According to the Chron, 27 different fliers urging San Francisco voters to vote this way or that have been sent off in the last two days, a typical bounty in the weeks leading up to an election. Most political operatives will tell you that paper, USPS-delivered mailers are the linchpin of any successful campaign (or at least one of its most significant budget items). And every year we see reporting on how various mailers allegedly misrepresent the facts or commit crimes against PhotoShop. But it all this just a campaign-reporter ouroboros? Do any real people actually bother to read those damn things?

There's an argument to be made that maybe they do — after all, older voters are reportedly the fastest-growing segment of the electorate, and we all know how much old people love to get mail! Political analyst David Latterman tells SFist that even in a town as young-seeming as San Francisco, voters that are over the age of 65 make up more than 50% of San Francisco voters.

Regardless of age, however, direct mail is the "most efficient" way for campaigns to get their message to any voter in a "dense urban environment" like San Francisco, Latterman says. [To be clear, since at least one commenter appears confused, we're not talking about the Voter Information Pamphlet, which is not direct mail that's sent by a campaign, and instead comes from the city's Department of Elections.]

"There are studies to show that everyone looks at a mailer, maybe even for 7 or ten seconds as they're taking it to the recycling bin," Latterman says. "Others let them pile up and read them all, say, on the Saturday before the election." And since campaigns can buy vote information from SF's Department of Elections, campaigns can then target individual groups voters in a way that Latterman says TV commercials cannot.

So that's why you'll keep getting a bunch of fliers in your mailbox pretty much every day from today through November 4. But the question at hand is, will you read any of them?

Let's hear it: