Signs your mailing list might be out of date - when you, the previous owner of your house, and the previous owner before THEM all get the same mailer from the Maine Republican Party
Submitted by figment1979 t3_ykxzun in Maine
The VAN is notoriously out of date and doesn't get properly updated. It's quite possibly the worst CRM ever. 😂
Entries are based on public voting records which often do not get updated beyond 4-year cycles.
The mailers in question were mailed using USPS marketing program EDDM/ECRWSS/ECRWSH - this is a sign that USPS has this name variation still listed as a current resident.
The sender is basically the USPS’s mailing list instead of their own internal one (voter list). These mailers are mailed to every address on an USPS mail route.
How to stop these mailers (political & non-political) in past resident names - Ask mail carrier to MLNA (moved left no address) the name variation.
https://link.usps.com/2021/06/02/mdd-update/
NOTE: Some mail carriers won’t MLNA non-first class mail so you may have to beg/bribe them especially if the name variation isn’t receiving any other mail. Obtain the VACANT form from local USPS and fill this out with the names of everyone who should receive mail at said address and place in your mailbox. Attach a list of past resident names that need to be MLNA - don’t forget bribe snacks!
https://www.usa.gov/election-office
How to check if someone still has your address/phone number listed on their voter registration - search address/phone number in websites like voterrecords.com & https://voteref.com
Oh, I'm well aware. I've done my time volunteering or being put on the phones during political marketing campaigns.😉 Most people don't understand the VAN at all. In addition, when you tell a person calling to remove you or give them updated info, there are multiple folks working from the same lists, and they may never get updated with corrections.
The lack of updating is my biggest bitch about VAN and its cousin, mini-VAN, especially when the person to be contacted has been dead for 3 years already!
If anyone wants to talk actual facts about VAN, I'd be happy to do so in DMs. I've been working with the platform professionally for a decade and at an admin level for 5 years.
I agree that it's annoying, difficult to use, mostly dogshit piece of software, but most of the problems people ascribe to VAN aren't actually the fault of the software.
On a practical matter, it does not matter who gets blamed for the faults or the shortcomings. What is important is that neither VAN nor mini-VAn work quite are promised, to the point that I've gone back to paper. Annoys the candidate, but I'd rather the candidate be annoyed than the folks on whose doors I am knocking.
If you dont return data to the system (whether collected via Mini VAN or printed lists), it doesn't work as designed.
Not sure who is making promises, or what they are promising, but VAN works pretty darn well for what it's designed for when used properly, even if the interface is clunky and outdated and overly complicated.
>Not sure who is making promises, or what they are promising, but VAN works pretty darn well for what it's designed for when used properly, even if the interface is clunky and outdated and overly complicated.
That covers just about every excuse for why it does not work, especially the "when used properly" part.
The mailers in question were mailed using USPS marketing program EDDM/ECRWSS/ECRWSH - this is a sign that USPS has this name variation still listed as a current resident.
The sender is basically the USPS’s mailing list instead of their own internal one (voter list). These mailers are mailed to every address on an USPS mail route.
How to stop these mailers (political & non-political) in past resident names - Ask mail carrier to MLNA (moved left no address) the name variation.
https://link.usps.com/2021/06/02/mdd-update/
NOTE: Some mail carriers won’t MLNA non-first class mail so you may have to beg/bribe them especially if the name variation isn’t receiving any other mail. Obtain the VACANT form from local USPS and fill this out with the names of everyone who should receive mail at said address and place in your mailbox. Attach a list of past resident names that need to be MLNA - don’t forget bribe snacks!
https://www.usa.gov/election-office
How to check if someone still has your address/phone number listed on their voter registration - search address/phone number in websites like voterrecords.com & https://voteref.com
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