Dialing It In
September 22nd, 2008 by 
Kevin
In my BPOU, I have the dubious honor of being the \”tech\” guy. Among my other \”duties\” has included the design, operation and maintenance of our database of our district. The idea being that having this database makes us more efficient and effective in our communications and organization.
Among the more valuable pieces of information has been email addresses. It\’s a non-intrusive way of distributing information, setting up events, and getting feedback. And more important for a non-profit, it\’s free!*
Well thanks to Obama\’s much lampooned 3AM announcement of \”the other Vice Presidential candidate\”, it appears as if I might not be thinking creatively…
But this may seem like a genius move come November, since the campaign can use that same database to send \”get out and vote\” reminders directly to voters nationwide on election day. Messages can be targeted by area code and exchange to boost turnout in marginal states and districts.
Well hell… Get out the vote efforts require lots of volunteers, lots of volunteer time and really aren\’t that much fun. This would be a great work-around on all three counts.
One possible drawback would be the ultimate cost. Let\’s say you got the phone numbers of 1000 people in each district, you\’re still looking at $50 just in text messages. But realistically that\’s a fairly minimal costs and you\’re likely to spend at least that in refreshments/food alone for your volunteers the standard way.
One very real drawback is whether it works or not. To determine that would probably require it to be used on a widescale, but it\’s worth considering it\’s potential. The standard way involves phone calling, but people quickly learn to just stop answering their phones on Election Day. Plus it tends to irritate people after all, and you don\’t want your voters irritated at you. Text messages I would suspect would not generate the same irritation but at the same time, it\’s something that people are going to look it. Whether they act on it any more or less than a phone call is probably the determining factor, but it seems like a worthy idea.
* Well technically not free, it costs us money to lease use of a server and it requires some of my time to do it.
[Crossposted at True North]
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Posted in 2008 Elections, Political Mumbojumbo, SD37, True North | 
1 Comment »
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:55 am
More importantly, Obama was able to get a youthful demographic with his stunt. Young people don’t use landlines, they have cell phones and that’s it. Good databases of cell numbers is hard to find. By doing this, his campaign can not only contact the people in their databases, they create a new database of people who have been difficult to track down.
This is also why polling numbers this year need to be taken with a grain of salt. the 18-24 graphic is going to be underrepresented or improperly represented in these polls.