Politicians running for the upcoming US elections are using psychological tricks and "dark" motifs in their emails to motivate their supporters to donate money, but also to mobilize voters.
In a study published earlier this month, academics from Princeton University reported that they analyzed over 100,000 emails sent by politicians running for U.S. elections, to federal and state races, as well as to political action committees (PACs), Super PACs, political parties and other political organizations.
The messages were collected as part of a research project that began in December 2019 and is still being collected, with the research team planning to release all the data after the election cycle is over. To date, over 280,000 emails from more than 3,000 senders have been collected.
Earlier this month, the research team also published a paper containing the results of a preliminary analysis of the first 100,000 emails it collected – from December 2, 2019, to June 25, 2020.
These days, most campaign emails look like spam, so most email users are already familiar with their content and purpose. Most campaigns try to get users to open the messages, but also to read them and take action. For example, they ask them to sign up for rallies, vote, or donate money.
The Princeton academics said their research aimed to identify manipulative tactics and dark patterns used by political campaigns in the past to get recipients to at least open their messages. Among the tactics and patterns the researchers uncovered were:
- Urgent: Emails with countdown timers, fake deadlines, or fake goals, using subject lines and phrases like “April Deadline (via Graham Team)” or “1 Huge Goal, 1 Last Chance to Achieve It!”
- Hidden names: Email senders hide their identities, making it impossible for the recipient to know who sent the email unless they open it.
- Ongoing thread: Emails where the sender modifies their name into patterns like “John, me (2)” to trick users into thinking they have already replied to the email and this is an ongoing conversation.
- Re: / Fwd Abuse: Email where senders abuse the terms “Re” and “Fwd” in subject lines to trick usersinto thinking the email was a reply or forward.
According to the researchers, this campaign used at least one of these tactics in about 43% of the messages sent. Even though the campaigns don't use these tactics often, the researchers said 99% use them at least occasionally.
In addition, the Princeton academics said they examined campaign emails because the manipulation of political discourse undermines voter autonomy, creates cynicism and threatens democracy, while also distorting political outcomes by favoring those who specialize in developing technological tricks.
A site has also been created where everyone can search through the email body, either by sender name or keywords. The site is updated daily with new emails.
