We talk a lot online about what we (but mostly others) should do to win back congress in 2006 but these ideas quickly scroll off the page and into oblivion. Except for the rare political god, elections are won by the organization of intense 'though grubby on-the-ground doorknocking, phonebanking and such. The principal flaw in this approach is that local registered voterfile data is based upon voter's original registration. Consequently, phone#s & addresses are deplorably out-of-date. You can ammend this deficiency from the comfort of the chair in which you now sit......
When we walk the precincts, we knock or doorhang at every house, Democrat & Republican alike; and when we phonebank, it is the same except that many of the voterfile-phone#s are invalid. This scattergun approach is particularly counterproductive during GOTV since we contact Republicans as well as Democrats. Yes, one can ask a contact their preferences and simply say 'thank you' if they're Republican but this is inefficient of time and requires a modicum of interviewing skill. But by far the most gaping deficiency is out-of-date phone#s, particularly since so many have switched to cellphones.
Well, here's how you can help...and in a very big way:
- From your local Democratic Party, obtain a voterfile for your precinct containing the name, street address and phone# of every registered voter, preferrably listed in street address order. Better yet, get your local party to initiate a search for a volunteer to do this in every precinct.
- Create a wordfile of supplementary information arranged in the same order as the voterfile.
- The best site I've found for more current address/phone# data is InfoSpace.com (see tips for using it below); it has a 'find neighbors' button and lists the residents of each street in order of house number rather than alphabetical last name, which is typically the order of voterfiles. You'll want to collect any online data that is different from the voterfile: additional or different residents and additional or different phone#(s) for each address.
- As for voter preferences, either you and your team or subsequent walkers/phonebankers can gather this data. We grade each voter in each household on a scale of five between Rabid Republican to Devout Democrat. Walkers also carry a stack of registration forms for unregistered residents who express liberality.
- Now when GOTVers walk and phonebank, they know where and where-not-to go.
Here's how to access/use InfoSpace.com:
Goto InfoSpace
Select Radiobutton 'Find a Person'
Enter Lastname, Firstname, City, State of anyone on the street of interest (from voterlist)
Click Search: (if not found, choose another name on that street, or if multiple hits, click the one with desired address)
Click 'Find Neighbors'
You get 10 per page but page-advance is just one click
You should also know beforehand the last house-number before a street enters another precinct since Infospace gives you what they have for the entire street. You can do this with a quick drive-around, precinct map in hand.
Of all the campaign work I've done in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2005, this is by far the most efficient. It is a multiplier of all the efforts of doorwalkers and phonebankers and can be applied nationwide for those of us who sit at our computers hour after hour with steam coming out of our ears.