Ask Slashdot: How Can I Get Through To a Politician By E-mail? 204
wytcld writes "Sending an individually-written e-mail to my state senator resulted in an automated response saying that since she receives hundreds of e-mails a day, there might be no personal response, but please don't take that to mean she hasn't read my e-mail. So I contacted her again suggesting that was a pretty poor answer. Most of the e-mails she receives are mass mailings coordinated by various interest group websites. Why doesn't she put those to the side, I asked, and prioritize response to individual e-mails from constituents who've taken the time to actually write? Her response? She often can't tell the difference at first, so spends time drafting responses to the first instances of group e-mail spam, and gets diverted from responding to those who really write her. Are there tools out there which a politician can use to identify the incoming group-think blasts and put them to to side? It's easy enough to imagine sorting by repeated content or headers, if I ran the mail server, but I'm looking for packages already out there that a state-level representative, with no staff to speak of, might use to cut through the mess and prioritize communication with constituents who care enough about an issue to draft their own thoughts."
technology: procmail (Score:2, Informative)
Shouldn't be too hard to figure out who the interest groups are, then dump them in a separate folder. Possibly for a hapless intern to get frustrated with writing summaries thereof. Really now, people who put themselves in positions where efficient communications handling is essential should have the skills, though most don't even know what a header is nevermind not to top-post. Time to learn, buncha slackers.
Anyway, procmail is just one way. SIEVE support on your IMAP server would be another. Plenty mail clients have custom filtering, there exist toolsets to run commands on an imap, again possibly in conjunction with procmail, and maybe there already exists a GUI to ease such use for the lesser educatable beings among us, or else it is easily whipped up.
If rules won't do, then train a bayes filter (like spamassassin) on an interest group mass-mailings set and have it dump them in a separate (non-spam) folder. You can use the same technology for multiple targets, not just spam/non-spam. I haven't actually tried but it shouldn't be too hard to adapt, the idea is the same.
Work this out and offer your services to your representatives, for a modest fee. Should be a nice weekend-earner. Royalties to the usual address please.
As a staff member for an elected... (Score:4, Informative)
...I have a few tips.
1) We deal with crazy... a lot of it. Everybody who has an really angry, strong opinion about matters of public importance is reaching for the phone and calling, or cranking out an email whenever they can. Remember that if the issue you're calling/writing/faxing/emailing about is a hot issue, chances are people on all sides of it are calling to yell at us a lot. We end up having to filter out a lot of emotion and anger to get to what people's truly legitimate concerns are.
2) Make sure that you are contacting the right jurisdiction. I work for a local government of a large city. I cannot help you get federal law changed, or tell the governor to sign a bill. Stop asking, you're wasting both of our time. Also, I really don't care how outraged you are about the actions of the other government. If you're outraged with the one I work for, I'm happy to talk about it. Otherwise, sorry, not going to give you much time.
3) When you're sitting down to draft your correspondence, please try to focus on relevant info, clearly identify a solvable problem, and recommend a solution that you think will work. In this case, the poster is contacting a state legislator; there are three different types of communication that that office will receive: opinions, recommendations and requests for help.
3a) If your contact is an opinion, those are the highest volume and lowest priority communications for a response. Opinions are great and help the elected get a sense for where their constituents are at politically and help them gain a more complete view if the impact of their vote on bills. If you're writing to say, "please vote NO on SB 999," great, you're added to the list of "Community NOs" and you're a statistic on a report, but you're unlikely to get much more than an automated response or a form letter.
3b) If your contact is a recommendation, find out what staff member handles that issue for the elected. Contact the staff member directly. Call the capitol office, a receptionist will answer. The receptionist fields phone calls and will have a list of all the issue areas (Transportation, Judiciary, Utilities) that staff electeds are assigned to. Say these magic words, "Hi, I'm a constituent for Senator X and I have some thoughts on a bill, can you please tell me who staffs the Senator on Transportation? What is their email address?"
Write your email to this person and open up a dialog. If you don't get a response back, call them and ask to speak to them, at least confirm if you got your message. Be specific. "I read some information about SB 999 and I think that Section 333 of the bill will cause problems for me and my family," or "I received a postcard about SB 999 and I don't like the part that requires me to file with Agency Z every time I want to build widget X." I like to follow up substantive emails with a phone call, and then follow the call up with an email to summarize and conclude the conversation. I'm more diligent than other staff members, but when I have someone who is trying to make a contribution to the process, I at least like to hear them out, even if I don't agree. Don't be afraid to debate, don't be the aggressor. If the staff member is being hostile, just ask that they pass your message along to the elected.
3c) If your communication is a request for help, call the field office. They've dealt with it all and know whether and how they can help. Emailing is not helpful when you're making a first contact, start with a call and then follow up with emails.
4) Be nice. Your first line of communication is not with the elected or the "gov'ment" but with human beings with stresses and lives and feelings and you should treat them with the same respect that you would expect if some random stranger was calling you or writing you out of nowhere asking for things.
You Can't (Score:2, Informative)
You can't get through to a politician, regardless or method. Stop writing letters and start rioting. Nothing is ever achieved by working within the confines of the system.