A Democratic data firm showed last summer that the party was able to clearly distinguish supporters from opponents despite having no information about voters' party registration.
The amount of information politicians have about individual voters varies state-by-state. Each state party makes its own data rules, and some local candidates are more willing to share their information than others. Swing states — which see a regular influx of national money and volunteers — tend to have more information than safe states.
Both the Democratic and Republican parties have pushed hard over the last decade to train volunteers to use their party's databases. A decade ago, the Republican National Committee was sending staffers with crates of laptops to Republican events across the country, with the goal of training local activists to use the party's "Voter Vault" database, according to interviews with former RNC staffers. Volunteers were encouraged to bring in their address books, look up their friends in the database, and update their contact information, said Serenety Hanley, who worked on the project.
US Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat, Minnesota
Much of the coverage of President Obama's big data effort focused on the high-level analysts and number crunchers working out of the campaign's offices in Chicago — and the Republicans advocating for their party to adopt similar data-focused strategies.
But Democratic insiders say that their party's data advantage comes from their strong network of on-the-ground volunteers — something that may be harder to replicate than hiring an office of data scientists.
Pitzrick, the founder of Minnesota's Grandma Brigade, came to political activism in 2003 from a background in marketing, and was shocked at the poor quality of the Democratic Party's information. One local volunteer she knew went to interview a voter on her list, only to find his family holding a wake.
So, Pitzrick started flipping to the newspaper obituary page over her morning cup of coffee, and updating the voter database in her local state senate district. These days, she said, she finds it more efficient to open up local entries on Legacy.com.
One of Pitzrick's friends, 76-year-old Fran Merriman, a former high school American history and government teacher, tracks the public records of voters moving in and out of the area — something that's a lot of fun, she quips, for a "nosy old lady."
"Every time we send out mailers and it comes back, we've wasted 44 cents," Merriman said. Updating the database, she said, is "like contributing money" to the party.
"I'm sure some place across the country there are a lot of other seniors citizens who could do this kind of work," she said.
The Federal Trade Commission recently asked nine large data companies to clarify what commercial data companies do with individuals' information — and whether consumers have the right to opt-out. Earlier this year, several members of Congress asked data companies similar questions.
President Barack Obama himself released a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, focused on online data collection, last February, which suggested that consumers "have a right to exercise control over what personal data companies collect from them and how they use it." The president said he would push for legislation to back up consumers' privacy rights.
But the administration has been silent on what if any rights voters should have regarding the data gathered about them.
Asked about this issue last year, a White House spokesperson would only say that the Privacy Bill of Rights "applies to how businesses handle consumers' personal data online, and will impact all organizations using personal information collected through commercial means," including campaigns.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
More Articles
- Julia Sneden Redux: Age Rage; Sometimes You Just Have to Strike Back
- Selective Exposure and Partisan Echo Chambers in Television News Consumption: Innovative Use of Data Yields Unprecedented Insights
- Jo Freeman Reviews Thank You For Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission
- Journalist's Resource: Religious Exemptions and Required Vaccines; Examining the Research
- Jo Freeman Reviews: Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight
- Jo Freeman Writes: Sex and the Democratic Party – In Brooklyn
- Jo Freeman Reviews MADAM SPEAKER, Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons Of Power: “An iron fist in a Gucci glove”
- Jo Freeman Reviews Mazie's Hirono's Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter's Story
- Jo Freeman: The Georgia Peach Is Purple
- Jo Freeman Reviews The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage and Justice