
Call Your Legislators, Don't Email - stonedge
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/us/politics/heres-why-you-should-call-not-email-your-legislators.html
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bbctol
For people who doubt the effectiveness of calling: start small, and work your
way up. Local politicians are far more easy to influence than people think.
I've known a lot of people who've worked in the office's of state senators or
state representatives, and it's not uncommon practice to just count the number
of phone calls for and against when deciding an issue.

EDIT: I should note I don't know much about the article's point on calling vs.
emailing. Even emailing a local politician is probably effective. Just take
any amount of time to contact your local representatives, and you'll put your
issues ahead of 90% of the constituency.

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jjawssd
I can see it already

"And just like that, legislator offices invest in automatic voice
transcription technology, eliminating all human interaction."

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Overtonwindow
This is an exceptional article. I was a lobbyist in Washington for 10 years,
and I teach grassroots activism classes. Calling has proven to be vastly more
effective than emails. When people sign up for newsletters, or receive "action
alerts" and think by emailing and pressing a button they're doing something,
really, you're not. Call the offices. Show up in person, on a weekday, during
work hours. Be polite, and all that, but know it's just too easy to send and
ignore emails. A larger commitment to delivering your message will gain more
attention.

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yincrash
Are there any specific guidelines to what does and doesn't get moderated with
regards to politically oriented submissions?

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csours
Primary moderation on HN is your up/down vote. Anything that is too partisan
or is pure propaganda is clear down vote material.

This is not partisan, it applies to either party.

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donretag
I find it easier to start a change.org petition and then tweet about it.
/sarcasm

When it is easy to communicate via a medium, it is also easy to ignore it.
Synchronous means of communication have always had more credibility, but as
this article infers, it is going away. Too many armchair politicians doing the
bare minimum.

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throwaway2016a
Email sometimes works.

I emailed my Senator about SOPA and got a direct response. The response was
that she was in support of it, which didn't make me thrilled but I got a
response.

It was sufficiently well thought out and long that I just assume she was
inundated and had a canned reply her aids just pasted to everyone and changed
the names.

A call may have had more of an impact since fielding a call is, after all,
more expensive than an email.

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lawless123
"had a canned reply her aids just pasted to everyone and changed the names."

A lot of the emails she received for either side of the issue were probably
canned too.

