learning the script felt like being endowed with a superpower, one involving a set of precise words and carefully-sourced information about voters that could modify someone’s behavior. Fanny pack on my waist, water bottle full, flyers in hand, I was ready to test it out on real people.
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My confidence faded as soon as I left the training when I remembered that I had no idea who would really be on the other side of the door upon which I would relentlessly knock. My field manager dropped me off in a neighborhood of colorful, ranch-style houses in Austin. The sun was setting. I imagined interrupting family dinners, owners pulling barking dogs back from a barely-cracked door, waking up sleeping babies.
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Does that polling place work for you? How are you going to get to there? A scooter? Controversial, but okay! You going to bring anyone? Make it a date. Get pancakes after. What kind of ID are you going to bring?
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When the door did open, and when the door stayed open long enough for me to speak, conversations went well far more often than they did not. Our universe of voters was primarily cut down to those who are likely to vote for a Democrat, if they vote at all. However, partisanship does not reliably correlate with enthusiasm for talking with field organizers. At some point I stopped taking it personally. I made a point to observe voters’ negative responses to me knowing everything about them or even showing up at all.
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Some people demanded I tell them how I got their information (“It’s publicly available, sir”); some could anticipate my arrival and locked the gates that led to their homes.
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Once, someone opened the door, pointed at their “No Soliciting” sign, and hollered, “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND ABOUT NO SOLICITING?”
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I responded gently, “I’m not selling anything.”
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“I DON’T FUCKING CARE, YOU FUCKING IDIOT.”
“That’s not very nice.”*
“No Soliciting” signs evolved into “We are too broke to buy anything; we already know who we are voting for; we have found Jesus; unless you are giving away free beer, go away” devolved into “We don’t call 911” with a metal cut-out of a rifle.
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As strongly as I felt about the importance of advocacy, and no matter how many times I went out to canvass, it did feel invasive to enter someone’s personal space and make it obvious that you knew their name, phone number, and voting history. That you might call after the election to follow up. “So, that conversation we had on a Saturday, October 27th at 1:43 pm, did it mean nothing to you?”
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To some extent, I got it. We don’t tolerate interruption well, especially not in our private homes. Our social lives are intensely planned—texts to make sure it’s okay to call, playdates scheduled weeks in advance, Facebook events exposing the guest list. We don’t experience many spontaneous conversations at the door, especially not political ones. I felt anxiety surrounding intrusion for a reason: voters and I shared societal norms surrounding privacy. The social pressure script made me question these norms. To what extent should the political be private?
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Okay, so you’ve said that voting is important and you made this plan to vote, can you promise me that you’ll vote no matter what?
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Politics are often a private matter, depending on the setting. I remember as early as elementary school absorbing the lesson that it was not polite to ask my teachers who they were voting for. On social media, friends preface an occasional post with, “I don’t usually post political things on Facebook, but…”
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For fear of retribution or a challenge to our objectivity—from funders, the wrath of Twitter, family members, or future employers—we selectively share our political views and decisions. Beyond what we keep quiet, some Americans go as far as to lie about their electoral choices, skewing the polls and never owning up to their decisions. What does it mean that someone cannot speak aloud (to an anonymous voice on the phone) that they’re about to vote for a white supremacist, but they do not hesitate to select their candidate as they stand in isolation at the ballot box?
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We have enshrined the privacy of political decisions in state law. We cast our ballots to select our political representatives privately, in booths or at stations with wings to shield us. It’s called the secret ballot. The secret ballot has a disastrous effect on voter turnout as well as our conception of the purpose of voting. John Stuart Mill argued that when we cast our votes in secret, we believe that we are voting for in our own self-interest, rather than in the interest of the public good.
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It hasn’t always been like this. Up until 1888, all Americans elected their representatives in full view of the public, declaring their votes orally or handing over unfolded slips of paper. By the turn of the twentieth century, however, every state provided its voters with privacy. We had followed Australia’s example to avoid vote buying, voter intimidation, and violence. Today, intimidation of low-income voters and voters of color persists, but some argue that the secret ballot is no longer necessary and is even harmful, as democracy has suffered from private interests and misinformation. Can we have it both ways—the freedom to make choices and also a systemic consideration of public interest?
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In advocating for the abolition of the secret ballot, The Atlantic claims that it takes shame to ensure that voters turn out, but I think that public accountability is a better way of framing it. Professors Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin propose a mechanism of public accountability, one that keeps the ballot secret but pushes citizens to confront one another about their views: Deliberation Day. They describe it as
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…A new national holiday. It will be held one week before major national elections. Registered voters will be called together in neighborhood meeting places, in small groups of 15, and larger groups of 500, to discuss the central issues raised by the campaign. Each deliberator will be paid $150 for the day's work of citizenship, on condition that he or she shows up at the polls the next week. All other work, except the most essential, will be prohibited by law.
Institutionalizing civic engagement and public accountability, they theorize, would play an important role in realizing democracy. It would allow us to keep the ballot secret while providing a participatory experience of the common good. To some extent, that is what we were attempting to affect with each knock.
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Ultimately, our political decisions are not private. They have wide-ranging consequences, and individuals are rarely if ever brought to account for the votes they cast.
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Electoral politics are only one mode of affecting change, but as long as we remain committed to our current electoral system, the ways in which (and whether) we express our opinions, deliberate with one another, and hold each other accountable for our choices matters.
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I was initially anxious about confronting people about their political decisions, but repetition is the key to mastery. I learned to confidently state the not-so-private information at my disposal. “I noticed you didn’t vote last election. Can we talk about why?”
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I didn’t shame anyone for their decision, but I made it clear that I was holding the person in front of me accountable. Their vote affects me, and more importantly, it affects people who aren’t necessarily going to stand in front of them at any point in the cycle. I don’t know if I changed any minds, but at least I got the conversation started.
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Just a reminder, it’s a secret who you vote for, but it’s public record whether or not you vote. Please remember to vote!
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*I really did say this
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s/o to my editor, Russell Goldman