[dropcap size=big]I[/dropcap]t’s October in an election year, and recycling bins around the city are brimming with political mail. Candidates and ballot measure campaigns in California pour millions of dollars into organizations that exchange endorsements for cash before mailing them out to thousands or millions of voters. Operated mostly by professional consultants, Slate Mailer Organizations offer a major payday for political operatives while confusing, or in some cases, actively misleading the public.
Many mailers include multiple endorsements, providing numerous candidates and ballot measures an organizational seal of approval from a legitimate-sounding group like “Millennials for Effective Government,” “The Coalition for Senior Citizen Security,” or “The California Early Voter Guide.”
So who are these organizations anyway? In all of the above cases, the answer is political consultants bent on making you vote for their client’s interests. Regardless of their appealing names, most slate mailers are operated by campaign strategists trading endorsements for cash. Consultants solicit contributions from campaigns, who pay for placement on mailers.
Mailers from what are essentially fictional groups provide no education to voters and are, in many cases, even less educational than other campaign ads.