by The factoids from Falls Township Rifle and Pistol Association illustrate that voter turnout in the NRA Board elections is terrible. Indeed, to put it bluntly, a fraction about 3 percent is an embarrassment.
I think the Dallas Safari Club might be on to something. Not only have they gone to online voting but they are offering an inducement to increase voter participation.
If the chance to win a $4,000 +/- rifle doesn’t induce you to vote, then nothing will.
This assumes that the NRA Board wants a large turnout. I highly doubt that they do (since low turnout has worked for them in the past), so why would they run a raffle to encourage people to vote?
At least now it seems worth the effort to vote. I didn’t vote for the first several years I was eligible because it was so obviously stacked in favor of the corrupt cabal. This year was the first year it seemed worthwhile and I did vote, but I would have preferred secure online voting and I’m sure I’m not alone.
Also, maybe online voting would reduce some of the pitfalls placed in the way of voters with the current paper system. 1) Clearly determine eligibility immediately, 2) Insure that you can’t vote for more than the specified (28 this year?) number of candidates, 3) no chance of having your vote deleted because of something like not signing your ballot envelop.
And yes, I would be more disposed to vote if there was an accompanying raffle.
When I voted in the Dallas Safari Club board election, I felt like all the pitfalls you mentioned were removed. Not only did they determine my eligibility but it asked if I really was ready to submit my ballot as I had only voted for two candidates when I could have gone with three.
I’ll be honest, I’m not a fan of that method to increase voter participation. That will just get you voters who randomly choose names and don’t even pretend to read the bios or are otherwise voting for a sincere motivation. I mean I know we have people who do it in NRA elections when the big celebrities were on the ballot – nobody could top Tom Selleck when he was on the ballot & Ted Nugent’s presence even helped boost the votes for Johnny Nugent since people were just searching for Nugent. But, I don’t think it’s helpful to encourage that kind of voting even more.
I’m also the type who is at peace with uninformed voters staying home or simply not voting in some races, and I realize that’s not a common view. 🙂
You make some good points.
I don’t really need a 300 Win Mag but yeah, a prize would definitely boost the voter response, I think. But like Skinnedknuckles said, I’ve been more motivated to vote this year and last because we finally have a chance to get the organization back to its business and not be a piggy bank for a few.
I’ve talked to a number of members who have never voted before that are voting this year.
Couldn’t a 3rd party run the raffle and award the prize. Need to be some way to confirm the voting actually happened. Scan? Or NRA could cooperate and forward data.
Ballots are bar-coded as are the return envelopes. When they go to the outside agency which tabulates the votes, a record could be made of the name as having voted. I really don’t know if the tabulating firm is a CPA firm or not like you see with Hollywood and their awards.
There is 0% chance that NRA is going to release the details of its membership to an outside group in that manner. Then any one could claim to be doing the raffle and turn over potentially millions of names of gun owners to anyone. Bad, bad idea to encourage NRA to release its membership list.
There is no way that NRA members aren’t identified as gun owners in 10 other ways.
Actually, some members aren’t identified easily.
If you want so many people to drop their memberships – including inspiring simply disengaged lifers to proactively end memberships – then have NRA release their member database. That will be enough to end the organization.
We buy guns, ammo, holsters, mags, eye and ear pro. Much of this other than guns has to be bought on line which means credit cards. Banks are not our friends and will willingly dox us if the opportunity arises. I suppose there are still some people out there who bought their guns prior to 1968 and have not had any commercial activity since then or inherited guns and ammo before the current craze of criminalizing private transactions hit. The medical establishment is not our friend either. In some states, just registering Republican is probably enough. There is a large subculture of criminals who have invisible guns but they seem unlikely to be NRA members. Just by having this conversation, both of us got on another list. Privacy is an illusion.