Campaigns and Voter Information: Elections in a Digital Era

Creative Commons photo by L. Allen Brewer.

In the pursuit to attain 270 electoral votes and the presidency, politicians have used all manner of strategies to reach out to voters to sway their vote. With the support of sophisticated marketers, one analytical tool that campaigns have used extensively is collecting and combing through immense amounts of voter data. They usually come by this information from hiring data-mining operations with vast digital clearing houses, or independently gathering the material themselves through canvassing, focus groups, or the ubiquitous calls from campaign volunteers.

These fact-finding strategies have been used for decades by those who seek political office. Polling has always been a standard tool for candidates trying to read the pulse of their audiences, and collecting lists of voters was common. Since 2000, however, the detail and the sheer quantity of voter-data that is collected has grown immensely. Voter Contact Services and Aristotle International were political consulting firms who began the comprehensive program of “micro-targeting,” or dividing voters into specialized groups that can each have specific messages tailored to them. They began by simply looking at voter registration information, which is public information, though at times difficult to access. By combining this data with information from like-minded nonprofits and pioneering Internet vendors, these firms offered precise knowledge on targeted voters, such as retirees in Alabama with disposable income. Steve Forbes, in his failed bid for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, broke the ground for this probing tactic, and his opponents quickly followed suit. But even with this seemingly vast knowledge, these tactics were were rendered obsolete in just a few years.

The age of the internet has introduced a new era of data mining, and has vastly increased the quantity and precision of voter information. While older sources of information such as party voter files are still a significant part of campaigns, these tactics are being integrated with more novel innovations in data collection. A number of corporations, such as Acxiom and Experion, use comprehensive online nets to capture personal information which they then sell directly to politicians. Since 2004, the number of distinct bits on each voter sold has more than tripled, and this year the combined spending of the DNC and the RNC on data acquisition is at least $13 million. Social media sites have also proven to be a treasure trove of information. Every time a person logs onto a campaign website via his or her facebook account, data such as email address, gender, birthday, and friend list, is made available to that campaign.

This data mining has allowed campaigns to create extensive campaign databases that track a voters’ online pornography habits, beer preference, or number of gay friends. This has allowed for microtargeting of an unprecedented scale. Criticism has been voiced by those who believe such tactics invade the privacy of individuals, however, little has been done thus far to stop these practices.While the FTC has urged for more transparency of internet data brokers, the language of such proposals has been relatively moderate, and simple corporate transparency would not meaningfully restrict the availability of personal data to campaigns.

Political campaigns are using this new information in a variety of ways. Instead of focusing on wide demographics like ethnicity or income, campaigns are focusing on individuals. The Obama campaign has exploited the information to tailor ads and emails to individuals. A union member in Ohio would receive different emails from the Obama campaign than a college student in Colorado. The Romney campaign is focusing on voters who are “off the grid” and not accessible by means such as television ads. Another tactic they have is to change ads on websites depending on whether or not the visitor is Republican.

The thrust of these efforts is to convince voters on the margins to vote. The issues that may swing a vote could be bizarre. In Illinois for example, it was reported that the Republican nominee in the 2010 gubernatorial race lost the election partly because Democrats went after him for supporting “gas chambers” for pets. The candidate had introduced a bill in the state legislature that would have allowed animal shelters to euthanize more than one animal at a time, which the Democratic party publicized to pet owners in the state.

Targeting voters has come a long way since combing through public records. With 91 percent of American citizens considered “digitally active” by Pew Research, there is essentially very little campaigns don’t know. This information is corralled into elephantine databases to be analyzed: Catalist for the Democrats and the long-used Voter Vault for Republicans. While it is hard to say what effect this will directly have on the election in November, it will not be inconsequential. As the real contesting shifts to a few battleground states, there is little doubt that the candidates have extensive knowledge of the vast majority of voters in Ohio, Nevada, Florida, and Virginia. Since most elections are swayed by those who almost didn’t vote, campaigns are desperate to ensure their constituents go to the polls. The urgency on both sides has led campaign managers to fret whether this is the year they incorporate “shaming.” This essentially means sending mail about you (or your neighbors) and calling you out for not voting and imploring you to do it this year. These messages, seen as uncouth, would almost certainly come from anonymous PACs as opposed to the candidates.

Even if this guilt tactic is not put to use, voters are still almost completely unaware of the degree to which campaigns collect information from them. When they are informed, they don’t like it, as 86 percent surveyed Americans feel it is a violation of privacy. While there has been some “Do Not Track” legislation discussed by the White House, nothing has been passed, and the campaigns continue. Two major issues have risen though: once collected, what happens to the information, and how well is it secured? Both questions have unsatisfactory answers, with potentially disastrous results. For the latter, there have been instances when voter data has been leaked or changed. Though this has been rare, the potential for the deeply personal information of millions of people to be released to outside figures or to be opened to the general public has evoked serious concerns. Regarding the future uses of the data, history has shown that campaigns store this data to use it for the indefinite future. Obama for America’s privacy policy states that they can share data “with candidates, organizations, groups or causes that we believe have similar political viewpoints, principles or objectives." There is no clear way to remove yourself from their databases, which is troubling for privacy advocates. This has created a rather unsettling situation for voters, and it appears that there is no end in sight for the rampant data collection politicians are embracing.

Further Reading:
Obama’s Massive Voter Database
Privacy Issues and Voting
Voter Database Security
Canvassing in Illinois