Barney Frank: here's how to not waste your time pressuring lawmakers

Although some of these may have been form letters or copy/pasta text put together by a staffer, some responded to specific points I'd made.

If/when their office is to the point of actually generating a response, if it's technically competent (or has hired professionals to be so on their behalf), it should be trivial to check the contact information (mailing address or phone number, certainly) against voter registration records. Name/address directly. Phone number with one cross reference between call lists and those records.

I suppose I, like many people here, may be considerably more thorough and detail oriented than many political staffers, by nature and also work environment (think "harried"). Still, if I were one of them and was taking the time to generate a response, if the system made such a lookup trivial, I'd probably do it, first.

And, given the Obama campaign's escalation of electronic media, followed on by Trump and the Republican's apparent (hired) social media analysis and targeting (micro-targeting, even), I'd expect voter registration to be drawn further into developing campaigning systems to the extent it's not already present. Even if you're still going to target an unregistered participant, it gives you a better handle on why you are targeting them (e.g. their social graph) and with what messages.

As for myself, when I communicate, I indicate that I have voted in the past and that the topic at hand will influence my vote, going forward.

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1. Faxed due to time constraints, e.g. a last minute push to convince a Democratic U.S. Representative with a known "pro-business" stance, who was on the fence with regard to support for the ACA legislation.

By the way, at those times, I found faxing a convenient way to communicate a custom-written communication without the delay of postal mail and worry about screening or quantity of mail resulting in the letter getting shit-canned, nor lost in a sea of easily and mass generated email.

I've noticed in the last 5 - 10 years, that U.S. Congress members' fax numbers have been increasingly disappearing from their web sites and other current sources of contact information. But third party providers of said contact information, current or archival, still have and display them. And they still work.

The ACA. SOPA. The various "trade" deals. I've had a few occasions.

And that U.S. Representative ended up voting for the ACA. While they were "pro-business", in my letter I pointed out that businesses were having considerable problems with spiraling health costs and remaining competitive. Including small and medium sized, job-generating businesses in their district. And I included some specific examples I was aware of.

That's how you get through to them.

And if people unhappy with current circumstances want to "get through", right now and in advance of mid-terms, a surge in registration, and in absentee ballot voting, are some good ways to do so.

People bothering to register, shows intent as well as potential shift in voter demographics. And... there are local elections between now and mid-terms. Elections where choices often have more immediate consequences for the voter, anyway.

Absentee ballots demonstrate the planned desire to vote as well as that election-day schedule constraints and other problems aren't going to suppress the voter's vote.

I'm not hopeful. But, people -- including a bunch of bitching people who didn't haul their asses to the polls last November -- can start sending a message now, if they actually choose to.