If the front doorknob hadn't broken, this might not annoy me quite so much.

[mrissa]

In the last two days, not one but two people have shown up at our door representing a particular candidate and asking how I intended to vote.

Not how markgritter intended to vote. Not how timprov intended to vote. They are both registered voters. I believe they are registered the same way as I am. But twice in less than 24 hours, people have come to ask about my vote. (Possible differences in how I look to oursiders: I am the officially designated Woman Of The House; I am the one who signs the checks to charities, including charities like Center for the Victims of Torture and Second Harvest Heartland that could in some sad twisted world be considered political.)

I answered this most recent gentleman's questions happily until he got to, "Do you intend to vote for [particular candidate]?", and then I gave him my best tight, frozen Minnesota girl you-have-offended-me smile and said, "We have private ballots in this country."

I know it's useful to them to try to get numbers. I don't care what's useful to them. I do not want to encourage them to keep showing up at my house and harassing me on election week. For various personal reasons I am not the person with whom you would like to mess just now, and I do not like people showing up multiple times to ask about my vote. I'm voting. I am, in fact, voting for your guy. As long as you don't send around a third and fourth querier to make me change my mind.

Also, get off my damn lawn.

Comments

[seabream.livejournal.com]

Hmm. In my riding, at least for some elections, one reasonable reason for a candidate's team to know who is voting for their candidate is to be able to know who to send people (if available) out to help them get to the voting station and vote if such help is required. Because of the new requirement that all voting stations be accessible, some stations have moved etc... and for some people needing the access, are further away and sometimes harder to get to. Also so that on election day, they can remind those people voting for them, either in person or by phone, to actually go and vote.

Nonetheless, I understand the aggravation.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It is generally frowned upon here to base one's get-out-the-vote offers upon explicit promises to vote for a specific candidate.

[seabream.livejournal.com]

Huh. Different traditions.

It doesn't have to be a promise or commitment. An expression of intent is sufficient. Given that the ballots are secret, it's also an intent which can change at any time before the ballot and not be anyone's business. It's pretty much like arranging for a car-pool. I mean, here it's also not generally considered intrinsically rude for a candidate or their representatives to go door to door and, as dd-b mentioned above, allocate time to try to convincingly promote their platform to undecided or opposed voters inclined to have a discussion, as determined by asking which category the person who answered the door is in. Granted, it's certainly possible to do so in a rude manner, but that's generally considered something to avoid given the often associated drop in receptivity.

Also, hopefully it's not presumptuous to wish for good resolutions to the various personal reasons you are not the person with whom one might wish to mess just now. Well, I guess more than normal, since even normally you're formidable and not a person to mess with, though normally that's more accounting for metaphorical yield strength than fuse timing.