The US presidential elections have been the most participative in history. Over the course of 56 primaries and caucuses, over 60 million people made the effort to put a cross or punch a hole against the name of a candidate. Much of this is down to the nature of the contest: not since the Great Depression has an incumbent president or vice-president decided against running. The historic candidacies of the first viable female and black candidates have added to the excitement. But some of the credit lies with innovative software designers who have harnessed modern technology to raise more money, contact more voters, and better utilize volunteers’ time than ever before.
Many people find the combination of money and politics to be unsavory. Whether it’s allegations of peerages for sale or the preservation (or removal) of favourable legislation, political donations are often seen as a form of bribery. This has gone so far in the UK that political parties are seriously debating the introduction of European-style state funding. Since the traditional method in the US has been to collect donations from wealthy backers (often in exchange for access or favours), it would seem at first glance that America offers few lessons.
Yet the primary elections have seen the explosion of ‘small dollar democracy’. Over 1.5 million voters have been so moved by Barack Obama that they have made a donation to his campaign. Nearly half his total haul to date of $264m has come from small donations (i.e. less than $200). For the Republicans, the hopeful candidacies of Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee were the most innovative. Despite routinely coming fourth or fifth in Republican primaries, Paul raised nearly $22m in small donations, more than any other candidate except eventual nominee John McCain. The process by which this has taken place has involved collecting email addresses, asking often for contributions, and allowing some control over where the funds go.
Voters can, of course, provide their email addresses online but an aggressive strategy to collect contact details has also been underway. At every Obama rally (often pulling crowds in excess of 50,000) voters were encouraged to provide their personal information. Last summer, teams of volunteers for Hillary Clinton took to the streets of Miami, New York and Washington DC to sell bumper stickers or badges for a dollar. Every donor was asked to provide an email address. Once a database was created, supporters were bombarded with emails making appeals for cash, sometimes one a day. The messages were tailored so that a previous donation was acknowledged in subsequent emails; incentives were put in place with, for example, Obama having an ‘intimate’ dinner with new and existing donors chosen at random; appeals were linked to specific goals such as buying a particular number of adverts; and timing was crucial (Obama got one of his biggest hauls the night that he lost New Hampshire to Clinton).
In making a donation, supporters can often specify the purpose. In the run up to the Pennsylvania primary, Clinton allowed donors to choose to pay for yard signs, vans to take voters to the polls, or adverts. There are numerous stories of hard-up supporters foregoing nights out to make a $25 donation, but ultimately the process has given many people a literal stake in the election.
The meat and potatoes of any political campaign is voter contact. Public opinion is the lifeblood of a successful candidacy. Moreover, strategists need to know where support lies in order that they can ‘get out the vote’ on election day. The traditional method has been for canvassers to plough through the electoral register knocking on doors or making phone calls and recording how people intend to vote. Those undecided are sent literature (and maybe even a visit by the candidate). On polling day, those who are favourable are contacted again and encouraged to vote. The problem is that the process is inefficient with answering machines, door slams and opposition supporters wasting canvassers’ time.
American campaigns now use sophisticated techniques, known as ‘microtargeting,’ to minimise these problems. Huge databases are created using information from polling returns, public sources such as the census, and commercially available data, for example, from credit card companies. Statistical models are then used to calculate the probability that a particular voter will support the candidate. For example, female pensioners who shop at Whole Foods (an upmarket supermarket) may have a high probability of voting for Clinton so canvassers on both sides can ignore them and focus instead on those profiled instead as swing voters.
Research shows that door-knocking can help increase turnout by 5 to 10 percentage points but it is also time consuming. New internet-based telephone systems have allowed volunteers to make calls any time, anywhere. For example, both Clinton and Obama used a computer system that connected supporters to voter after voter in a specific region. The surrogates dial a central number and instead of hanging up after a call, type a number into the phone (e.g. ‘1′ for Clinton supporter; ‘2′ for Obama; ‘3′ for Republican, ‘4′ for no answer, ‘5′ for refusal or hang up). The system filters voicemail so that callers are continually connected to voters. To make it more fun, evening and weekend ‘call parties’ were organized with people meeting at someone’s house or in a campaign office and using the free minutes on their phones. Meanwhile, those who prefer to make calls at home are also able to help the cause.
With this information, campaign strategists are able to make better decisions. Because the data collection and input is less time consuming, more voters were contacted in the runup to the primaries. This contributed to the dramatic increase in turnout. It also provided strategists with an easy way to monitor local performance and promote staffers who did well. And because the caller was provided with the latest campaign script, every volunteer everywhere was automatically part of the rapid rebuttal effort.
Volunteers in British politics are sometimes put upon by older hands. No effort is ever good enough. For any cold wet Saturday morning spent knocking on doors, there is always the question of ‘where were you last weekend?’ By contrast, Obama – in particular – has been effective at encouraging people (many with no previous experience or affiliation to the Democratic party) to do as much or as little as they like. His supporters have access to a service called my.barackobama.com. This essentially acts as a campaign Facebook. Once a login is created, a member can contact supporters with similar interests or locality, start their own fundraising effort, and blog comments and suggestions. Clinton has, in a series of emails to supporters, asked them to share their views on her campaign. To show that they are genuinely listening, the campaign shares the opinions of these supporters in subsequent emails.
Organization is power and the key to the extraordinary successes in 2008 has centred on constructing a relationship with supporters and ensuring that communications are two-way. The applicability of all this to the UK is an open question as the institutional environment in the US is different, but since the technology has already been tested and the costs are relatively low, it can only be a matter of time before one British party steals a march on another by making some of it work. In the process they might just make themselves a little bit more democratic.