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#WhoMailedIt: Share your campaign mail with KPCC
Even with all the new technology at their fingertips, candidates for office continue to use the U.S. Postal Service as a conduit to the voter.
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Maya Sugarman/KPCC
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Ardy Kassakhian is running for California State Assembly in the 43rd District in Glendale.
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Glendale City Councilmember Laura Friedman is running for California State Assembly in the 43rd District in Glendale.
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Vote-by-mail ballots for the Nov. 8 election will soon hit Southern California mailboxes. The pitches from the candidates themselves already have.
Even with all the new technology at their fingertips, candidates and the groups that support them continue to count on the U.S. Postal Service as a conduit to voters, touting their message or slamming the competition on glossy mailers. Some send "slate cards" listing a collection of candidates or measures to vote for.
We want to examine this mail to ask: What claims are candidates and their supporters making? Do they vary by geography, race or ethnicity? Are their claims even true?
KPCC wants you to help us explore those questions through a project we're calling #WhoMailedIt.
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There are several ways you can participate:
- Tweet us an image and hashtag it #WhoMailedIt on Twitter. Make sure to black out your street address (we recommend a Sharpie).
- Using the email address whomailedit@scpr.org, snap and send us a photo of that political ad that you receive in the mail. Be sure to let us know your zip code.
- Offer up a claim being made so we can fact-check the candidate.
- Share a little about yourself — like your age, race or ethnicity or household income — as we try to gauge whether different communities are receiving different mailers from the same candidate or group
A special thanks to all who emailed, tweeted or delivered hard copies of mailers before the June primary. We received more than 13 pounds of political mail before election night. A series of nasty, negative mailers collected through the project lead to multiple election season stories.
And we're not stopping there: our pile of general election mailers is just starting to stack up.
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Simply put, we cannot do this essential work without your help. Federal funding for public media has been clawed back by Congress and that means LAist has lost $3.4 million in federal funding over the next two years. So we’re asking for your help. LAist has been there for you and we’re asking you to be here for us.
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