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If there still is one widely held truism among professional campaign operatives it is that Democratic voters need more, um, encouragement to get to the voting booth than their republican counterparts. While Democratic voters outnumber Republicans, it is almost as if divine intervention has cursed the Dems with low-voter turnout in order to level the playing field. Thank you God for your infinite wisdom and fairness.

Roughly half of the population does not bother to vote — ever. Among those that do, a sizable number need more than a little encouragement, but the nature of that encouragement varies tremendously between political parties. Democrats' Get Out the Vote (GOTV) campaigns are complex field operations. Republican field operations are much less elaborate. Increasingly, their GOTV efforts come down to blowing dog whistles.