A form of voter suppression. Employed by members of Republican
Party, the term refers to the political tactic of using direct mail to
target registered voters in order to invalidate registration and purge from voter rolls. With one type of caging, a political
party sends registered mail to
random addresses of registered voters of the opposing
party. If the mail is returned as undeliverable - because, for example, either the voter refuses to sign for it, or the voter isn't present for delivery, or the voter is homeless - the
party uses that fact to challenge the registration, arguing that because the voter could not be reached at the address, the registration is fraudulent. With the validity of the registration challenged, the voter's ballot cannot be counted until the voter proves that their registration is
valid.
The voters targeted by caging are often the most vulnerable: soldiers deployed overseas, those who are unfamiliar with their rights under the law, and those who cannot spare the
time, effort, and expense of proving that their registration is valid. On the
day of the election, when the voter arrives at the poll to request a ballot, an operative of the
party challenges the validity of their registration. Ultimately, caging works by dissuading a voter from casting a ballot, or by ensuring that they cast a provisional ballot, which is less likely to be counted.
Monica Goodling cited her concern about "vote caging" in her written and oral testimony to the United States
House Judiciary Committee on
May 23, 2007, mentioning that Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty "failed to disclose that he had some knowledge of allegations that Tim Griffin had been involved in vote-caging during his work on the president's
2004 campaign."
