#WIRecall: Democrat Mailer Invades Privacy, Sets Neighbor Against Neighbor

The left gets creepier the more desperate it gets. Case in point: A mailer hitting mailboxes this week includes detailed personal voting information about recipients, and their neighbors.

Jane Boutan thought it was an invasion of privacy.

Corrine Greuling worried about her safety.

Viola Miller wondered if it could be used to steal her vote.

They and others got upset after the Greater Wisconsin Political Fund mailed fliers over the weekend listing people’s names, addresses and whether they voted in the November 2008 and 2010 elections, as well as the same information for a dozen of their neighbors.

“What am I supposed to do? Go shame my neighbor? Whether my neighbor voted or not is none of my business,” said Boutan, who lives in Milwaukee’s Sherman Park neighborhood.

The fliers arrived in mailboxes over the weekend. The Greater Wisconsin Political Fund, which is affiliated with the Greater Wisconsin Committee, is a liberal group that has run ads against Republican Gov. Scott Walker to help Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in Tuesday’s recall election. The group did not respond to voicemail and email messages Monday afternoon, so the scope and cost of the effort was not known. But the Journal Sentinel heard from people across the metro area, from Oak Creek to Glendale, and Waukesha to Wauwatosa.

Addressed to registered voters, the fliers say: “Who votes is public record! Why do so many people fail to vote? We’ve been talking about the problem for years, but it only seems to get worse. This year, we’re taking a new approach. We’re sending this mailing to you and your neighbors to publicize who does and does not vote.”

This isn’t about getting more people to vote. If it were, it was a wasted effort because it went to people with voting records. The mailer is about intimidation. It’s along the same lines of those business signs that Big Labor wanted posted in shop windows.

In the letter from Parrett to some businesses, he says that, “It is unfortunate that you have chosen ‘not’ to support public workers rights in Wisconsin. In recent past weeks you have been offered a sign by a public employee who works in one of the state facilities in the Union Grove area. These signs simply said, ‘This Business Supports Workers Rights,’ a simple, subtle and we feel non-controversial statement gives the facts at this time.”

And a way to target businesses that exercised their freedom of choice and association to not post the signs. The voter information mailer is along the same lines, and will probably go a long way to keeping the wounds of this recall open long after today’s vote. That’s the bad news. The good news is that the mailer seems to be backfiring and turning voters off to totalitarian progressives. It has also woken some Wisconsin citizens up.

Greuling, who voted absentee in Tuesday’s election, said she fears for her safety because the information on the fliers could be used by criminals and identity thieves.

“I think this is invasion of my privacy and every other woman’s privacy. It’s like – here, this is where all the women are” in her neighborhood, said Greuling.

Miller was upset that her flier mentioned the 2008 presidential election because she felt it implied she voted for President Barack Obama – which she said was incorrect – and she didn’t appreciate her name and address being used without her permission.