During the 2008 election cycle the Democrat Party, progressive leaning organizations, and the Obama Campaign executed a voter registration drive in the perfect environment. They capitalized, with nearly unlimited funding, on the strongest anti-Republican mood since Watergate and ensured a strong showing at the polls for Democrat candidates. Although it is still early in 2010 election cycle, there are strong indications that voters are uncomfortable with the Democrat’s agenda. Without question, this is a year where voter registration drives will significantly add to Republicans to voter rolls across the country. This is opportunity that should not be passed up by the Republican Party but to maximize on this environment data must be integrated into the plan.
Voter registration strategies in the past have not integrated individual data components or sophisticated targeting. Time, money and human resources are wasted by sending volunteers to their local supermarket to stand there with a clipboard and ask strangers to register to vote. This method will generate newly registered voters, but if you want to sign up new voters of a particular party affiliation, you could end up making very little progress despite the political environment.
Magellan suggests a more data driven and targeted approach using consumer data to identify individuals who are not registered to vote. The first step in the process involves matching consumer data against voter registration lists to identify who is not registered to vote. After compiling a list of non-registrants, the file can then be geocoded to determine what precinct they live in. The precincts are then ranked on past Republican candidate performance and a determination is made that voter registration efforts will only be attempted in precincts where Republican candidates (McCain, popular statewide GOP candidate percentage) performed at 60% or better. The non-registrants in the targeted precincts are then mailed voter registration information, preceded with an automated phone contact notifying the household to look for the mail piece. Finally, depending on volunteer resources, a door to door contact is attempted. The beauty of this voter registration program is results can be measured by collecting the county voter file before and after the program is implemented, actual individuals are targeted, and there is significant time, money and human resources wasted.
If the Republican Party is going to maximize gains in this year’s political environment, it must begin doing things smarter, more targeted and most of all integrating data into every decsion made. Of course, Magellan Data and Mapping Strategies can provide all of the data components required to execute a data driven voter registration program.