I'm actually AnotherMassachusettsLiberal, but I created this sock puppet so that I could offer a unique opportunity to all of my hard working Kossack friends. In my day job, I'm a software engineer, but my politics hobby has kept me pretty busy these last 5 years - I got myself elected to my Democratic Town Committee, and they made me the co-chair of the Elections Committee in time for the 2008 cycle. I've also been a delegate to the state convention for the past 4 years, and I participate in the Communications Sub-committee for the State Democratic Party. I have a solid understanding of grassroots organizing, and that's where I see jobs coming from.
You see, anyone can organize politically - voter databases and voter history files are in the public domain, if you ask your town clerk for an electronic copy, they have to give one to you. Some town clerks are allowed to charge nominal fee for retrieving the data, but there's no great barrier to obtaining the voter data in any town in the country. Or at least there shouldn't be - sometimes a partisan town clerk will give people a hard time, but if that happens, the Secretary of State's office can also pull the data for you.
However, what you get when you ask for the file is tough to use in practice. Here in Massachusetts, we get a text file with row after row of data, all of the columns separated by a piping symbol: |. All of the local candidates that I know use this data in spreadsheets, but that's cumbersome and difficult to use, and it doesn't lend itself to analyzing voter activity, since you'll have a different spreadsheet for each voting history file you have in your collection.
Join me over the fold for a grand solution...
Enter the software engineer/grassroots organizer - that would be me! I've created a system called, appropriately, ORGANIZE! It allows the user to upload the voter data file and the voting history into a database, and it makes the data available in an easy to use web site. You get an instant summary of the partisan breakdown in your town - here's what my town of Milford, MA looks like:
The town summary shows you a clear path to victory - as you can see, in Milford there's almost three times as many Democrats as Republicans, with a sizable chunk of unenrolled folks. If Democrats turn out most of their voters and attract just one-third of the unenrolled folks, they're on a surefire path to a victory speech.
The data is automatically broken out by precinct as well, since the precinct number is in the voter data file - again, ORGANIZE! makes the data available in an easy to understand layout:
From there, users will recruit volunteers willing to serve as precinct captains, and everyone will have to get together to divide the precincts into neighborhoods. Once that job is done, you can pull up neighborhood summaries:
And ORGANIZE! interfaces to Google maps for each neighborhood:
There's many, many more features - ORGANIZE! allows volunteers to self register, and they can be designated as precinct captains, neighborhood captains, or street captains. Users must handle their own forgotten passwords, again with a self-serve interface, administrators can not see password data - users may also change their personal info. There's a messaging system for communicating with other volunteers, and a robust voter search feature which allows you to search for voters based on last name, street name, party affiliation, voting history and more. As voters are canvassed, tags are added to their records so that we can gather contact info, find out which issues they care most deeply about, and what election activities they might be willing to do (lawn signs, host a phone bank, etc).
By starting now, we can organize our towns and turn out our voters on election day in 2012, and this is where the jobs come in. ORGANIZE! isn't free - there's a setup fee of $125.00 and a monthly hosting and maintenance fee as low as $7.50 per month. These charges will ensure the future of the software and make it available to the widest possible audience of grassroots organizers. Also, be advised, ORGANIZE! is only available for sale to liberals and progressives - Republicans, Libertarians, and Tea Party types are not welcome! The fee structure will also pay for an adhoc sales staff of bloggers nationwide, selling ORGANIZE! and helping good progressives win elections at all levels of government.
What does the customer get for their money? ORGANIZE! features include:
* Utilizes state-issued Voter ID, so it can interface to VoteBuilder, Sage Systems, etc
* Data files in most popular formats are supported for both import and export of data: pipe-delimited, tab-delimited, CSV
* Town Summary shows you the partisan breakdown of all of your registered voters
* Summary can be broken out by precinct, neighborhood and street
* Voter search by name, street, voting history, issues, volunteer status
* Interfaces to Google maps for neighborhoods
* Allows administrators to appoint precinct captains, neighborhood captains, street captains
* Instant messaging between users
* Self registration with administrator approval
* Lost passwords and updating of account info are handled by the user, not the administrator
* Interfaces to Google Groups, Calendar
* Purchasers of ORGANIZE! also get a free Wordpress blog, free web based email, and more
How many people pulled nomination papers from your Town Clerk last year? Chances are, quite a few. How many towns are within an easy drive of your house, 20, 30? There are hundreds of sales prospects all over this great land. As a sales rep, you split the $125 setup fee with my company, making $62.50 for a couple of hours of work. Just five sales a week will benefit your household's bottom line, and you'll be doing a labor of love! Nitty gritty details - sales reps will be 1099 contractors, I can't possibly take on an army of employees presently. I hope to be employing full-time support staff someday, but I'll need to make a good number of sales before that can happen. In the meantime, my daughter and I will handle support items, I'm in the process of installing software for tracking support requests.
So, still with me? Visit OrganizeMyTown.com, join my blog and use the web form (in my first blog post, or on the About ORGANIZE! page) and tell us what you're interested in!
Thanks for reading!