Ask Slashdot: How Can I Get Through To a Politician By E-mail?

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."

Comments

Paper and Pen

[Anonymous Coward]

These two devices solve literally every problem you are trying to solve.

Re:Paper and Pen

[swalve]

I've done work in a state rep's office, and they do get a lot of mail. But as far as I've ever seen, there weren't stacks of form letters. They have a person who reads the correspondence and who answers the phone calls, summarizes much of it, and forwards the summary to the rep. So letter writing is probably the most effective.

I've never seen the email, but I imagine it is a nightmare. I have seen the faxes, and they are hilarious.

Re:Paper and Pen

[AthanasiusKircher]

Yep. Send an actual physical letter, or try a phone call.

Or, better yet, if you have a major complaint about a topical issue that's in the news, write something good and send it to your local newspaper as a Letter to the Editor.

I mostly received form letters in response to most queries I made, but a couple times when my letter to the local paper was published, I got personalized letters dealing with details of the specific issue from both my local state senator and my U.S. Congressman sent to me in response.

The more public the method of communication, the more likely you'll get a response. And choose a method that is less likely for thousands of other people to use.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Re:Paper and Pen

[icebike]

Exactly.

The story writer starts with the naive assumption the the representative reads ANY email, that isn't first scanned and categorized by a couple layers of minions. Then moves to the assumption that there is some trick that will get his topic before the representative's eyeballs bypassing all the layers.

Totally lost on the OP is the idea that their "special issue" is no more important than those from any other constituent, and the best they have a right to is having their missive filed and counted in the appropriate pro/con pile regarding any issue.

Maybe a succinct email speaking to a specific piece of legislation referencing (and quoting) detailed points in a calm analytical way gets picked out by a staffer as particularly instructive and gets passed to the rep.

Any rambling rants get nowhere.

Any threats will get attention, but not the kind you want.

But the "fer it"/"agin it" letters get counted and are automated replies, not necessarily in that order. They've had their say. And that's all they deserve.

Any foolproof way of getting thru the layer of flak catchers wouldn't survive being public knowledge for very long. Why should any one persons view take precedence over the that of other constituents?

Send them a $2,300 reelection donation

[hsmith]

And they will respond to your questions.

Re:Forget it

[dwye]

This is one area where the spammer scum have ruined email.

Actually, this was ruined for email before there even WAS email. Robert Heinlein wrote a short book on how to influence politicians, and he laid out all the steps. Basically, the less you care, the less they care, so in the "good old days" a telegram beat a hand-written note, which beat a typed note; signing a petition or sending a pre-written message just makes the signer feel good, but these are completely ignored. An email is almost identical to the pre-written message that some group wants everyone to sign and send in; at best it is the typed message, except that you haven't bothered to expend your precious toner on it.

Secondly, if you belong to an ORGANIZED group, mention it. Even better if you are an officer of it, and mention that. Even a Ladies Sewing Circle member beats the lone crank; the member can convince her group to vote her way, while the lone writer cannot convince anyone.

Seriously, people, this stuff is obvious if you think about it.