At Voter Gravity we’re all about making campaigns faster and more efficient. Using technology, we’re always looking for new ways to streamline campaign management and operation. We’re excited about our volunteer tracking system which allows campaigns to keep track of metrics for each volunteer. Here’s how it works:

Each volunteer is given a unique log in. When tasks, such as walk lists and call lists, they get an email, letting them know that they have been assigned tasks. They can then go to voter.mobi and log in using their personal username. When they complete their tasks, the data is uploaded into the database, which then keeps track of all information uploaded from a unique user.

With this system in place, campaigns can maximize a volunteer’s time. View how regularly they turn in results and adjust their tasks accordingly. If one of your volunteers is very efficient on phones, but not at going door-to-door, you know what to do next.

In addition to data on your volunteers, tracking their activities gives you insight into the responsive and unresponsive areas in your district.  Let’s say, for example, that you have a volunteer that consistently turned in good results, but on this particular day he/she was working in a new region and turned in very poor results. This probably is possibly not an indicator of the quality of the volunteers work, but of a less responsive area, or a bad time of day, etc.

We love the ability to do all of this in real time. If you see that a particular volunteer is not having any success making contacts in a particular area, you can change them to a location where another volunteer is having greater success. You can also view when volunteers are beginning to run low on lists, and assign or create more for them before they run out. This kind of real time control places the efficiency of campaign operations on a whole new level.

Good luck!

Republican websites are atrocious. Obviously, this is a blanket statement that isn’t true 100% of the time, but I am shocked at how subpar the current state of Republican online presence is at the state and local level. I have recently been doing research that has brought me to a variety of Republican websites in several battleground states. To navigate each site required significant effort, but this really shouldn’t be the case.

With this in mind, here are the 10 things that I believe every campaign website must have. I would have considered them too basic to mention until I did my most recent research. I have seen violations of every item below on either a campaign or party website. Don’t let this be you:

Continue reading →

Continue reading →

I bought myself a new computer about a year ago. I had the money and decided to splurge a little. I am now sitting here typing on the 15 inch Macbook Pro that I purchased. It has a terabyte hard drive, 8 gigabytes of RAM, a 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7 Processor, which means it’s generally a pretty nice piece of machinery. It cost me what I thought was rather a pretty penny, almost $2500.

In a show of just how storage hungry modern computing has become, I decided that one terabyte wasn’t enough. I wanted an additional terabyte external hard drive. You know; just in case. It measures a grand total of 4 inches x 3 inches. Nice and portable. Imagine my surprise then, when (as a member of the younger generation) I found out that 34 years ago, the modern innovation in computer memory was a ONE gigabyte hard drive. As in that was 1980.

Computer technology has exploded in the last few decades, and storage capacity is one of the best examples. Here’s why: The current rise we see in mobile use can be traced directly to the ability to store large amounts of data in such small drives. If it were not for the developments in data storage, there would be no mobile devices of any kind. They just wouldn’t be practical. So here is a brief history of data storage.

1980: Saw the invention of a modern marvel.  It was a 1 gig. hard drive.  This refrigerator-sized device weighed 550 pounds and cost $40,000.  It was the largest storage device available.

1991: Eleven years later in, IBM introduces its 0663 Corsair. Its eight 3.5 inch platters stored 1 gigabyte of memory. A large improvement from the monstrosity that they had created just over a decade before. (Or should I say a small improvement?)

2002: Another 11 years in the future, and Seagate takes the lead, producing a magnetic recording areal density of 100 gigabytes per square inch.  Seagate also begins testing Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording.  This technological advance allows for data storage capacity to explode.

2004: Just two years later, the storage density was doubled with the introduction of Toshiba’s 0.85 inch drive with a 2 gig capacity.

2014: Here we are. I can buy 1 Terabyte, (or 1024 gigabytes) for about $90 and hold it in one hand.

We clearly see that the ability to store data drive the direction of technology in many ways.  This amazing explosion and the continued expansion of our knowledge can only make us wonder what is next.

1. 90% of American adults have a cellphone.

According to a recent study by Pew Research, 90% of Americans can now be contacted at any time, anywhere. The cellphone has been the fastest adopted technology in history and now 9 out of 10 Americans can perpetually be one button away from anyone in the world.

2. 98% of Americans ages 18-29 have cell phones.

While the national average is high, the adoption among the younger generation is almost complete. The most surefire way to reach the younger generation is through the way they interact with the world: mobile technology.

3. 58% of American adults have a smartphone.

Now almost 6 in 10 American adults have a smartphone. By comparison, 14% of American adults owned a smartphone in 2008. This means that you can now reach them through innumerable modes of communication. Constant access to the internet and social media facilitated by the modern marvel known as the smartphone also means constant potential exposure to campaign messaging, if you take advantage of it.

 4. 34% of all users are “mobile only.”

Up 9% from 2012, this continues to show the fascinating way our society is moving towards a mobile lifestyle. This rise in mobile computing is quickly rendering the traditional PC obsolete.

5. 25% of all emails are opened on mobile devices.

The vast quantities of business done on mobile devices is a very recent development and only illustrates further how prominent mobile technology has become.

6. 90% of people move between devices to achieve a goal (i.e. smartphone, tablet, PC).

Mobile technology is allowing for increased flexibility in all areas of life, whether business, shopping, or connecting and communicating with peers. People are now using multiple platforms to achieve their goals in the most efficient and convenient manner possible.

7. 189 million Facebook users are “mobile only.”

This alone should convince people that mobile technology use is pervasive. When the most popular form of social media is accessed primarily through mobile technology by a group of people numerically equivalent to 60% of the United States population, you should be paying attention.

Mobile technology is in full force in 2014 and is the wave of the future. If you want to be effective, you need to grasp this and learn to connect in a modern, mobile environment.

After the polls close and the yard signs come down, what do you have left? You have staff and volunteers. These are people who worked for you and believe in what you stand for. Then there’s the data that you collected on your voters while campaigning.

One of the most time consuming — and necessary — things you will do while campaigning is to build a dedicated volunteer base. For decades, campaigns have been going through this arduous and difficult process of building a brand new volunteer base to help them win votes. They often start from scratch, wasting precious time.

Once the volunteer base is built, there is no reason to let it fall apart. This group of dedicated volunteers could become the volunteer base needed for another campaign in the area. With a little time, money and an objective, these activists can be a core of your skilled campaigners for years to come. Keeping track of volunteers after an election is crucial to future victory.

The other thing that is regularly left to the scrap pile is the hard earned voter data. Quality data is something that every campaign needs. If data were saved from one campaign to the next, the refinement would only continue. The more accurate the data, the more effective the messaging and the more efficient the voter canvassing. Don’t get rid of your data. Building the infrastructure now will help you if you decide to run again. Consider the possibilities of letting other campaigns use your data in the meantime.

This is already being done on a large scale by the Democratic party beginning back in 2012 presidential campaign. Naturally the data pool that the DNC  has access to includes information relevant to politics such as past voting records, political affiliation and political donations, but it also contains vast quantities of public consumer records. For example, if you voted last election, they probably have data on you, and they also know what kind of car you drive, what magazines you read, what kind of housing you live in, etc. This database is capable of recording hundreds of data points per voter. This kind of information gives those in charge of political messaging a good idea of what you want to hear from them as well as where and who you are.

We need to stop thinking about politics in the short term. At Voter Gravity, the question is not only what will help conservatives win this election, but what will make elections more winnable, period. Invest in a group of volunteers. Keep them active. Invest in good, clean data. Keep that data. Every campaign keeps the data points collected on each voter while using Voter Gravity. Take simple steps now to produce long-term victory.

In the last several major elections we have seen the rise of a phenomenon in the political process. Early voting greatly affects voter turnout during an election. Nearly a quarter of the votes cast in the 2012 presidential election were cast early or absentee. Here are a few things you need to keep in mind to reach the early voting segment of your base:

The first and most important thing to do as you reach out to early and absentee voters is to avoid breaking the law. Early and absentee voting is one of the most strictly regulated parts of campaigning, and there are significant changes from state to state. Make sure you’re more than familiar with all the state laws regarding this.

Secondly, contact your voters. There are two distinct groups of absentee voters, those who request to vote absentee, and those who will just go vote early (depending on whether this is allowed in the state).

The first group is easier to target. This is the segment of voters that request absentee ballots.  They have to request these ballots from the Supervisor of Elections. You can get the list of ballot requests from either the supervisor of elections or the division of elections. This tells you who has requested the ballots, addresses, and possibly email and phone numbers. It is good practice to carefully time mailings to these people with the mailing of the ballots to them.

There are usually two ballot mailings; one for military requests, and then about a week later, domestic requests. Find out from the supervisor of elections when these ballots are getting mailed, and then send your literature the same day. It is also a good idea to keep your data up to date according to which ballots have been returned and which have not. Follow up with voters who are likely to support you and remind them to return their ballots.

The second group consists of those who will vote early for convenience or schedule conflict reasons. It is impossible to know which of the regular voters that aren’t requesting absentee ballots will vote early, but it is worthwhile to reach out and even encourage as many supporters as you are confident will support you to voter early. Provide forms for absentee ballot requests or information about early polling locations along with your normal material, targeted mailings, and literature drops. Encouraging your supporters to vote early allows you to focus your GOTV efforts more and more effectively as Election Day draws near.

Going door-to-door is both an art and a science. There are many common misconceptions born out of someone’s bad experiences campaigning for a political campaign that just don’t match up with reality most of the time. Let’s set the record straight:

7 Myths About Door-to-Door Canvassing:

1. The closer to the script you stay, the better.

This is what you will be told by most campaigns. That is because they are afraid you will say things that they don’t want you to say. Nothing is worse for a campaign than rogue messaging. The problem is that people don’t respond to scripts. They respond to people. Figure out the main messages of the campaign and be as natural as possible without deviating from those messages. (For top research in this area, check out “In the Trenches: What Republican Operatives Need to Know About Voter Canvassing.”)

2. It is illegal to knock on doors marked no soliciting.

A good friend of mine always asks these questions of volunteers who are wondering about no soliciting signs.  First, “Who made the laws about soliciting?”  The politicians. Second, “Who wants to get re-elected?” The politicians. Finally, “Does it seem likely that politicians would make laws that hamper their ability to get what they want?”…  In short, you are not soliciting. Going to a marked, no-soliciting door with a political campaign is completely legal.

3. Doors marked no soliciting will be less receptive.

This is sometimes accurate, but I have found that if the truth be told, the majority will not respond in any way more negatively than usual. Most of the time they don’t even remember they have the sign, and they basically don’t want average salesman coming up and bugging them. Occasionally you will get some people who will challenge you, and that is fine, you can just apologize and move on. To say this is the average however is a definite myth.

4. It is difficult to canvass territory that has been recently canvassed by another campaign.

I have literally been working opposite sides of the street with another campaigns worker before, going back over some of the exact same doors five minutes later. People actually like to compare and contrast. Any questions that the other campaign brought up to them are fresh on their minds. Rarely is it any more difficult to canvass after someone else. It can actually be very beneficial.

5. Doors with dogs should be skipped.

For reasons I have yet to comprehend, the presence of a dog in a front yard has a very unnerving effect on many first time canvassers. Dogs are pets. If you can see them, they aren’t typically dangerous, or they wouldn’t be out and free. Use caution and intelligence, but don’t be intimidated by that tail wagging lab simply because he happens to be trying to call you over by barking. Nothing facilitates a conversation with a voter like making friends with their dog.

6. It is fine to drop literature on a mailbox.

Every campaign I have been on has made a point to say this, but don’t forget!  Mailboxes are off limits. It isn’t just illegal. It is a federal offense. Don’t do anything to the mailbox. (And just for good measure, leave the post alone, too. Avoid even the appearance of evil.) Nothing like giving a campaign a good name like breaking the law.

7. People don’t like it when you knock on their doors.

Finally, as hard as it is for people to believe, the average person doesn’t mind having a campaign volunteer tell them what they need to know about a candidate to make an informed decision. It saves them time, and effort. They feel like they are getting decent information because it is straight from the source, and if you do your job right, it doesn’t take that long. There will, of course, be exceptions, but as a general rule, the overwhelming majority of your responses will either be neutral or positive, with the occasional cynic and recluse thrown in.

Political campaigns often go big or go home when it comes to fundraising and spending. The 2012 presidential campaigns set records for highest expenditures. The candidates spent approximately $1.8 billion combined. But where did all the money go?

By examining the different campaign spending strategies, we get an excellent idea of each campaign’s priorities. The Huffington Post broke down the “figures from the Obama and Romney campaigns, each candidate’s respective Victory Fund, the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee and their respective independent expenditure and coordinated expenditure arms.” (See numbers below.)

Perhaps the most significant spending difference between Republicans and Democrats in 2012 was the expenditure on payroll. Democrats spent roughly 7% of their entire budget on field personnel. The Republicans spent not quite 4%. Democrat field staffers were paid less than their Republican counterparts, allowing the Obama Campaign to hire field staffers at a ratio of almost 2.5:1. It is quite clear that the Obama Campaign stressed personal voter contact, making the campaign more accessible to the average voter. Equally as obvious is the fact that this strategy paid off. This is a clear example of the importance of running effective grassroots campaigns.

See for yourself: the breakdown of top 2012 campaign expenditures:

Total Expenditure

• Republicans: $885.6 million
• Democrats:  $919.3 million

Payroll

• Republicans: $33.3 million
• Democrats: $63.2 million

Television/Radio Ads (including production and placement costs)

• Republicans: $270 million
• Democrats: $420 million

Online Ads

• Republicans: $100.6 million
• Democrats: $118.1 million

Telemarketing

• Republicans: $74.5 million
• Democrats: $35.2 million

Polling

• Republicans: $19.3 million
• Democrats: $32.1 million

Other important takeaways:

Republicans spent approximately 41% of their funds on creation and placement of multimedia adds (higher according to some estimates). The Democrats spent roughly 58%.

The Republicans relied more heavily on telemarketing than Democrats, spending around 8% as opposed to not quite 4%.

The Democrats however relied more on polling than their opponents, allocating almost 3.5% as opposed to the Republicans just over 2%.

Having just finished volunteering in a special election campaign, I can say for certain that while the basics of door knocking stay the same, several things can complicate such activities during the winter. We decided to list some of these below so that you don’t have to struggle with the same issues that my fellow volunteers and I just faced.

1. Forgetting to bundle up. This may seem obvious, but dress in layers. In my experience, most don’t think of it. You will warm up as you go along during the day, but it will be cold for a while. Don’t forget the necessities: thick socks, warm shoes/boots, coat, hat, and gloves.
2. Leaving the water bottles at home. It is very easy to forget to drink when it isn’t warm outside; nevertheless, your body is losing moisture. Your energy level will wane if you don’t stay hydrated.
3. Using an iPhone without a case. When campaigning with a mobile canvasing app like Voter Gravity, you are carrying around a reasonable investment with you as you door knock. Make sure you protect your phone or tablet with a reasonable case. Nothing makes a slick device harder to hold than numb fingers.
4. Not wearing touchscreen gloves. Along the same vein, many volunteers will hold off on wearing gloves because they are using a mobile device. Do yourself a favor. Invest in a pair of gloves that allows you to wear them and use your device. Just say ‘no’ to cold, stiff fingers.
5. Dressing unprofessionally. Your appearance still matters to the person opening the door. Silly tassel hats, or other similarly unprofessional articles don’t instill confidence in the voter. Make sure your winter clothes don’t negatively affect the perception of the campaign that voters will receive.
6. Initiating long-winded conversations. Perhaps even more than in the summer, people don’t want to stand out on their porch talking to you. Not only are they busy; it’s cold. Be brief and to-the-point.
7. Forgetting to thaw out. Make sure you do warm up occasionally. It doesn’t take long at particularly low temperatures to do significant damage to your body. If you’re getting to cold, spend time in a heated car.
8. Not taking advantage of the little things in life. Warm drinks and hand warmers to keep your spirits up. It is amazing how much of a morale boost a little portable heat can give you on a cold day.
9. Using ballpoint pens. If you are unfortunate enough to still be using paper, you will notice that ballpoint pens freeze in cold temperatures. Pencils don’t freeze, but cause problems with scanners, as graphite has reflective properties. Use felt tip markers. Of course, mobile canvassing apps like Voter Gravity eliminate this problem altogether and ensure your data gets recorded perfectly.
10. Forgetting about the sun. There are less hours during the day in which door-to-door campaigning can be done. Make sure you set your goals accordingly. (And also don’t forget the sunscreen – you can still get sunburnt in the snow!)

As a note: Keep in mind that while door-to-door is the most effective means of voter contact, phone banking with integrated systems like Voter Gravity can be a good use of time and resources during rough weather conditions that hamper successful door-to-door canvassing.