Obama's Voter Registration Explosion
Over the past few weeks of traveling with Barack Obama, it's striking to see how the campaign prioritizes practical organizing at his events. Local operatives are ferried to the stage, so they can make "asks" for goals they know far better than the traveling campaign staff. Those asks range from registration deadlines to early vote programs to joining the text message network, if it's considered effective in a given region. (I definitely never saw field organizers empowered like that when I worked on the Kerry campaign.) That field outreach is supported, of course, by a sophisticated mobilization online.
So in an article for next week's Nation, I tried to explore how these efforts reinforce each other. Here are some excerpts:
Before Barack Obama spoke to a September rally at the University of Nevada, 21-year-old Carmen Gilbert took the stage to address her classmates, who spilled across the quad in a capacity crowd of 12,000 people. She was all business. "Take out your cellphones," said Gilbert, as she ordered the throng of rookie voters to text Obama's headquarters on the spot. With the punch of two buttons -- a message reading NV -- vital organizing intelligence poured into the campaign.
Obama's aides treasure data and contact information for voters in swing states, and text messages provide both. First, the campaign learns when and where a person joined up. So a student with a New York cellphone, who would otherwise be relegated to fundraising appeals, is reclassified for Nevada mobilization. Then, organizers directly reach them with text messages and calls. The campaign also asks supporters to forward text messages and grow the network.
"Every night there's a data sync on who is new and who is a longtime MyBO [Obama social network] user who started making calls," says Joe Rospars, Obama's new-media director, explaining how the campaign integrates virtual actions with organizing on the ground. A swing-state supporter who signs up online will swiftly receive calls from local staff and targeted e-mails....
Reaching new people is futile, of course, if they aren't registered to vote. The Obama campaign has united web and field recruitment to wage one of the largest voter registration drives of a modern campaign. It's the first time since Jesse Jackson's 1980s bids that a candidate has staked success on mobilizing new voters. Obama's October schedule is studded with evidence of this audacious strategy; he's spending precious time in recently bright-red states like North Carolina, where he spoke to a 28,000-person rally on October 5. But he can't win the state within its 2004 universe of registered voters: they re-elected Bush by a whopping 12.5-point margin, about 436,000 votes. Obama needs new registrants just to narrow that gap -- and he must still win back conservative swing voters.
Step one is working. Democratic registration has spiked by seven points in North Carolina since March -- the GOP's is up only a point -- and the Obama campaign says it has registered 160,000 new voters. It has forty-five field offices sending volunteers to find new voters; a parallel hunt continues online.
Obama's Internet success is well known, of course, since he has bested his rivals in both parties on everything from political traffic to YouTube views to MySpace friends. The campaign's use of the web for recruiting new voters, however, is largely below the radar.
That's fine with Obama's aides, who think the quiet, steady growth of the list of new registrants will catch some Republicans off guard. One example is McCain's abrupt choice to cede Michigan, which he announced on the very day that new voters packed an 18,000-person Obama rally at Michigan State. Obama's press shop has done very little to promote its signature registration effort online--the innovative portal VoteForChange. (The campaign required my interviews with its Internet staff to be mostly on background.) VoteForChange has received scant print coverage, but it's a viral hit. Although the site is an Obama operation, it decouples registration from the Hopemonger. The spare bilingual homepage looks more like a search engine, soliciting information and helping visitors register, request absentee ballots or find polling locations... the new site had already bested the average traffic for Senate.gov. Meanwhile, in some states spikes in registration reveal a civic excitement broader than any single campaign can create. In Ohio a record-breaking 94 percent of eligible citizens have now registered.
* * *
It's easy to forget, but during the primary season Obama trailed in most polls before the Iowa caucuses. Credit the man for using personal appeal and the politics of hope to stay afloat, but credit his campaign's sophisticated Internet program for making even that possible. Without the web, they wouldn't have had the money to compete or the network to organize support beyond the party apparatus. Those feats, however, have blue borders. Obama has only altered Democratic politics so far.
If his strategy succeeds, all presidential politics could change. First-time voters -- both this generation of the young, black or marginalized as well as future rookie cohorts -- might become a constituency that candidates pursue. The long shot, if Obama wins big, is a larger electoral universe that forces Republicans to play catch-up. The party that spent decades stifling voter turnout, from illegal suppression to court-sanctioned ploys like ID requirements, could find electoral salvation depends on the ability to register its own new voters. Couple that grassroots pressure with an economic crisis stoking intense bipartisan populism, and a "new politics" might really be on the horizon.
--
Entire Nation article here.
Follow Ari Melber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AriMelber
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For our resident wingnuts:
"Voter Fraud" is practically nonexistent and is NEVER effective. Election Fraud (the institutional suppression of votes), which is perpetrated by the Republican party, is infinitely more effective and has actually been the deciding factor in national elections.
I quess you have not been paying attention to the news on ACORN--with little things like registering the Dallas Cowboys in Arizona, the same college student 50 to 70 times, the same nonexistent person 10 times, registering a 7 year old--and the list goes on.
Early in the campaign, I noticed that the Obama staff was asking volunteers to make phone calls on their cell phones on the weekends, when calls were free. They also had east coasters making calls after nine to the mountain and west coast, again when the calls were free. That sort of optimization has been a hallmark of the campaign: they're just playing the game smarter than everyone else.
Parts of Ohio are already fighting back on disenfranchising the college vote.
http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/oh/story/news/local/2008/10/10/ddn101008demsweb.html
Chris Redfern, you're a hero.
Get the FACTS about ACORN from Daily KOS
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/10/75639/882/410/626072
Fact: ACORN has implemented the most sophisticated quality-control system in the voter engagement field, but in almost every state we are required to turn in ALL completed applications, even the ones we know to be problematic.
Fact: ACORN flags incomplete, problem, or suspicious cards when we turn them in, but these warnings are often ignored by election officials. Often these same officials then come back weeks or months later and accuse us of deliberately turning in phony cards.
Fact: Our canvassers are paid by the hour, not by the card, so there is NO incentive for them to falsify cards. ACORN has a zero-tolerance policy for deliberately falsifying registrations, and in the relatively rare cases where our internal quality controls have identified this happening we have fired the workers involved and turned them in to election officials and law-enforcement.
Fact: Voter fraud by individuals is extremely rare, and incredibly difficult. There has never been a single proven case of anyone, anywhere, casting an illegal vote as a result of a phony voter registration. Even if someone wanted to influence the election this way, it would not work.
ACORN has registered over 1.3 million voters. Over 60% are people of color. This is a horrifying development for Republicans and the McCain campaign.
8 seperate state investigations, 800k from the obama campaign, but this won't change any minds brainwashed lemmings.
"Voter Fraud" is NOTHING compared to the Republican institutional suppression of votes.
You can lead a Republican to the facts, but you can't make him learn.
Where is the philosophy coming from that ACORN workers would have people fill out multiple registration forms in an election cycle? The fact that you do good work does not excuse the allegations that ACORN's workers have committed voter registration fraud. Find the philosophy and get rid of it. It helps no one and makes your affiliations look terrible.
Then why would ACORN register the same 19 year old 19 times?
A letter to John McCain,
Mr. McCain, you have been weighed in the balances and your time is up. The decisions you have made regarding your campaign have been without regard to the American people. You have put yourself first and country last. Your once respected campaign rallies have now become hate rallies. You have allowed Sarah Palin to hi-jack your campaign rallies and turn them into forums for hate. This has opened the old wounds of racism and fear that continues to plaque the south. The south is one part of the country where you are above 50% in the polls. You nor your running mate are talking about real issues for the American people. The more you push division and hate you will be pushed down in the polls. The hands of God will not let you pass. The American people in this time of our history are not looking for messages filled with hate. Since you are not willing to take back the control you have given to Sarah Palin, you are heading for a political disaster that will be in the history books. Your time is up.
PittbullCatcher!
That was perfect. John McCain's time is up.
We can not let the haters rule our world. We must not! Vote OBAMA/BIDEN 08!
About this ACORN thing.
Does anyone know for sure it was an ACORN person who submitted these fake registrations, or could it be someone from the other side hoping to make the left look bad?
That's what I'm thinking. It still makes Democrats and progressives look terrible.
most of them are from ACORN
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081010/ap_on_el_ge/voter_purges;_ylt=AmPHkdzwXLUbMTRupU8cR7hh24cA
While reading it, you will notice that it is only in Battleground states. Maybe the AP is growing up, unlike CNN who does shows about ACORN!
Obama Biden 2008
I don't think you should have to register to vote. All you should have to do is show something that proves you are a citizen.
The registration first is to help the smooth operation at the polling booths and mail or early voting. If people at the booths have to check the authencity of the citizenship then it would take longer time.
Please learn the facts about ACORN so we can set the tro//s straight...
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/10/75639/882/410/626072
Thank you for clearing this up.
Yes, thanks Whit!
Dailykos is real fair and http://www.nypost.com/seven/10102008/news/politics/1_voter__72_registrations_132965.htm132965.htm
The New York Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Funny how you mentioned "fair and balanced."
OK, so I flip around the networks in the morning to get a feel for what is going on. Before I get to Fox, I try to guess if it's going to be Ayers or ACORN. But now CNN is carrying the ACORN story...is this really a non-issue or should I worry about it?
Let's hope all of these newly registered voters are real and will turnout to vote in November. Until then, I'm not going to get my hopes up.
Obama wins. That's it. Period. End of story. McFailin is absolutely FINISHED! That's what makes this ACORN thing so bad. Obama has this election in the bag and now we have to deal with ACORN. Get ACORN out of election logistics.
FYI - ACORN is REQUIRED by law to turn in every registration form they receive. They go through them and if they can't verify the person they flag it and let the election officials know. The tro//s on here seem to not know this so I just wanted to put the information out there.
Also, just because they receive a fraudulent registration form doesn't mean it turns into a fraudulent vote. Voter fraud has been investigated and is extremely low. One report shows only 18 cases. This is a tactic used by the G.O.P. to distract voters while they engage in voter caging and voter suppression
Here is a good link -
http://truthaboutfraud.org/
This is so typical of what is happening to this country. It all depends on what you read and who you http://www.nypost.com/seven/10102008/news/politics/1_voter__72_registrations_132965.htm965.htm
Yes, it's a smear to make it sounds like new voters are fraudulent.
2 felons, one convicted of identity theft working as supervisors in Las Vegas. This is your paragon of virtue.
Acorn has been charged with voter fraud on other elections. They are a left wing group given large amounts of money by the government and they were part of the push on banks to loan money to the poor for housing. Part of this big mess we are is because of Acorn. They endorse Obama and have received $800,000. from his campaign.
According the the ACORN web site:
ACORN is a non-profit, non-partisan social justice organization with national headquarters in New York, New Orleans and Washington, D.C. To maintain independence, ACORN does not accept government funding and is not tax exempt.
http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=12342
How exactly does a non-profit group PUSH a bank to make a loan?
I love the notion that it was actually african-americans and latinos who were responsible for the mortgage problems. Because so many low-income folks are flipping condos in Miami, right?
The Community Reinvestment Act was started in 1977. It made the practice of redlining mortgages illegal. it has NOTHING to do with incomes. The government stepped in when it was clear that lower-income whites could get loans that lower-income blacks and latinos could not.
But keep wasting your time pushing right-wing bullcrap...by all means.
And McCain does not use email. Thank God for Palin & McCain. This is God's will. :) The Republicans are being punished for deceit and corruption.
Funny how Rush L. and others tried to get republican to vote for Hillary to put the election off. Who is to say that they are not trying to do the same thing here by creating this bad behavior and then trying to show light to their miss dealings and trying to blame it on someone else. There are just too many evil people in America. Just do the right thing or nothing at all but if you are in the position to do your job, just do it or quit and let someone that is really qualified to do it without creating doubt. Will this America exist?
I'm in total agreement... Too many people care about their own agenda...In the words of John F. Kennedy "ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country" It's time to do whats right.
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