poli sci is dirty business
October 28, 2014 6:52 AM Subscribe
Profs Bumble Into Big Legal Trouble After Election Experiment Goes Way Wrong Montana Secretary of State Linda McCulloch filed a complaint Friday alleging that Stanford University and Dartmouth College researchers broke four laws by sending 100,000 election mailers to voters that appeared to come from the state. Their peers in the field have ripped their social science experiment as a "misjudgment" or -- stronger still -- "malpractice."
"According to a description provided by Stanford, the research was intended "to compare voter participation levels in precincts that receive the additional information with voter participation in precincts that do not." It included 100,000 mailers sent throughout Montana, 66,000 mailers sent in September in one New Hampshire congressional district, and 143,000 mailers sent to two congressional districts in California. There have not been reports of similar complaints in California or New Hampshire, and TPM could not reach state officials for comment."
Chris Blattman is less convinced that this is 'malpractice':
"Let’s use a different example. I run field experiments trying to reduce poverty and violence. Sometimes I design experiments and interventions myself. Seldom do people say to me, “You are mucking around with real world outcomes. Who gave you the permission to do that?”
Maybe people should ask. It’s a good question. Thinking it through, I get a more nuanced answer than malpractice."
"According to a description provided by Stanford, the research was intended "to compare voter participation levels in precincts that receive the additional information with voter participation in precincts that do not." It included 100,000 mailers sent throughout Montana, 66,000 mailers sent in September in one New Hampshire congressional district, and 143,000 mailers sent to two congressional districts in California. There have not been reports of similar complaints in California or New Hampshire, and TPM could not reach state officials for comment."
Chris Blattman is less convinced that this is 'malpractice':
"Let’s use a different example. I run field experiments trying to reduce poverty and violence. Sometimes I design experiments and interventions myself. Seldom do people say to me, “You are mucking around with real world outcomes. Who gave you the permission to do that?”
Maybe people should ask. It’s a good question. Thinking it through, I get a more nuanced answer than malpractice."
One important detail you left out: the mailers had the seal of the state of Montana prominently displayed, and were otherwise designed to look like official state documents, with only a small-print disclosure that they were paid for by researchers at Stanford.
djw at Lawyers Guns and Money had this take which I largely agree with.
There are two distinct ethical issues here, the first is whether it can be an acceptable research practice to perform a political science experiment that has a real chance of affecting the outcome of an election. On this point, djw thinks that the answer is "no", but is willing to be convinced otherwise.
The second issue is whether it is ethical to engage in such an experiment involves attempting to deceive the subjects of the research, and here both djw and I find it very hard to come up with any convincing justification.
posted by firechicago at 7:05 AM on October 28, 2014 [12 favorites]
djw at Lawyers Guns and Money had this take which I largely agree with.
There are two distinct ethical issues here, the first is whether it can be an acceptable research practice to perform a political science experiment that has a real chance of affecting the outcome of an election. On this point, djw thinks that the answer is "no", but is willing to be convinced otherwise.
The second issue is whether it is ethical to engage in such an experiment involves attempting to deceive the subjects of the research, and here both djw and I find it very hard to come up with any convincing justification.
posted by firechicago at 7:05 AM on October 28, 2014 [12 favorites]
How in the world did this get by an IRB?!
posted by Wretch729 at 7:12 AM on October 28, 2014 [16 favorites]
posted by Wretch729 at 7:12 AM on October 28, 2014 [16 favorites]
Assuming that the reason they used the seal was to draw attention from the fact that this came from Stanford + Dartmouth, in case that meant voters just tossed or ignored because of where it originated, then whatever else went on this was a stupid and problematic decision to deceive people. It's also lazy, not just because no one checked the laws or their ethical responsibilities, but because some of the issues they were presumably trying to get around (bad reactions to seeing these names on a state election flyer, etc.) could have been fixed by using a local partner institution. Or even by just not using the sodding official seal.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 7:13 AM on October 28, 2014
posted by lesbiassparrow at 7:13 AM on October 28, 2014
Blattman's response is unpersuasive, to the extent that it is a response to the instant case. Pretending the legal issues aren't there doesn't make them go away - and by legal issues, I mean not just the letter of the law, but also the ethical principles which are embedded in them.
It seems like he wishes this case was just about the broader issue of poli sci experiments affecting the real world. Perhaps the poli sci profs quoted in TPM didn't talk about the legal issues because others would do, or have already done, a fuller job of it. Maybe they did comment on that, but TPM didn't want to repetitively quote them on it.
Is there a better example we can latch onto, for a poli sci experiment with direct real world effects?
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:16 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
It seems like he wishes this case was just about the broader issue of poli sci experiments affecting the real world. Perhaps the poli sci profs quoted in TPM didn't talk about the legal issues because others would do, or have already done, a fuller job of it. Maybe they did comment on that, but TPM didn't want to repetitively quote them on it.
Is there a better example we can latch onto, for a poli sci experiment with direct real world effects?
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:16 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
Let’s use a different example. I run field experiments trying to reduce poverty and violence. Sometimes I design experiments and interventions myself. Seldom do people say to me, “You are mucking around with real world outcomes. Who gave you the permission to do that?
This objection is missing the point. Elections specifically are very heavily regulated in ways that most other activities that people engage in are not. If researchers had paid people to vote a certain way, you couldn't just say "I pay people to perform tasks in studies all the time and nobody cares" because the two situations are not equivalent.
posted by burnmp3s at 7:18 AM on October 28, 2014 [8 favorites]
This objection is missing the point. Elections specifically are very heavily regulated in ways that most other activities that people engage in are not. If researchers had paid people to vote a certain way, you couldn't just say "I pay people to perform tasks in studies all the time and nobody cares" because the two situations are not equivalent.
posted by burnmp3s at 7:18 AM on October 28, 2014 [8 favorites]
Well Blattman's experiments do have real world effects: they help lift people out of poverty. I think though in terms of elections, its highly unlikely for an experiment to affect an outcome. Even where elections are tight, the experiments have large budgets, and there is low voter turnout, the effect of these experiments on turnout are still very small.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:21 AM on October 28, 2014
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:21 AM on October 28, 2014
There are two distinct ethical issues here, the first is whether it can bean acceptable research practice to perform a political science experiment that has a real chance of affecting the outcome of an election. On this point, djw thinks that the answer is "no", but is willing to be convinced otherwise.
In this instance it is kinda shady. But any field experiment in social science is probably going to involve materially affecting peoples' lives in some way (whether it's via an election or intervening in one village but not another in order to try to identify the effect of the intervention (which I think is pretty common in development economics for instance). Or even in a clinical setting, putting some people in a placebo group. At least in the last case, it's pretty clear that, since we don't know ex ante whether a drug works, that it's okay to do that because it helps advance science in a way that potentially benefits everyone.
In this election thing...well, if it was illegal it was illegal and maybe that's enough (on preview this seems to be burnmp3s's point?) And importantly, people might not have realized they were the subject of a study which probably makes it ethically unacceptable (I say probably because I have no experience doing research that involves individual people and am not well-versed in the ethics thereof, so I'm hedging). But I guess I can imagine a way of designing a study that could in principle affect the outcome of an election via some indirect channel (what if we had voter registration be opt-out instead of opt-in in certain DMVs or something?) that maybe isn't as ethically problematic as this one was.
tl;dr it seems like social science experiments, even involving elections, aren't all-or-nothing good/bad but it's hard for me to think of a brightline besides legality.
posted by dismas at 7:24 AM on October 28, 2014
In this instance it is kinda shady. But any field experiment in social science is probably going to involve materially affecting peoples' lives in some way (whether it's via an election or intervening in one village but not another in order to try to identify the effect of the intervention (which I think is pretty common in development economics for instance). Or even in a clinical setting, putting some people in a placebo group. At least in the last case, it's pretty clear that, since we don't know ex ante whether a drug works, that it's okay to do that because it helps advance science in a way that potentially benefits everyone.
In this election thing...well, if it was illegal it was illegal and maybe that's enough (on preview this seems to be burnmp3s's point?) And importantly, people might not have realized they were the subject of a study which probably makes it ethically unacceptable (I say probably because I have no experience doing research that involves individual people and am not well-versed in the ethics thereof, so I'm hedging). But I guess I can imagine a way of designing a study that could in principle affect the outcome of an election via some indirect channel (what if we had voter registration be opt-out instead of opt-in in certain DMVs or something?) that maybe isn't as ethically problematic as this one was.
tl;dr it seems like social science experiments, even involving elections, aren't all-or-nothing good/bad but it's hard for me to think of a brightline besides legality.
posted by dismas at 7:24 AM on October 28, 2014
(I should add that a clear difference in clinical trials versus social science experiments is that people choose whether to sign up. But my understanding is that in, say, development RCT you don't do that because you don't want to have endogeneity in your results stemming from villages selecting into the intervention).
posted by dismas at 7:26 AM on October 28, 2014
posted by dismas at 7:26 AM on October 28, 2014
If they hadn't used the seal and had put in tiny type somewhere on the mailer that it was not, in fact, officially from the state, then it wouldn't be any different from the zillions of political mailers that get sent out every election season.
Let’s use a different example.
.... That isn't really like the thing we're talking about at all, since the thing we're talking about is alleged to have broken laws. Many activist groups and political organizations send out voter information mailers and do so without presenting them in ways that break election laws. I have several dozen like this on my kitchen table right now, in fact.
posted by rtha at 7:27 AM on October 28, 2014 [3 favorites]
Let’s use a different example.
.... That isn't really like the thing we're talking about at all, since the thing we're talking about is alleged to have broken laws. Many activist groups and political organizations send out voter information mailers and do so without presenting them in ways that break election laws. I have several dozen like this on my kitchen table right now, in fact.
posted by rtha at 7:27 AM on October 28, 2014 [3 favorites]
Blattman's point is terrible. Of course poli-sci types can also be activists -- you're free to consult for whoever you want to, or to work in a campaign, or to run for office. That doesn't mean the things that you do as a consultant or campaign worker or candidate will result in scholarly publications, though.
In much the same way, you can do all sorts of stupid and vile things to people for no better reason than entertainment that you could never in a million years get past an IRB (ie, Candid Camera or the similar shows that scare people). That doesn't prevent you from doing those stupid and vile things to people. It only, at most, limits your ability to publish results from your stupid and vile activities in scholarly journals.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:33 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
In much the same way, you can do all sorts of stupid and vile things to people for no better reason than entertainment that you could never in a million years get past an IRB (ie, Candid Camera or the similar shows that scare people). That doesn't prevent you from doing those stupid and vile things to people. It only, at most, limits your ability to publish results from your stupid and vile activities in scholarly journals.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:33 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
I've been thinking about this a bit. Clearly they stepped over a line with the state seal.
But it's weird that there are a lot of things you can do normally that aren't allowed to be included in publishable research. And its weird because it creates this penumbra of information that private groups can assemble but trained investigators can't. So we have "Election Labs" but have to pretend like the information garnered is less trustworthy than fancy instrumental variable analyses using natural experiments, when likely the reverse is true.
It's also a problem for people (and I include myself in this group) who want to have information about elections and want to make democracy better. The stronger version of the objection (i.e. you might affect an election!) would negate a lot of research done, for instance, on the Oregon Citizens Initiative Review.
Like I said from the start, the state seal use pushes this into illegitimacy and likely into fraud. But it's really weird that we live in a world where providing accurate information about candidates for an election is considered tampering.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:42 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
But it's weird that there are a lot of things you can do normally that aren't allowed to be included in publishable research. And its weird because it creates this penumbra of information that private groups can assemble but trained investigators can't. So we have "Election Labs" but have to pretend like the information garnered is less trustworthy than fancy instrumental variable analyses using natural experiments, when likely the reverse is true.
It's also a problem for people (and I include myself in this group) who want to have information about elections and want to make democracy better. The stronger version of the objection (i.e. you might affect an election!) would negate a lot of research done, for instance, on the Oregon Citizens Initiative Review.
Like I said from the start, the state seal use pushes this into illegitimacy and likely into fraud. But it's really weird that we live in a world where providing accurate information about candidates for an election is considered tampering.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:42 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
I can't remember where I saw it, but there was a comment floating around that these profs would not have done a similar study based in California or NH. It struck me as one of the few times (to my mind) that the anti-elite viewpoint was totally correct. Montana has specifically chosen to require its judicial elections non-partisan. And here come outside profs saying "actually..no. We don't want that." Do they have the moral right to inject themselves into the public debate like that? I don't think so.
posted by Lemurrhea at 7:45 AM on October 28, 2014
posted by Lemurrhea at 7:45 AM on October 28, 2014
But it's really weird that we live in a world where providing accurate information about candidates for an election is considered tampering.
But "providing accurate information about candidates" is not what pushed it in to tampering territory, as you acknowledge. Non-partisan groups, like the League of Women Voters, provide information like this and manage to do so without breaking election laws.
posted by rtha at 7:47 AM on October 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
But "providing accurate information about candidates" is not what pushed it in to tampering territory, as you acknowledge. Non-partisan groups, like the League of Women Voters, provide information like this and manage to do so without breaking election laws.
posted by rtha at 7:47 AM on October 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
Like said above, the question of whether experiments should impact real world outcomes is a total red herring. The issue here isn't that the experiment impacted the election, (any measurement does, or at least could), it's the blatant attempt to deceive. Blattman misses the point.
posted by spaltavian at 7:50 AM on October 28, 2014
posted by spaltavian at 7:50 AM on October 28, 2014
rtha: "Many activist groups and political organizations send out voter information mailers and do so without presenting them in ways that break election laws."
Yeah, this part is pretty hilarious to me because when you call your friendly neighborhood (union) printer to get your mailers done for the election, the printer will be like, "Um, I noticed your mailer is missing [some required bit of information to meet election laws], do you want to fix that before we go to press?" I mean, you can say "no, no, I want a non-compliant mailer" and they'll do that, but certainly the printer is going to point that sort of thing out to you.
The printers with the expertise to do political mailers know how to do political mailers. I'm curious if they had them printed at a shop that doesn't regularly do political mailers, or had them prepared out of state, or just ignored the printer's warning, or what.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:51 AM on October 28, 2014 [3 favorites]
Yeah, this part is pretty hilarious to me because when you call your friendly neighborhood (union) printer to get your mailers done for the election, the printer will be like, "Um, I noticed your mailer is missing [some required bit of information to meet election laws], do you want to fix that before we go to press?" I mean, you can say "no, no, I want a non-compliant mailer" and they'll do that, but certainly the printer is going to point that sort of thing out to you.
The printers with the expertise to do political mailers know how to do political mailers. I'm curious if they had them printed at a shop that doesn't regularly do political mailers, or had them prepared out of state, or just ignored the printer's warning, or what.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:51 AM on October 28, 2014 [3 favorites]
But it's weird that there are a lot of things you can do normally that aren't allowed to be included in publishable research.
I think that's pretty clearly due to the ethically... murky (to put it lightly) history of human-subject research, and a desire by research institutions to make sure that human-subject studies, even in the social sciences, are above reproach. Most scientific fields and institutions have purposely chosen a bar higher than "is this actually illegal" when deciding whether to let a researcher go forward with a study. (Meaning, if you do something that's actually illegal, you're probably way the fuck out of line.)
I guess you could set up Crazy Eddie State University, where "our IRBs set the bar so low, it's insaneeeee" and instead of a traditional IRB just have a couple of lawyers reviewing proposals to see if they are actually illegal, which is probably what Fox does when they're floating a new reality-TV show idea. You might get some more data that way, but you'd probably do it at the cost of not being taken particularly seriously by your colleagues who would (rightly) see themselves as hewing to a higher standard of practice.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:55 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
I think that's pretty clearly due to the ethically... murky (to put it lightly) history of human-subject research, and a desire by research institutions to make sure that human-subject studies, even in the social sciences, are above reproach. Most scientific fields and institutions have purposely chosen a bar higher than "is this actually illegal" when deciding whether to let a researcher go forward with a study. (Meaning, if you do something that's actually illegal, you're probably way the fuck out of line.)
I guess you could set up Crazy Eddie State University, where "our IRBs set the bar so low, it's insaneeeee" and instead of a traditional IRB just have a couple of lawyers reviewing proposals to see if they are actually illegal, which is probably what Fox does when they're floating a new reality-TV show idea. You might get some more data that way, but you'd probably do it at the cost of not being taken particularly seriously by your colleagues who would (rightly) see themselves as hewing to a higher standard of practice.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:55 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
Beyond "not being taken particuarly seriously", you wouldn't be able to publish in standard journals (which generally have rules about IRB oversight). And you certainly wouldn't be able to get any government funds for your research.
posted by demiurge at 7:59 AM on October 28, 2014
posted by demiurge at 7:59 AM on October 28, 2014
I can't remember where I saw it, but there was a comment floating around that these profs would not have done a similar study based in California or NH.
They did though. I don't know if they had the seal in CA or NH though.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:01 AM on October 28, 2014
They did though. I don't know if they had the seal in CA or NH though.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:01 AM on October 28, 2014
I can't remember where I saw it, but there was a comment floating around that these profs would not have done a similar study based in California or NH. It struck me as one of the few times (to my mind) that the anti-elite viewpoint was totally correct.
Did you or the comment you're referring to pull California and NH out of a hat, or is it just a coincidence that picking those two states makes the claim factually inaccurate not merely in the hypothetical but in regards to this very case?
Did you or the comment you're referring to pull California and NH out of a hat, or is it just a coincidence that picking those two states makes the claim factually inaccurate not merely in the hypothetical but in regards to this very case?
It included 100,000 mailers sent throughout Montana, 66,000 mailers sent in September in one New Hampshire congressional district, and 143,000 mailers sent to two congressional districts in California.posted by nobody at 8:04 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
I can cite several IRB rules that actually make research less rather than more ethical. IRBs respond to a real history of serious violations. But they don't have a monopoly on right and wrong.
For instance, IRB treats research on and with prisoners quite carefully, as it should. But one particular IRB rule requires prison officials to approve such research, and Maryland prisons have refused to do so since March 2011 as a matter of policy, citing budget constraints, unless all contact with prisoners is through the mail and thus subject to inspection and censorship by the officials.
Effectively, this means that research that preserves the research subjects' anonymity is now unethical in Maryland. Which is great for prison officials, but harms the very prisoners it is supposed to protect.
Non-partisan groups, like the League of Women Voters, provide information like this and manage to do so without breaking election laws.
Tell that to Jon Tester, or many of the commenters in this thread.
I've looked at the mailers, and though they may well run afoul of the technical requirements of the law, they do not appear deceptive to me. Sure, they include the state seal, but the word "Montana" on the seal is printed at about the same size as the supposed "small print." If you think this flyer is actually deceptive (that is, that the recipients will actually be deceived about the source of the flyer in significant numbers) you're basically assuming voters are too stupid to vote.
In election law, there are many technical requirements. These flyers almost certainly violate those technical requirements. But that's not the same thing as saying there's anything directly unethical about them. I'm happy saying: it was dumb to violate the law. But the dumb move was not producing compliant flyers, not trying to do this research in the first place. And compliance with dumb laws is prudent but not really deeply, directly unethical in the way that the outrage seems to suggest.
It could also be a little dumb that you need an election law lawyer to do research in this area.
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:07 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
For instance, IRB treats research on and with prisoners quite carefully, as it should. But one particular IRB rule requires prison officials to approve such research, and Maryland prisons have refused to do so since March 2011 as a matter of policy, citing budget constraints, unless all contact with prisoners is through the mail and thus subject to inspection and censorship by the officials.
Effectively, this means that research that preserves the research subjects' anonymity is now unethical in Maryland. Which is great for prison officials, but harms the very prisoners it is supposed to protect.
Non-partisan groups, like the League of Women Voters, provide information like this and manage to do so without breaking election laws.
Tell that to Jon Tester, or many of the commenters in this thread.
I've looked at the mailers, and though they may well run afoul of the technical requirements of the law, they do not appear deceptive to me. Sure, they include the state seal, but the word "Montana" on the seal is printed at about the same size as the supposed "small print." If you think this flyer is actually deceptive (that is, that the recipients will actually be deceived about the source of the flyer in significant numbers) you're basically assuming voters are too stupid to vote.
In election law, there are many technical requirements. These flyers almost certainly violate those technical requirements. But that's not the same thing as saying there's anything directly unethical about them. I'm happy saying: it was dumb to violate the law. But the dumb move was not producing compliant flyers, not trying to do this research in the first place. And compliance with dumb laws is prudent but not really deeply, directly unethical in the way that the outrage seems to suggest.
It could also be a little dumb that you need an election law lawyer to do research in this area.
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:07 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
Sure, they include the state seal, but the word "Montana" on the seal is printed at about the same size as the supposed "small print."
Montanans would be quite able to recognize the state seal without having to literally read the word "Montana" on the seal itself. Indeed, the whole point of having a seal is the fact that it is recognizable as a graphic, as the sort of thing which appears on official buildings, documents, communiques, etc. As such, I can very easily see how somebody could have construed that flier as an official mailing.
I believe that there was no intent to deceive, but rather that this is an example of plain old professional incompetence. Doesn't matter. Many smaller organizations are able to produce compliant fliers every election year.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:27 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
Montanans would be quite able to recognize the state seal without having to literally read the word "Montana" on the seal itself. Indeed, the whole point of having a seal is the fact that it is recognizable as a graphic, as the sort of thing which appears on official buildings, documents, communiques, etc. As such, I can very easily see how somebody could have construed that flier as an official mailing.
I believe that there was no intent to deceive, but rather that this is an example of plain old professional incompetence. Doesn't matter. Many smaller organizations are able to produce compliant fliers every election year.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:27 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
I guess you could set up Crazy Eddie State University, where "our IRBs set the bar so low, it's insaneeeee"
Ha, nice
posted by clockzero at 8:28 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
Ha, nice
posted by clockzero at 8:28 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
The printers with the expertise to do political mailers know how to do political mailers.
The Montana one does have a union bug on it, on the bottom of the front.
posted by smackfu at 8:39 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
The Montana one does have a union bug on it, on the bottom of the front.
posted by smackfu at 8:39 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
> Non-partisan groups, like the League of Women Voters, provide information like this and manage to do so without breaking election laws.
> Tell that to Jon Tester, or many of the commenters in this thread.
I don't understand what point you're making here - can you explain? (I am also drinking more coffee, so that may help eventually.)
> It could also be a little dumb that you need an election law lawyer to do research in this area.
I don't think it's asking too much that you have (or hire someone who has) some basic knowledge of the field you're testing in - at least, knowing enough to know that there might be legal things and illegal things, and that one should know where and what the boundaries of those are. It shouldn't be news to political scientists that potential voter fraud in the form of mailers is a thing that occurs in election seasons.
posted by rtha at 8:40 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
> Tell that to Jon Tester, or many of the commenters in this thread.
I don't understand what point you're making here - can you explain? (I am also drinking more coffee, so that may help eventually.)
> It could also be a little dumb that you need an election law lawyer to do research in this area.
I don't think it's asking too much that you have (or hire someone who has) some basic knowledge of the field you're testing in - at least, knowing enough to know that there might be legal things and illegal things, and that one should know where and what the boundaries of those are. It shouldn't be news to political scientists that potential voter fraud in the form of mailers is a thing that occurs in election seasons.
posted by rtha at 8:40 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
Huh, guess I was wrong about the Cali/NH thing. Read most of the coverage a couple of days ago, don't remember it there.
Still wondering if they used seals from those states, but that's less important.
posted by Lemurrhea at 8:44 AM on October 28, 2014
Still wondering if they used seals from those states, but that's less important.
posted by Lemurrhea at 8:44 AM on October 28, 2014
I believe that there was no intent to deceive
I think it's obvious that there was a limited intent to deceive -- to appear enough like an official mailing that people would read the content instead of just chucking it.
Or, stated differently, they attempted to deceive people about who produced the mailing because they thought clear and accurate information about who produced it -- replacing the state seal with ACADEMIC RESEARCH or the Stanford or Dartmouth logo -- would result in many people choosing not to participate in their experiment. Which is a really, really bad reason to deceive people.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:46 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
I think it's obvious that there was a limited intent to deceive -- to appear enough like an official mailing that people would read the content instead of just chucking it.
Or, stated differently, they attempted to deceive people about who produced the mailing because they thought clear and accurate information about who produced it -- replacing the state seal with ACADEMIC RESEARCH or the Stanford or Dartmouth logo -- would result in many people choosing not to participate in their experiment. Which is a really, really bad reason to deceive people.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:46 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
I heard through the grapevine that the Stanford prof also has a start-up company that sells political information, and this information is used on these fliers. So there's another level of shady here.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:47 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:47 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
I think it's obvious that there was a limited intent to deceive -- to appear enough like an official mailing that people would read the content instead of just chucking it.
Oh, I didn't even think about that, good call. I just thought it was more like a naive undergrad kind of mistake - "this is about Montana elections, so let's just put the state seal on here".
I heard through the grapevine that the Stanford prof also has a start-up company that sells political information, and this information is used on these fliers. So there's another level of shady here.
Eep. That doesn't sound great.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:50 AM on October 28, 2014
Oh, I didn't even think about that, good call. I just thought it was more like a naive undergrad kind of mistake - "this is about Montana elections, so let's just put the state seal on here".
I heard through the grapevine that the Stanford prof also has a start-up company that sells political information, and this information is used on these fliers. So there's another level of shady here.
Eep. That doesn't sound great.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:50 AM on October 28, 2014
My comment about this on another website:
I'm of two minds about this.
On one hand, what these "researchers" did is idiotic and criminal, and I will not shed a tear as the book lands heavily on them.
On the other hand, the "non-partisan" judicial election is one of few ways that you can make a really expletiving bad idea (an elected judiciary) worse. Don't insult my intelligence - we know that these judges aren't nonpartisan, don't pretend that they are.
In short, this is why I love my expletiving home state, folks.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:58 AM on October 28, 2014
I'm of two minds about this.
On one hand, what these "researchers" did is idiotic and criminal, and I will not shed a tear as the book lands heavily on them.
On the other hand, the "non-partisan" judicial election is one of few ways that you can make a really expletiving bad idea (an elected judiciary) worse. Don't insult my intelligence - we know that these judges aren't nonpartisan, don't pretend that they are.
In short, this is why I love my expletiving home state, folks.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:58 AM on October 28, 2014
I heard through the grapevine that the Stanford prof also has a start-up company that sells political information, and this information is used on these fliers. So there's another level of shady here.
I expect that's mixing up two things.
The ideal points on the mailer are almost certainly from Bonica's estimates, which look at patterns of campaign donations -- if you get a lot of money from people who also donated to Barack Obama but not from people who donated to Elizabeth Warren, that's evidence that you're more like Obama than you are like Warren. Repeat for a gazillion donors, PACs, and candidates. These estimates are free for the taking from one of Bonica's web pages, though I imagine there are restrictions on commercial use.*
My understanding is the startup uses similar techniques to try to get more refined information. So if you want to contribute to people who are predisposed to want to vote for $THING, you can hire them and they'll estimate which candidates are most likely to support $THING if elected.
*The resulting estimates are sort of weird; they neatly divide D's from R's but within each party pick out a different ordering than you'd see from votes or campaign statements -- the people Bonica says are conservative D's aren't necessarily the same D's that vote conservatively or who make conservative statements to the public.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:08 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
I expect that's mixing up two things.
The ideal points on the mailer are almost certainly from Bonica's estimates, which look at patterns of campaign donations -- if you get a lot of money from people who also donated to Barack Obama but not from people who donated to Elizabeth Warren, that's evidence that you're more like Obama than you are like Warren. Repeat for a gazillion donors, PACs, and candidates. These estimates are free for the taking from one of Bonica's web pages, though I imagine there are restrictions on commercial use.*
My understanding is the startup uses similar techniques to try to get more refined information. So if you want to contribute to people who are predisposed to want to vote for $THING, you can hire them and they'll estimate which candidates are most likely to support $THING if elected.
*The resulting estimates are sort of weird; they neatly divide D's from R's but within each party pick out a different ordering than you'd see from votes or campaign statements -- the people Bonica says are conservative D's aren't necessarily the same D's that vote conservatively or who make conservative statements to the public.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:08 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
I don't understand what point you're making here - can you explain? (I am also drinking more coffee, so that may help eventually.)
Many people object to the subject of the research: providing ideological information about candidates for an office where parties are not identified. Others object to outsiders of any stripe providing information to Montana voters during the election. Since that is what many other groups do, those objections don't seem to hold water.
It shouldn't be news to political scientists that potential voter fraud in the form of mailers is a thing that occurs in election seasons.
Indeed not. Which is why I agree they did something dumb but am not convinced that their dumb lawbreaking was unethical. Every state has a substantially similar relationship to its state seal: they claim a copyright and make it a crime (usually a misdemeanor) to use it without authorization.
I think it's obvious that there was a limited intent to deceive -- to appear enough like an official mailing that people would read the content instead of just chucking it.
What ROU_Xenophobe calls a "limited intent to deceive" is actually often accepted by IRBs. The rule is generally that any smallscale deceptions be necessary for the experiment and explained/debriefed later, after the experiment. Here, the "limited deception" is literally explained at the bottom of the same page.
So this could very well have been included in the researchers' IRB applications, and then passed, if no one considered the state seal issues (which involve specialized legal knowledge.) Since the IRB is likely not made up of election lawyers, they would have been asking about whether recipients would really be deceived in a harmful way (no, obviously not) rather than whether there was a technical legal violation.
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:13 AM on October 28, 2014
Many people object to the subject of the research: providing ideological information about candidates for an office where parties are not identified. Others object to outsiders of any stripe providing information to Montana voters during the election. Since that is what many other groups do, those objections don't seem to hold water.
It shouldn't be news to political scientists that potential voter fraud in the form of mailers is a thing that occurs in election seasons.
Indeed not. Which is why I agree they did something dumb but am not convinced that their dumb lawbreaking was unethical. Every state has a substantially similar relationship to its state seal: they claim a copyright and make it a crime (usually a misdemeanor) to use it without authorization.
I think it's obvious that there was a limited intent to deceive -- to appear enough like an official mailing that people would read the content instead of just chucking it.
What ROU_Xenophobe calls a "limited intent to deceive" is actually often accepted by IRBs. The rule is generally that any smallscale deceptions be necessary for the experiment and explained/debriefed later, after the experiment. Here, the "limited deception" is literally explained at the bottom of the same page.
So this could very well have been included in the researchers' IRB applications, and then passed, if no one considered the state seal issues (which involve specialized legal knowledge.) Since the IRB is likely not made up of election lawyers, they would have been asking about whether recipients would really be deceived in a harmful way (no, obviously not) rather than whether there was a technical legal violation.
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:13 AM on October 28, 2014
Questions Emerge About Potential Conflict of Interest Between Mailergate and Silicon Valley Start-up
There are a few interesting developments today in the evolving mailergate scandal in which Stanford “researchers,” along with a researcher at Dartmouth College, sent 100,000 fake “voter guides” into Montana, with the look and feel of official state voter guides. You can see the fake voter guides at the Flathead Memo here.posted by rtha at 9:20 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
First, it appears that one of the Stanford professors has a for-profit side venture called CrowdPAC https://www.crowdpac.com/about This obviously raises questions about about a potential conflict of interest between mailergate and Assistant Professor Adam Bonica’s for-profit silicon valley startup company.
Bonica co-founded CrowdPAC with a former aid to British Prime Minister David Cameron named Steve Hilton. CrowdPAC is funded by blue chip venture capital funds and appears to have both republicans and democrats involved in various capacities.
Part of this may be what you think the 'limited deception' is: is it that they wanted people to think that the mailing was from the State? Or that the research project was approved by the State? That the mailing was endorsed by the State?
You have ignored one of the most obvious reasons to use the seal: the flyer is about the state.
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:41 AM on October 28, 2014
You have ignored one of the most obvious reasons to use the seal: the flyer is about the state.
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:41 AM on October 28, 2014
I'm finding this whole thing hilarious, in a really sick kind of way. I literally just got off the phone with the campaign finance expert who is advising a campaign I'm working on. My group has a Slate Mail Organization and a Political Action Committee and we're fielding volunteers all over the city and trust me, if you screw up with any of the financing and spending and reporting, there are serious repercussions. Campaign/election laws are serious business, and while they're kind of making me pull my hair out today, they are (mostly) in the interest of making elections and campaigns as transparent and above-board as possible. To so blatantly flout those laws is, among other things, shitty behavior.
I'd be deeply interested in the *results* of this kind of research. I very much want to know what's effective at increasing voter turnout. But that people who do this research for a living were so naive about actual campaign finance LAW that they thought they could do this kind of research???? I boggle. The making non-partisan races partisan?? The use of the state seal, FFS?
I'm now also wondering about the extent to which the media coverage of research like this makes voters more cynical and less likely to turn out.
I'm also very interested in which 2 CA Congressional districts they were researching. Has anyone seen that information in the reporting?
posted by gingerbeer at 9:49 AM on October 28, 2014
I'd be deeply interested in the *results* of this kind of research. I very much want to know what's effective at increasing voter turnout. But that people who do this research for a living were so naive about actual campaign finance LAW that they thought they could do this kind of research???? I boggle. The making non-partisan races partisan?? The use of the state seal, FFS?
I'm now also wondering about the extent to which the media coverage of research like this makes voters more cynical and less likely to turn out.
I'm also very interested in which 2 CA Congressional districts they were researching. Has anyone seen that information in the reporting?
posted by gingerbeer at 9:49 AM on October 28, 2014
This is really interesting to me as someone who used to be involved in the world of voter turnout and experiments (a bit) like these. I think there are a few things that are important to know as context here.
One, there's been a huge upsurge in research around how to get people to vote. This is related to the upsurge in behavioral science research in general, and uses a lot of the same tactics. When I was involved in this world, there were a few political scientists doing experiments like this, and most of them were genuinely motivated by a desire to get more people to vote. Most worked closely with civic engagement groups, who used their research to get more people voting. I noticed that one of the professors involved in this experiment got his PhD at Yale, so he probably studied with David Green and Alan Gerber, the godfathers of this kind of research.
However, this kind of research has become a big deal, with lots of consultants getting in on the game. And the Obama campaigns somewhat famously used this research, which means that now every campaign and political organization wants to use this research or conduct their own experiments. So I can definitely see how this would create a situation where more experiments are happening with less of an ethical grounding.
Second, one thing that a ton of experiments have found is that the more "boring" and "official" your mailers look, the more effective they will be. Which makes sense - people see something that looks glossy, assume it's an ad, and throw it away. So that was probably the aim behind this mailer - build on that research to see if something with a state seal will be more effective. I would love to see the "control" mailers. I wonder if they were just plain, without the seal (to test if "boring but not official" worked as well as "boring and official") or if they were more glossy.
Not to say that the second point makes it ethically ok. But a lot of the things that make a voter turnout mailer more effective are ethically weird, and I think we'll see more and more of these mini-scandals.
posted by lunasol at 9:49 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
One, there's been a huge upsurge in research around how to get people to vote. This is related to the upsurge in behavioral science research in general, and uses a lot of the same tactics. When I was involved in this world, there were a few political scientists doing experiments like this, and most of them were genuinely motivated by a desire to get more people to vote. Most worked closely with civic engagement groups, who used their research to get more people voting. I noticed that one of the professors involved in this experiment got his PhD at Yale, so he probably studied with David Green and Alan Gerber, the godfathers of this kind of research.
However, this kind of research has become a big deal, with lots of consultants getting in on the game. And the Obama campaigns somewhat famously used this research, which means that now every campaign and political organization wants to use this research or conduct their own experiments. So I can definitely see how this would create a situation where more experiments are happening with less of an ethical grounding.
Second, one thing that a ton of experiments have found is that the more "boring" and "official" your mailers look, the more effective they will be. Which makes sense - people see something that looks glossy, assume it's an ad, and throw it away. So that was probably the aim behind this mailer - build on that research to see if something with a state seal will be more effective. I would love to see the "control" mailers. I wonder if they were just plain, without the seal (to test if "boring but not official" worked as well as "boring and official") or if they were more glossy.
Not to say that the second point makes it ethically ok. But a lot of the things that make a voter turnout mailer more effective are ethically weird, and I think we'll see more and more of these mini-scandals.
posted by lunasol at 9:49 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
You have ignored one of the most obvious reasons to use the seal: the flyer is about the state.
That may have been part of their internal logic, but that is not a good enough reason to use a state seal. Take a look at Montana's own page about its own Great Seal. Much as with every other state I'm aware of, use of the Great Seal is restricted: it is for official state purposes, or when authorized by the state for certain educational or commemorative purposes.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:49 AM on October 28, 2014 [5 favorites]
That may have been part of their internal logic, but that is not a good enough reason to use a state seal. Take a look at Montana's own page about its own Great Seal. Much as with every other state I'm aware of, use of the Great Seal is restricted: it is for official state purposes, or when authorized by the state for certain educational or commemorative purposes.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:49 AM on October 28, 2014 [5 favorites]
What ROU_Xenophobe calls a "limited intent to deceive" is actually often accepted by IRBs.
Sure, but I haven't had much confidence in IRBs for a while now. They're too willing to ignore issues of consent, too unwilling to even investigate issues of how innocuous research on unconsenting human subjects is, and too willing to approve deception, including outright lying to elected officials. Which, for any institution partially sponsored by the government, is just soooo stupid.
I would love to see the "control" mailers.
There were no control mailers, only precincts that did or did not receive the mailer. The research was about the inclusion of the ideal-point information, not the inclusion of the state seal.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:59 AM on October 28, 2014
Sure, but I haven't had much confidence in IRBs for a while now. They're too willing to ignore issues of consent, too unwilling to even investigate issues of how innocuous research on unconsenting human subjects is, and too willing to approve deception, including outright lying to elected officials. Which, for any institution partially sponsored by the government, is just soooo stupid.
I would love to see the "control" mailers.
There were no control mailers, only precincts that did or did not receive the mailer. The research was about the inclusion of the ideal-point information, not the inclusion of the state seal.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:59 AM on October 28, 2014
anotherpanacea: You have ignored one of the most obvious reasons to use the seal: the flyer is about the state.
A seal isn't like a flag; that's like saying I can forge your signature because something is about you. Seals are for official purposes.
Using a seal gives the impression the information is coming from an governmental body. These are nakedly deceptive.
posted by spaltavian at 9:59 AM on October 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
A seal isn't like a flag; that's like saying I can forge your signature because something is about you. Seals are for official purposes.
Using a seal gives the impression the information is coming from an governmental body. These are nakedly deceptive.
posted by spaltavian at 9:59 AM on October 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
Ah -- the 2 CA Congressional races are R/R races under top 2.
CA 25 is the Strickland/Knight race, both R.
CA 4 is McClintock/Moore. Also both R.
Those are the only 2 R v. R races in the state this cycle.
posted by gingerbeer at 10:02 AM on October 28, 2014
CA 25 is the Strickland/Knight race, both R.
CA 4 is McClintock/Moore. Also both R.
Those are the only 2 R v. R races in the state this cycle.
posted by gingerbeer at 10:02 AM on October 28, 2014
Much as with every other state I'm aware of, use of the Great Seal is restricted: it is for official state purposes, or when authorized by the state for certain educational or commemorative purposes.
Since I mentioned this in a previous comment, may I assume you're plagiarizing me? :-)
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:04 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
Since I mentioned this in a previous comment, may I assume you're plagiarizing me? :-)
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:04 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
Any mefites live in those districts and get any funny mailers?
posted by gingerbeer at 10:04 AM on October 28, 2014
posted by gingerbeer at 10:04 AM on October 28, 2014
Sure, but I haven't had much confidence in IRBs for a while now. They're too willing to ignore issues of consent, too unwilling to even investigate issues of how innocuous research on unconsenting human subjects is, and too willing to approve deception, including outright lying to elected officials. Which, for any institution partially sponsored by the government, is just soooo stupid.
To my mind, the real issue is that IRBs have a very contractualist conception of consent and research ethics generally. They really ought to be inculcated with a virtue-ethics model of research oversight. De-bureaucratize, move towards a principled-regulation model, and then revisit these questions. But the federal (and sometimes state) funding issue means that these changes usually have to come from the legislature or another bureaucratic body, which they won't.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:12 AM on October 28, 2014
To my mind, the real issue is that IRBs have a very contractualist conception of consent and research ethics generally. They really ought to be inculcated with a virtue-ethics model of research oversight. De-bureaucratize, move towards a principled-regulation model, and then revisit these questions. But the federal (and sometimes state) funding issue means that these changes usually have to come from the legislature or another bureaucratic body, which they won't.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:12 AM on October 28, 2014
Since I mentioned this in a previous comment, may I assume you're plagiarizing me? :-)
Quite the opposite, unfortunately! :) My apologies for misunderstanding you.
I'm not sure if I agree any longer that they used the seal simply because the letter was about Montana elections, and that they were unaware that this was almost certainly illegal. It seems unlikely that poli sci academic would be honestly unaware that state seals cannot generally be used willy-nilly. I don't know where I had absorbed this knowledge in life myself, but it was certainly before law school. I don't know that I would call this "specialized legal knowledge", as MisantropicPainForest does; even if you didn't already know this fact, it's in plain language when you do a simple Bing search for "montana state seal" and click on the first link from Montana.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:13 AM on October 28, 2014
Quite the opposite, unfortunately! :) My apologies for misunderstanding you.
I'm not sure if I agree any longer that they used the seal simply because the letter was about Montana elections, and that they were unaware that this was almost certainly illegal. It seems unlikely that poli sci academic would be honestly unaware that state seals cannot generally be used willy-nilly. I don't know where I had absorbed this knowledge in life myself, but it was certainly before law school. I don't know that I would call this "specialized legal knowledge", as MisantropicPainForest does; even if you didn't already know this fact, it's in plain language when you do a simple Bing search for "montana state seal" and click on the first link from Montana.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:13 AM on October 28, 2014
It seems unlikely that poli sci academic would be honestly unaware that state seals cannot generally be used willy-nilly.
You would be surprised.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:15 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
You would be surprised.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:15 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
Bonica's CrowdPAC is scoring the CA 25 race and the 4th as well.
I do not believe that a researcher who also runs a political consulting/education company is so naive about election laws that he doesn't know he might need to consult election lawyers about things relating to his research. If he is that naive, no one should be paying his consulting firm any money.
posted by rtha at 10:17 AM on October 28, 2014
I do not believe that a researcher who also runs a political consulting/education company is so naive about election laws that he doesn't know he might need to consult election lawyers about things relating to his research. If he is that naive, no one should be paying his consulting firm any money.
posted by rtha at 10:17 AM on October 28, 2014
I don't know where I had absorbed this knowledge in life myself, but it was certainly before law school.
Perhaps. But I learned it from my attorney spouse, before which I thought all the signs and seals of the government were in the public domain or covered by some sort "I PAY FUCKING TAXES AND YOU MADE THE SEAL WITH MY MONEY" fair use exemption. Frankly I think it takes a somewhat specialized legal understanding to think seriously about copyright and intellectual property at all in our era. And political scientists are pretty well-divided between quantitative and public law types, who are actually kind of weirdly indifferent to the knowledge of the others.
I do not believe that a researcher who also runs a political consulting/education company is so naive about election laws that he doesn't know he might need to consult election lawyers about things relating to his research. If he is that naive, no one should be paying his consulting firm any money.
One man's modus ponens is another man's modus tolens, right? The real issue here is that anyone with a clue about the potential legal consequences would not make this mistake. They just wouldn't: you can't really assign full knowledge to the people who made the flyer because it's too expensive and dumb a mistake to make. They may have thought they were engaged in deception or been willfully blind to the possible deceptive issues or neglected to consult an attorney, but it's obvious that they wouldn't have made this mistake knowingly because of how destructive it could be to their careers and wallets.
These guys definitely strike me as DW-Nominate nerds, that is, quantitative social scientists. So I suspect they just don't think seriously about law or constitutional issues.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:22 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
Perhaps. But I learned it from my attorney spouse, before which I thought all the signs and seals of the government were in the public domain or covered by some sort "I PAY FUCKING TAXES AND YOU MADE THE SEAL WITH MY MONEY" fair use exemption. Frankly I think it takes a somewhat specialized legal understanding to think seriously about copyright and intellectual property at all in our era. And political scientists are pretty well-divided between quantitative and public law types, who are actually kind of weirdly indifferent to the knowledge of the others.
I do not believe that a researcher who also runs a political consulting/education company is so naive about election laws that he doesn't know he might need to consult election lawyers about things relating to his research. If he is that naive, no one should be paying his consulting firm any money.
One man's modus ponens is another man's modus tolens, right? The real issue here is that anyone with a clue about the potential legal consequences would not make this mistake. They just wouldn't: you can't really assign full knowledge to the people who made the flyer because it's too expensive and dumb a mistake to make. They may have thought they were engaged in deception or been willfully blind to the possible deceptive issues or neglected to consult an attorney, but it's obvious that they wouldn't have made this mistake knowingly because of how destructive it could be to their careers and wallets.
These guys definitely strike me as DW-Nominate nerds, that is, quantitative social scientists. So I suspect they just don't think seriously about law or constitutional issues.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:22 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
But how do you study real world behavior of people in, say, elections, without even attempting to understand how legal constraints affect that behavior?
posted by gingerbeer at 10:25 AM on October 28, 2014
posted by gingerbeer at 10:25 AM on October 28, 2014
You would be surprised.
Perhaps, perhaps. What's obvious to one person is not necessarily obvious to other people, especially if it's never come up before. I myself only recently learned what the little red flags on mailboxes are for. (I have never lived somewhere with such a mailbox, FWIW).
I can't speak to the mental state of these researchers, but I don't feel overly judgy for saying that they should have known better. Not necessarily in the sense that they should have already known that discrete fact about state seals, but in the sense that you ought to know that you need to do basic homework for sending out materials related to an election. Hell, the study was related to the very fact that Montana has unique election laws. Honk honk elections are governed by laws honk honk.
Either way, I don't think it's unfair that they should have consulted a lawyer with knowledge of Montana election laws, especially since the issue of the state seal is something that you didn't even need a lawyer to find out.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:27 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
Perhaps, perhaps. What's obvious to one person is not necessarily obvious to other people, especially if it's never come up before. I myself only recently learned what the little red flags on mailboxes are for. (I have never lived somewhere with such a mailbox, FWIW).
I can't speak to the mental state of these researchers, but I don't feel overly judgy for saying that they should have known better. Not necessarily in the sense that they should have already known that discrete fact about state seals, but in the sense that you ought to know that you need to do basic homework for sending out materials related to an election. Hell, the study was related to the very fact that Montana has unique election laws. Honk honk elections are governed by laws honk honk.
Either way, I don't think it's unfair that they should have consulted a lawyer with knowledge of Montana election laws, especially since the issue of the state seal is something that you didn't even need a lawyer to find out.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:27 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I've said from the start that they very likely committed an act of felony dumbness. (Although it seems just barely possible that they have an out somehow, like an email from some undersecretary of the Board of Elections giving them permission to use the seal.) They are obviously dumbies, and I wouldn't be surprised if they're also in violation in California and New Hampshire, for using the respective seals on those mailers.
I just don't see it as quite the cause of ethics outrage that seems to animate much of the discussion of this. It's more like they got a traffic ticket making a rolling stop at a stop sign or waited more than thirty days after changing addresses to update their photo ID. Like: yeah, the law is the law, and they broke it. But not out of malice, more out of indifference, and in a situation where no one is or could be harmed.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:35 AM on October 28, 2014
I just don't see it as quite the cause of ethics outrage that seems to animate much of the discussion of this. It's more like they got a traffic ticket making a rolling stop at a stop sign or waited more than thirty days after changing addresses to update their photo ID. Like: yeah, the law is the law, and they broke it. But not out of malice, more out of indifference, and in a situation where no one is or could be harmed.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:35 AM on October 28, 2014
But how do you study real world behavior of people in, say, elections, without even attempting to understand how legal constraints affect that behavior?
I don't think that ignoring/being ignorant of laws as it relates to the use of a state seal does not mean one doesn't care about legal constraints affecting voting behavior.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:42 AM on October 28, 2014
I don't think that ignoring/being ignorant of laws as it relates to the use of a state seal does not mean one doesn't care about legal constraints affecting voting behavior.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:42 AM on October 28, 2014
and in a situation where no one is or could be harmed.
It harmed the integrity of the election; i.e., the voters and the candidates. There's a big difference between the Free Americans for Freedom saying Judge XYZ is a liberal, and what appears to be an official state organ saying the same in a non-partisan election.
No malice, sure, but indifferent arrogance? Marginally better. I'm not at all buying this "silly quants, they're so absent minded" line. I'm not an academic, but my degree is in Poli Sci and I have worked on polls, research studies and actual campaigns, and I can't imagine it not occurring to anyone that using the state seal could confuse voters.
posted by spaltavian at 10:44 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
It harmed the integrity of the election; i.e., the voters and the candidates. There's a big difference between the Free Americans for Freedom saying Judge XYZ is a liberal, and what appears to be an official state organ saying the same in a non-partisan election.
No malice, sure, but indifferent arrogance? Marginally better. I'm not at all buying this "silly quants, they're so absent minded" line. I'm not an academic, but my degree is in Poli Sci and I have worked on polls, research studies and actual campaigns, and I can't imagine it not occurring to anyone that using the state seal could confuse voters.
posted by spaltavian at 10:44 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
It harmed the integrity of the election
There I disagree. It violated the law, but it did not harm the integrity of the election.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:46 AM on October 28, 2014
There I disagree. It violated the law, but it did not harm the integrity of the election.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:46 AM on October 28, 2014
This research was apparently approved by the IRB at Dartmouth, but was not submitted for approval at Stanford. The Stanford spokesperson said that "We can now say that the study did not follow Stanford's protocols that would have required a review by the Stanford IRB." I'm having trouble parsing this statement.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:47 AM on October 28, 2014
posted by mr_roboto at 10:47 AM on October 28, 2014
I think the ethical case is stronger than the legal case, actually. It manifestly harmed the integrity of the election.
posted by spaltavian at 10:47 AM on October 28, 2014
posted by spaltavian at 10:47 AM on October 28, 2014
It manifestly harmed the integrity of the election.
Can you say why? What is the harm in providing information about the sources of candidates' campaign contributions?
To me, this looks like it improves the integrity of the election.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:49 AM on October 28, 2014
Can you say why? What is the harm in providing information about the sources of candidates' campaign contributions?
To me, this looks like it improves the integrity of the election.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:49 AM on October 28, 2014
anotherpanacea is wrong.
-Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations
posted by spaltavian at 10:51 AM on October 28, 2014
-Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations
posted by spaltavian at 10:51 AM on October 28, 2014
anotherpanacea is wrong.
-Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations
Isn't this more like saying:
"Metafilter:
spaltavian says "It manifestly harmed the integrity of the election."
anotherpanacea says "To me, this looks like it improves the integrity of the election."
This message was paid for by anotherpanacea."
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:55 AM on October 28, 2014
-Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations
Isn't this more like saying:
"Metafilter:
spaltavian says "It manifestly harmed the integrity of the election."
anotherpanacea says "To me, this looks like it improves the integrity of the election."
This message was paid for by anotherpanacea."
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:55 AM on October 28, 2014
What is the harm in providing information about the sources of candidates' campaign contributions?
That's not what they're being accused of. They're accused of sending out election fliers which appear to have come from the State of Montana. This is especially vivid in light of the fact that the State of Montana has explicitly chosen to keep their judicial elections non-partisan.
Imagine if I found a way to make a MOD tag appear by my name. It would be pretty lousy of me to use that "power" in the first place, even if I only ever used my fake mod status to say basically true things.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:57 AM on October 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
That's not what they're being accused of. They're accused of sending out election fliers which appear to have come from the State of Montana. This is especially vivid in light of the fact that the State of Montana has explicitly chosen to keep their judicial elections non-partisan.
Imagine if I found a way to make a MOD tag appear by my name. It would be pretty lousy of me to use that "power" in the first place, even if I only ever used my fake mod status to say basically true things.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:57 AM on October 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
We appear to be having a fight over what is obvious, manifest, and vivid. Perhaps we don't agree on what is vivid, manifest, or obvious? Let's start over:
What is election integrity?
How does information about the ideological preferences of campaign contributors interfere with it?
posted by anotherpanacea at 11:03 AM on October 28, 2014
What is election integrity?
How does information about the ideological preferences of campaign contributors interfere with it?
posted by anotherpanacea at 11:03 AM on October 28, 2014
Isn't this more like saying:
No, because the fliers didn't present "the facts". Liberal/conservative are subjective statements, that any candidate may object to; nor is DW-Nominate an intrinsically correct measurement.
It would not be appropriate for a government body to tell you who is liberal or conservative. It would not be appropriate for a government body to decide DW-Nominate is a useful or valuable measurement. Even if these were somehow universally settled facts, it wouldn't be appropriate for a government body to tell you which facts are pertinent to your vote.
Add to that the fact that, in the guise of the Montana government, they gave partisan information in an election that the people of Montana, though duly elected representatives, decided shouldn't be partisan. For anyone confused by the flyer, they effectively nullified the standing policy of the state regarding non-partisan elections.
posted by spaltavian at 11:04 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
No, because the fliers didn't present "the facts". Liberal/conservative are subjective statements, that any candidate may object to; nor is DW-Nominate an intrinsically correct measurement.
It would not be appropriate for a government body to tell you who is liberal or conservative. It would not be appropriate for a government body to decide DW-Nominate is a useful or valuable measurement. Even if these were somehow universally settled facts, it wouldn't be appropriate for a government body to tell you which facts are pertinent to your vote.
Add to that the fact that, in the guise of the Montana government, they gave partisan information in an election that the people of Montana, though duly elected representatives, decided shouldn't be partisan. For anyone confused by the flyer, they effectively nullified the standing policy of the state regarding non-partisan elections.
posted by spaltavian at 11:04 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
They're being accused of three things, actually:
I think all three of these compromise the integrity of the election in addition to violating the law. Even the last one is an important ethical concern: regulation of elections is important for maintaining the integrity of elections, and you can't ethically ignore the regulatory body. To do so would be as unethical as for an academic researcher to perform human subject research without getting approval of their institution's IRB. Which may have also happened in this case? Hard to tell.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:04 AM on October 28, 2014 [3 favorites]
I think all three of these compromise the integrity of the election in addition to violating the law. Even the last one is an important ethical concern: regulation of elections is important for maintaining the integrity of elections, and you can't ethically ignore the regulatory body. To do so would be as unethical as for an academic researcher to perform human subject research without getting approval of their institution's IRB. Which may have also happened in this case? Hard to tell.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:04 AM on October 28, 2014 [3 favorites]
How does information about the ideological preferences of campaign contributors interfere with it?
No one is saying that it does. We are saying it does if the government were to do so, or if someone under the guise of the government does.
posted by spaltavian at 11:05 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
No one is saying that it does. We are saying it does if the government were to do so, or if someone under the guise of the government does.
posted by spaltavian at 11:05 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
How does information about the ideological preferences of campaign contributors interfere with it?
It deceives voters in an attempt to make them believe that a nonpartisan race is partisan. It's essentially giving a deceptive description of the voting procedure.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:07 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
It deceives voters in an attempt to make them believe that a nonpartisan race is partisan. It's essentially giving a deceptive description of the voting procedure.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:07 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
What is election integrity?
It includes knowing that there are laws that govern elections, and if you are going to participate in that process, you should acquaint yourself with those laws.
posted by rtha at 11:09 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
It includes knowing that there are laws that govern elections, and if you are going to participate in that process, you should acquaint yourself with those laws.
posted by rtha at 11:09 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
I feel harmed by this, anotherpancaea. Because I am a little tired of outside interests trying to shit on our laws here.
And this is from a MT resident who thinks the "non-partisan" aspect of the judicial elections here is adding stupid on top of stupid.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:31 AM on October 28, 2014
And this is from a MT resident who thinks the "non-partisan" aspect of the judicial elections here is adding stupid on top of stupid.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:31 AM on October 28, 2014
hese guys definitely strike me as DW-Nominate nerds, that is, quantitative social scientists.
They are, except that Bonica got his job at Stanford in large part by coming up with a competitor to nominate (that I mentioned above).
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:39 AM on October 28, 2014
They are, except that Bonica got his job at Stanford in large part by coming up with a competitor to nominate (that I mentioned above).
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:39 AM on October 28, 2014
(disclosure: I don't actually know any of these people but have had the occasional email conversation with Bonica and maybe Rodden)
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:40 AM on October 28, 2014
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:40 AM on October 28, 2014
It deceives voters in an attempt to make them believe that a nonpartisan race is partisan.
Hmm. Which is more deceptive? Taking the label off or putting it back on?
This is a rhetorical question: putting the label back on in this way was explicitly supported by the Supreme Court in Citizens United. Tying people to their funders is protected speech, and rightfully so.
I feel harmed by this, anotherpancaea. Because I am a little tired of outside interests trying to shit on our laws here.
You don't have to tell me that; I live in DC. You get two senators and I get none, despite the fact that your entire state has less than twice as many people as my city. I still remember when YOUR Senator tried to repeal gun regulations in MY city.
Until those senators start supporting DC statehood, you don't get to talk about shitting on other people's laws. Your politicians shit on my laws on a regular basis!
Of course, you also elected Max Baucus, who shit on the whole country. And that is why the constitution guarantees me the right to meddle in your elections.
posted by anotherpanacea at 12:15 PM on October 28, 2014
Hmm. Which is more deceptive? Taking the label off or putting it back on?
This is a rhetorical question: putting the label back on in this way was explicitly supported by the Supreme Court in Citizens United. Tying people to their funders is protected speech, and rightfully so.
I feel harmed by this, anotherpancaea. Because I am a little tired of outside interests trying to shit on our laws here.
You don't have to tell me that; I live in DC. You get two senators and I get none, despite the fact that your entire state has less than twice as many people as my city. I still remember when YOUR Senator tried to repeal gun regulations in MY city.
Until those senators start supporting DC statehood, you don't get to talk about shitting on other people's laws. Your politicians shit on my laws on a regular basis!
Of course, you also elected Max Baucus, who shit on the whole country. And that is why the constitution guarantees me the right to meddle in your elections.
posted by anotherpanacea at 12:15 PM on October 28, 2014
It deceives voters in an attempt to make them believe that a nonpartisan race is partisan. It's essentially giving a deceptive description of the voting procedure.
Let's be honest - the state is deceiving the voters here by placing a nonsensical "non-partisan" veneer over the race. I'd prefer the state just drop the pretense and allow the judges to present their partisan affiliation.
(Actually, what I'd really prefer is to scrap judicial elections altogether, as they are inimical to justice.)
But I don't like outside groups coming in and monkeying with our laws, especially our election laws. The Citizens United ruling really soured me on that.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:21 PM on October 28, 2014
Let's be honest - the state is deceiving the voters here by placing a nonsensical "non-partisan" veneer over the race. I'd prefer the state just drop the pretense and allow the judges to present their partisan affiliation.
(Actually, what I'd really prefer is to scrap judicial elections altogether, as they are inimical to justice.)
But I don't like outside groups coming in and monkeying with our laws, especially our election laws. The Citizens United ruling really soured me on that.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:21 PM on October 28, 2014
Hmm. Which is more deceptive? Taking the label off or putting it back on?
The unauthorized use of a state seal.
"Taking the label off" is a non sequitur. That is not why the researchers got in trouble. You are free to inform Montanans as to where their judicial candidates stand. Just don't break other laws in the process.
This is a rhetorical question
(Sticherbeast puts on Oakleys and backwards red cap, smugly folds arms all macho-style, cue explosions in the background)
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:31 PM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
The unauthorized use of a state seal.
"Taking the label off" is a non sequitur. That is not why the researchers got in trouble. You are free to inform Montanans as to where their judicial candidates stand. Just don't break other laws in the process.
This is a rhetorical question
(Sticherbeast puts on Oakleys and backwards red cap, smugly folds arms all macho-style, cue explosions in the background)
posted by Sticherbeast at 12:31 PM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
Whether or not you think campaign laws improve the process or not, you don't get to break them with impunity.
posted by gingerbeer at 12:39 PM on October 28, 2014
posted by gingerbeer at 12:39 PM on October 28, 2014
The unauthorized use of a state seal.
Stitcherbeast, I'm with you on that one being illegal. But I don't think it harms the integrity of the election.
Whether or not you think campaign laws improve the process or not, you don't get to break them with impunity.
That's fine. But the only law that was broken that has a constitutional basis is the state seal law. Noting the partisan affiliations and donors of putatively nonpartisan candidates is not illegal, even if Montana says it is: it's protected speech, and the Supreme Court has already ruled on this.
posted by anotherpanacea at 12:53 PM on October 28, 2014
Stitcherbeast, I'm with you on that one being illegal. But I don't think it harms the integrity of the election.
Whether or not you think campaign laws improve the process or not, you don't get to break them with impunity.
That's fine. But the only law that was broken that has a constitutional basis is the state seal law. Noting the partisan affiliations and donors of putatively nonpartisan candidates is not illegal, even if Montana says it is: it's protected speech, and the Supreme Court has already ruled on this.
posted by anotherpanacea at 12:53 PM on October 28, 2014
What about the ability of states to regulate the election process? I. E. not registering as a slate mail organization or whatever the Montana equivalent is?
I realize I'm focusing on that because I'm spending a lot of my personal time making sure the group I lead is complying with CA campaign laws, and we would face significant repercussions if we sent out something like that mailer. Again, Montana law may well be different, which is one of the reasons I'm interested in what the researchers did in CA.
posted by gingerbeer at 1:01 PM on October 28, 2014
I realize I'm focusing on that because I'm spending a lot of my personal time making sure the group I lead is complying with CA campaign laws, and we would face significant repercussions if we sent out something like that mailer. Again, Montana law may well be different, which is one of the reasons I'm interested in what the researchers did in CA.
posted by gingerbeer at 1:01 PM on October 28, 2014
Stitcherbeast, I'm with you on that one being illegal. But I don't think it harms the integrity of the election.
You were talking about deceptiveness, which the unauthorized use of a state seal certainly is. You have already made plain this other personal opinion of yours.
Noting the partisan affiliations and donors of putatively nonpartisan candidates is not illegal, even if Montana says it is: it's protected speech, and the Supreme Court has already ruled on this.
Montana law does not say this. The law is that judicial candidates may not present a party affiliation of their own. Other people may send out mailers informing others of judge's partisan backgrounds, as long as they do not break other laws.
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:03 PM on October 28, 2014
You were talking about deceptiveness, which the unauthorized use of a state seal certainly is. You have already made plain this other personal opinion of yours.
Noting the partisan affiliations and donors of putatively nonpartisan candidates is not illegal, even if Montana says it is: it's protected speech, and the Supreme Court has already ruled on this.
Montana law does not say this. The law is that judicial candidates may not present a party affiliation of their own. Other people may send out mailers informing others of judge's partisan backgrounds, as long as they do not break other laws.
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:03 PM on October 28, 2014
You were talking about deceptiveness, which the unauthorized use of a state seal certainly is.
The state seal use is illegal. That doesn't mean that it's deceptive. Have you looked at the flyer? Would *you* think the flyer was produced by or endorsed by the State of Montana or any of its agencies?
Montana law does not say this.
I was responding to mr_roboto, who claims that it does, and others who picked up that objection.
posted by anotherpanacea at 1:42 PM on October 28, 2014
The state seal use is illegal. That doesn't mean that it's deceptive. Have you looked at the flyer? Would *you* think the flyer was produced by or endorsed by the State of Montana or any of its agencies?
Montana law does not say this.
I was responding to mr_roboto, who claims that it does, and others who picked up that objection.
posted by anotherpanacea at 1:42 PM on October 28, 2014
The state seal use is illegal. That doesn't mean that it's deceptive. Have you looked at the flyer? Would *you* think the flyer was produced by or endorsed by the State of Montana or any of its agencies?
This isn't about my subjective impression. Regardless, I would be confused by this mailing. It features the state imprimatur. It would not be clear where it had come from. The fine print isn't especially helpful. This is all part of why it is flatly illegal to use a state seal in this way, without authorization.
I was responding to mr_roboto, who claims that it does, and others who picked up that objection.
You misread him. He was talking about how the false appearance of state endorsement creates the impression that the information about partisan associations is in some way official.
Again, you may offer your own opinion and information as to partisan connections. You just can't use the false imprimatur of the state to do so.
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:53 PM on October 28, 2014 [3 favorites]
This isn't about my subjective impression. Regardless, I would be confused by this mailing. It features the state imprimatur. It would not be clear where it had come from. The fine print isn't especially helpful. This is all part of why it is flatly illegal to use a state seal in this way, without authorization.
I was responding to mr_roboto, who claims that it does, and others who picked up that objection.
You misread him. He was talking about how the false appearance of state endorsement creates the impression that the information about partisan associations is in some way official.
Again, you may offer your own opinion and information as to partisan connections. You just can't use the false imprimatur of the state to do so.
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:53 PM on October 28, 2014 [3 favorites]
Googling, it looks like the New Hampshire mailer did not have a seal.
posted by anotherpanacea at 1:58 PM on October 28, 2014
posted by anotherpanacea at 1:58 PM on October 28, 2014
Stanford University and Dartmouth College researchers
This is an Ayn Rand thing, isn't it.
posted by telstar at 2:14 PM on October 28, 2014
This is an Ayn Rand thing, isn't it.
posted by telstar at 2:14 PM on October 28, 2014
You misread him. He was talking about how the false appearance of state endorsement creates the impression that the information about partisan associations is in some way official.
I think you misread him, or at least the original sense of the accusation has been lost in the discussion. He was quoting the Secretary of State's complaint. But as a lawyer (not my lawyer) I think you should look at the statute and ask yourself whether this constitutes a violation. The law in question states:
13-35-235. Incorrect election procedures information. (1) A person may not knowingly or purposely disseminate to any elector information about election procedures that is incorrect or misleading or gives the impression that the information has been officially disseminated by an election administrator.
(2) A person who violates this section is guilty of a misdemeanor.
As I read this, you're likely right that the the second part of the test "gives the impression that the information was officially disseminated" is going to fit. But did they actually "disseminate... information about election procedures that is incorrect or misleading"? Their information is not about election procedures, it was about candidates.
Similarly, the Secretary of State charges them with violating the law that requires political committees to register with the board of elections. Here is the law:
13-37-201. Campaign treasurer. Except as provided in 13-37-206, each candidate and each political committee shall appoint one campaign treasurer and certify the full name and complete address of the campaign treasurer pursuant to this section. A candidate shall file the certification within 5 days after becoming a candidate. A political committee shall file the certification, which must include an organizational statement and the name and address of all officers, if any, within 5 days after it makes an expenditure or authorizes another person to make an expenditure on its behalf, whichever occurs first. The certification of a candidate or political committee must be filed with the commissioner and the appropriate election administrator as specified for the filing of reports in 13-37-225.
Since the researchers were neither candidates nor a political committee, they are likely *not* in violation of this law. As I read it, none of the traditional 501c3s like the League of Women Voters would be required to register with the state election board, because they are not participating in a political activity for or against a candidate. That's key: the registration requirement only applies to groups that engage in advocacy.
It's not fraudulent contrivance, it's not about election procedures, and they weren't required to register with the board of elections. So yeah, they violated a copyright. So did everyone who torrented Game of Thrones.
posted by anotherpanacea at 2:20 PM on October 28, 2014
I think you misread him, or at least the original sense of the accusation has been lost in the discussion. He was quoting the Secretary of State's complaint. But as a lawyer (not my lawyer) I think you should look at the statute and ask yourself whether this constitutes a violation. The law in question states:
13-35-235. Incorrect election procedures information. (1) A person may not knowingly or purposely disseminate to any elector information about election procedures that is incorrect or misleading or gives the impression that the information has been officially disseminated by an election administrator.
(2) A person who violates this section is guilty of a misdemeanor.
As I read this, you're likely right that the the second part of the test "gives the impression that the information was officially disseminated" is going to fit. But did they actually "disseminate... information about election procedures that is incorrect or misleading"? Their information is not about election procedures, it was about candidates.
Similarly, the Secretary of State charges them with violating the law that requires political committees to register with the board of elections. Here is the law:
13-37-201. Campaign treasurer. Except as provided in 13-37-206, each candidate and each political committee shall appoint one campaign treasurer and certify the full name and complete address of the campaign treasurer pursuant to this section. A candidate shall file the certification within 5 days after becoming a candidate. A political committee shall file the certification, which must include an organizational statement and the name and address of all officers, if any, within 5 days after it makes an expenditure or authorizes another person to make an expenditure on its behalf, whichever occurs first. The certification of a candidate or political committee must be filed with the commissioner and the appropriate election administrator as specified for the filing of reports in 13-37-225.
Since the researchers were neither candidates nor a political committee, they are likely *not* in violation of this law. As I read it, none of the traditional 501c3s like the League of Women Voters would be required to register with the state election board, because they are not participating in a political activity for or against a candidate. That's key: the registration requirement only applies to groups that engage in advocacy.
It's not fraudulent contrivance, it's not about election procedures, and they weren't required to register with the board of elections. So yeah, they violated a copyright. So did everyone who torrented Game of Thrones.
posted by anotherpanacea at 2:20 PM on October 28, 2014
So yeah, they violated a copyright. So did everyone who torrented Game of Thrones.
They violated a copyright symbol used to authenticate documents as endorsed by the State of Montana. That's an order of magnitude different from torrenting a movie or TV series. Even if you then used those torrented episodes to build a whole class at Stanford.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 4:20 PM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
They violated a copyright symbol used to authenticate documents as endorsed by the State of Montana. That's an order of magnitude different from torrenting a movie or TV series. Even if you then used those torrented episodes to build a whole class at Stanford.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 4:20 PM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
It seems doubtful to me that the use of the seal means that they were intending to make the documents appear endorsed by the State of Montana. More plausibly, someone thought the graphic gave it an air of authority without thinking through whether it would be perceived as a genuine government publication, in the same way that many organizations choose clip-art, fonts, and envelope shapes to give their mail spam an air of the official. Should they have known better? Most certainly. But perhaps surprisingly, political scientists are often pretty naive about legalities and even actual government procedures, especially ones who are recently out of grad school. Should they be less naive, and are they legally responsible regardless? Of course. But that doesn't mean there was fraudulent intent.
The accusations against experiments per se, on the other hand, seem a bit more ill-grounded. Like the Facebook flap a few months ago, what this mainly highlights is that voters (like Facebook users) are being "experimented" on by literally thousands of different groups every day, at best for partisan ends, and at worst to increase the profit of some self-admittedly selfish company. Adding a few social scientists into the mix who at worst are out to boost their careers, and at best are trying to shed light on how political persuasion works, seems fairly trivial. That doesn't mean they shouldn't flag their experiments more explicitly (and if you look through back issues of AJPS, you'll see many more such instances, and worse). But on the scale of things, attempting to give a few voters what the researchers believe is accurate information about ideological positions of candidates is about the least meddlesome thing that has happened to most of these people all day. Though maybe that says more about the depths of interference in all of our lives than anything about the reliability of academic ethics.
posted by chortly at 7:45 PM on October 28, 2014
The accusations against experiments per se, on the other hand, seem a bit more ill-grounded. Like the Facebook flap a few months ago, what this mainly highlights is that voters (like Facebook users) are being "experimented" on by literally thousands of different groups every day, at best for partisan ends, and at worst to increase the profit of some self-admittedly selfish company. Adding a few social scientists into the mix who at worst are out to boost their careers, and at best are trying to shed light on how political persuasion works, seems fairly trivial. That doesn't mean they shouldn't flag their experiments more explicitly (and if you look through back issues of AJPS, you'll see many more such instances, and worse). But on the scale of things, attempting to give a few voters what the researchers believe is accurate information about ideological positions of candidates is about the least meddlesome thing that has happened to most of these people all day. Though maybe that says more about the depths of interference in all of our lives than anything about the reliability of academic ethics.
posted by chortly at 7:45 PM on October 28, 2014
I think you misread him, or at least the original sense of the accusation has been lost in the discussion. He was quoting the Secretary of State's complaint.
Bearing in mind that this is all for entertainment purposes only, I don't know very much about Montana, and that statutes themselves never tell the whole story, and all that jazz...
Nothing here says that there is anything illegal about giving people your information and opinion as to judicial candidates' partisan connections. Everything here comes down to 1) that pesky state seal and 2) the registration thing.
From what I can tell, this seems like a textbook case of a "false contrivance". The letter falsely uses the state imprimatur, while giving information which could cause somebody to vote a certain way. I mean, why care at all about (non-)partisan elections, why ever conduct any experiment on the matter, unless we thought that that extra information could affect somebody's vote?
Again, we're back at that pesky state seal. As silly as it might sound, state seals aren't just symbols of their states - they really are like the state's signature. The unauthorized use of the state seal is NOT like a copyright violation, not even a little bit, not even by way of analogy. You're probably really thinking of trademark infringement (e.g. selling your own tie-in novels with official Game of Thrones logos on them), but that's not what's going on here, either. This is not an IP issue. If you get caught impersonating an officer, you're won't get in trouble for violating their fashion IP - instead, you've triggered a whole other set of laws. This is more properly analogous to a collections agency using IRS letterhead, or disguising your car as a cop car in order to beat parking tickets.
The impersonation of a public servant charge has substance. I honestly don't know if this use of the seal rises to that level.
Regarding "the dissemination of information that gives incorrect or misleading election procedures", I would agree that this sounds more like when candidates send official-looking letters to opposing voters, reminding them "to be sure to vote early next Wednesday". However, I don't know how broadly "procedure" is construed in Montana.
Similar things go for the registration issue. Based on just what I see before me, it sounds like your interpretation may be reasonable, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's correct in this context.
It sounds like they're throwing the book at these guys, and I don't blame them. Not all of these charges will stick, but they're far from frivolous. They've had other dirty mailings in the past, and they want this to stop. The thing about these mailings is that they know where they came from.
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:37 AM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Bearing in mind that this is all for entertainment purposes only, I don't know very much about Montana, and that statutes themselves never tell the whole story, and all that jazz...
Nothing here says that there is anything illegal about giving people your information and opinion as to judicial candidates' partisan connections. Everything here comes down to 1) that pesky state seal and 2) the registration thing.
From what I can tell, this seems like a textbook case of a "false contrivance". The letter falsely uses the state imprimatur, while giving information which could cause somebody to vote a certain way. I mean, why care at all about (non-)partisan elections, why ever conduct any experiment on the matter, unless we thought that that extra information could affect somebody's vote?
Again, we're back at that pesky state seal. As silly as it might sound, state seals aren't just symbols of their states - they really are like the state's signature. The unauthorized use of the state seal is NOT like a copyright violation, not even a little bit, not even by way of analogy. You're probably really thinking of trademark infringement (e.g. selling your own tie-in novels with official Game of Thrones logos on them), but that's not what's going on here, either. This is not an IP issue. If you get caught impersonating an officer, you're won't get in trouble for violating their fashion IP - instead, you've triggered a whole other set of laws. This is more properly analogous to a collections agency using IRS letterhead, or disguising your car as a cop car in order to beat parking tickets.
The impersonation of a public servant charge has substance. I honestly don't know if this use of the seal rises to that level.
Regarding "the dissemination of information that gives incorrect or misleading election procedures", I would agree that this sounds more like when candidates send official-looking letters to opposing voters, reminding them "to be sure to vote early next Wednesday". However, I don't know how broadly "procedure" is construed in Montana.
Similar things go for the registration issue. Based on just what I see before me, it sounds like your interpretation may be reasonable, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's correct in this context.
It sounds like they're throwing the book at these guys, and I don't blame them. Not all of these charges will stick, but they're far from frivolous. They've had other dirty mailings in the past, and they want this to stop. The thing about these mailings is that they know where they came from.
posted by Sticherbeast at 4:37 AM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
I mean, why care at all about (non-)partisan elections, why ever conduct any experiment on the matter, unless we thought that that extra information could affect somebody's vote?
The reason it's not a false contrivance is because their stated goal (which is pretty obviously their real intention) is not to affect someone's vote, it's to get them to vote. I think you'd have a hard time proving otherwise, though certainly Tester and the Secretary of State are claiming this is an effort to support Republican candidates (who of course aren't Republican! Because they're non-partisan. But still this is Tester's line.)
GOTV efforts don't get the same kind of election regulation, though. Probably they should, since selective GOTV ends up looking a lot like campaigning, but they don't.
The same thing goes for the impersonation charge, though there I think that the "act in reliance" formulation may ultimately be the charge that sticks.
I found this line from the leader of the Montana GOP kind of telling (recognizing that he sees his party as benefiting from the mailers and that the SoS is a Democrat):
Greenwood, the state GOP leader, agreed that state law appears to requires permission from the state for use of the seal, and seeking such permission would be the "respectful" thing to do.
"Many people end up pirating the seal for one reason or another, and it's never really been objected to in the past," he said. "I understand why the secretary might have her ego bruised about this, but I don't think it's that big of a deal."
It's certainly true that misappropriation of a state or city seal during an election does happen quite often all over the country, and that the consequences are usually very minor (i.e. the seal must be blacked out or the remaining materials destroyed.) But even if I'm right that a lot of the outrage here is Montanans' xenophobia and suspicion of elites, fear of political scientists, and kind of dirty-nose charge about using people as research subjects, the SoS will still have a jury of Montanans and sympathetic slate of judges to take on these "outside agitators," so it's not going to be fun for them.
posted by anotherpanacea at 5:18 AM on October 29, 2014
The reason it's not a false contrivance is because their stated goal (which is pretty obviously their real intention) is not to affect someone's vote, it's to get them to vote. I think you'd have a hard time proving otherwise, though certainly Tester and the Secretary of State are claiming this is an effort to support Republican candidates (who of course aren't Republican! Because they're non-partisan. But still this is Tester's line.)
GOTV efforts don't get the same kind of election regulation, though. Probably they should, since selective GOTV ends up looking a lot like campaigning, but they don't.
The same thing goes for the impersonation charge, though there I think that the "act in reliance" formulation may ultimately be the charge that sticks.
I found this line from the leader of the Montana GOP kind of telling (recognizing that he sees his party as benefiting from the mailers and that the SoS is a Democrat):
Greenwood, the state GOP leader, agreed that state law appears to requires permission from the state for use of the seal, and seeking such permission would be the "respectful" thing to do.
"Many people end up pirating the seal for one reason or another, and it's never really been objected to in the past," he said. "I understand why the secretary might have her ego bruised about this, but I don't think it's that big of a deal."
It's certainly true that misappropriation of a state or city seal during an election does happen quite often all over the country, and that the consequences are usually very minor (i.e. the seal must be blacked out or the remaining materials destroyed.) But even if I'm right that a lot of the outrage here is Montanans' xenophobia and suspicion of elites, fear of political scientists, and kind of dirty-nose charge about using people as research subjects, the SoS will still have a jury of Montanans and sympathetic slate of judges to take on these "outside agitators," so it's not going to be fun for them.
posted by anotherpanacea at 5:18 AM on October 29, 2014
The reason it's not a false contrivance is because their stated goal (which is pretty obviously their real intention) is not to affect someone's vote, it's to get them to vote.
That's still affecting their vote (one more vote for X on the pile), plus I have a very, very hard time believing that partisan information could not possibly affect the vote of somebody who was already planning to do so.
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:56 AM on October 29, 2014
That's still affecting their vote (one more vote for X on the pile), plus I have a very, very hard time believing that partisan information could not possibly affect the vote of somebody who was already planning to do so.
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:56 AM on October 29, 2014
The researchers believe (and I agree) that judicial elections are low information for most voters and swayed by partisan signals for a small minority. Converting some low info voters into informed voters may affect outcomes, though (pace the researchers) likely any voter that wanted to know this info would already know it or have picked up the signals through patterns of endorsements. (I predict the evidence from this experiment will not be able to refute the null hypothesis.)
Part of the issue is a lot of election law was written by machine politicians who are very rarely concerned with small-d democracy. So I can readily grant that some judge will be offended by the claim that she is partisan (despite the fact that it was partisan politics that won her her seat) and will enforce the interpretation you're arguing for here. But there's a difference between calculating the probabilities of different outcomes and asking which of them is right, legitimate, or based in a thoroughgoing sense of the nature of election integrity. Correctly predicting bias is not the same as recognizing justice.
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:28 AM on October 29, 2014
Part of the issue is a lot of election law was written by machine politicians who are very rarely concerned with small-d democracy. So I can readily grant that some judge will be offended by the claim that she is partisan (despite the fact that it was partisan politics that won her her seat) and will enforce the interpretation you're arguing for here. But there's a difference between calculating the probabilities of different outcomes and asking which of them is right, legitimate, or based in a thoroughgoing sense of the nature of election integrity. Correctly predicting bias is not the same as recognizing justice.
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:28 AM on October 29, 2014
It sounds like you disapprove of the nonpartisan election law for principled and evidence-based reasons, which is all well and good, but in doing do, you are ultimately arguing why introducing partisan information could change the vote. Again, why would anybody care about the issue unless it could? If these researchers had done some pretty basic homework, they could have disseminated this information without getting into trouble. The information itself was not which got them in trouble. It was the state seal, and apparently also the registration issue, although my gut tells me that that wouldn't have come up if the state seal had not already put them in the crosshairs.
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:42 AM on October 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:42 AM on October 29, 2014 [2 favorites]
It sounds like you disapprove of the nonpartisan election law for principled and evidence-based reasons, which is all well and good, but in doing do, you are ultimately arguing why introducing partisan information could change the vote. Again, why would anybody care about the issue unless it could?
To be clear, like most people in this thread I object to judicial elections generally. The partisanship-feigning-nonpartisanship issues just exacerbates a bad situation.
But to answer your question: researchers can and do care about participation aside from outcomes. The basic argument is that low turnout lowers trust and legitimacy of government, so increasing turnout is an intrinsic good.
Where this gets tricky (and why it warrants research) is that identifying partisan affiliations may improve turnout (and may not) without changing outcomes. Say a district is 40/60 D/R: if 30% of the eligible voters vote, the candidates split the vote 40/60 and the Republican wins. If 80% of the voters vote, the candidates just split that larger pie 40/60 and the Republican still wins. Of course, likely voters and unlikely voters aren't identical, but in most districts the difference won't affect the outcome, mostly because of gerrymandering but also because of The Big Sort. The analyses on this suggest that there are only a few districts where participation changes would matter, and most of those would require revising felon voter laws.
Still: even if the same judge wins either way, there's something intrinsically appealing (to both researchers and regular folks) about that judge winning with a big turnout. Which is why election law treats GOTV so very differently than advocacy and campaigning.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:09 AM on October 29, 2014
To be clear, like most people in this thread I object to judicial elections generally. The partisanship-feigning-nonpartisanship issues just exacerbates a bad situation.
But to answer your question: researchers can and do care about participation aside from outcomes. The basic argument is that low turnout lowers trust and legitimacy of government, so increasing turnout is an intrinsic good.
Where this gets tricky (and why it warrants research) is that identifying partisan affiliations may improve turnout (and may not) without changing outcomes. Say a district is 40/60 D/R: if 30% of the eligible voters vote, the candidates split the vote 40/60 and the Republican wins. If 80% of the voters vote, the candidates just split that larger pie 40/60 and the Republican still wins. Of course, likely voters and unlikely voters aren't identical, but in most districts the difference won't affect the outcome, mostly because of gerrymandering but also because of The Big Sort. The analyses on this suggest that there are only a few districts where participation changes would matter, and most of those would require revising felon voter laws.
Still: even if the same judge wins either way, there's something intrinsically appealing (to both researchers and regular folks) about that judge winning with a big turnout. Which is why election law treats GOTV so very differently than advocacy and campaigning.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:09 AM on October 29, 2014
Where this gets tricky (and why it warrants research) is that identifying partisan affiliations may improve turnout (and may not) without changing outcomes.
Quite possibly, but this is orthogonal to what I'm talking about. You were talking about the charges, so I was talking about the charges. I'm talking about the legal aspect, and not other aspects. The law in question is about something which could affect somebody's vote. Once you hit the "could" level, a bell rings and you're done. The law does not inquire as to whether it actually affects anybody's vote, or if it *might* not affect anybody's vote. The law is not about whether the same result occurs in terms of percentages, even if we were to pretend for sake of argument that a low-turnout vote was the same result as a high-turnout vote. (Besides, as you yourself are accurately pointing out, there is still a difference between the two, even if the same person wins.)
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:15 AM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Quite possibly, but this is orthogonal to what I'm talking about. You were talking about the charges, so I was talking about the charges. I'm talking about the legal aspect, and not other aspects. The law in question is about something which could affect somebody's vote. Once you hit the "could" level, a bell rings and you're done. The law does not inquire as to whether it actually affects anybody's vote, or if it *might* not affect anybody's vote. The law is not about whether the same result occurs in terms of percentages, even if we were to pretend for sake of argument that a low-turnout vote was the same result as a high-turnout vote. (Besides, as you yourself are accurately pointing out, there is still a difference between the two, even if the same person wins.)
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:15 AM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yeah, their stated goal is immaterial. Doing it under the cloak of an official authority that is, in essence, the result of the elections they are impacting is the problem.
Think about a referee in a sports match; they shouldn't be saying who is the better team, telling the audience who they might want to root for, or telling the coaches what the other team's general strategy is- even if all that is obvious to an informed observer.
I can do that as a fan in the stands. But if I dress up in ref's uniform and jump on the field, I shouldn't be doing that stuff either.
posted by spaltavian at 8:15 AM on October 29, 2014
Think about a referee in a sports match; they shouldn't be saying who is the better team, telling the audience who they might want to root for, or telling the coaches what the other team's general strategy is- even if all that is obvious to an informed observer.
I can do that as a fan in the stands. But if I dress up in ref's uniform and jump on the field, I shouldn't be doing that stuff either.
posted by spaltavian at 8:15 AM on October 29, 2014
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