I haven't had an income for over a year now and have job applications and resumes all over the place. I finally applied through several temp agencies here in Las Vegas and was offered a temp job that sounded to good to be true.
The job paid $12.00 an hour to solicit voter registrations. The temp agency told me the job would be from now until November 5th. That sounded strange as voter registration in Nevada ends 31 days prior to any election. I now understand why.
Now I had to wonder why anybody was willing to pay 60 people $12.00 an hour to collect voter registration forms let alone for 30 days after the Secretary of State would accept them for the up coming election.
After attending today's orientation class, I know why.
The class was held on the ground floor of an office building on West Sahara in an empty room save for a desk, table, and a handful of folding chairs. There were about 20 people that showed up and two young women were in charge. When one of them started the orientation she informed us they were from American's for Prosperity and were in Las Vegas to register conservative voters. She told the group Nevada was a battleground state, and it was important to register as many conservative voters as possible.
I almost got up and left at that point, but decided to see what they had to say.
After passing out copies of Nevada's voter registration forms to all participants, she explained that while we were hired to register the "Right" kind of voters, we could not deny registering anyone who asked. This is where it got interesting. She explained we were to ask prospects first how they felt about Obamacare. If we received a negative reply, that was when we were to approach them about registering to vote, or assisting them in getting an absentee ballot. The plan was to focus on their dislike of Obamacare and use that as the hook to reel them in.
Remember when I said it sounded to good to be true? I guess I was right. The standard they would be using to see how well we were doing was a minimum of one registration and one absentee ballot request per hour of the "Right" kind of people.
After 15 minutes of this, I got up, politely handed back my copy of the Nevada Registration Form, told them I couldn't do this, and left.
I am still unemployed, still looking for work, but at least I can still hold my head high and know I didn't prostitute my soul to the Koch Brothers and American's for Prosperity.