Last Tuesday night my girlfriend’s brother won the democratic primary of a U.S. Congressional race. Since it’s a very strong democratic district, the odds are favorable that he’ll be elected to the U.S. Congress in a few months. In my efforts to keep this blog somewhat anonymous, I won’t give more details on the race.
For the past two weekends I put my shoulder to the wheel and tried to turn out some votes. I helped my girlfriend go door to door and also made a couple hundred phone calls. Besides the elation of the victorious election night, I took away two major lessons from the experience.
First, it was inspiring to see how hard a candidate and his supporters must work in order to win. I only volunteered for two weekends, but the campaign ran at full speed for 15 months. Despite all the hyped political blabber that you see on the TV, the goal of a campaign is to connect with the voters. Large media blasts certainly help, but nothing trumps a personal conversation. The catch is that it’s hard to meet people. You could spend an entire day walking just one neighborhood. Since most people aren’t home, and only a fraction of the rest are potential voters, you finish the day wondering if you’ve even accomplished anything.
Second, there’s a lot of potential for improving the role of technology in campaigns. When we were canvasing, I wished that we had Fedex’s delivery software to plan our route. I felt like a novice in the super market, bouncing sporadically from aisle to aisle. When we were making phone calls, I wished that I had a slick computer interface to guide me through the call. Each person call has subtle features that are easy to overlook. For example, some people have been called before, some have donated money or time, some are voting absentee, and some share a household with other voters. In addition, it’s important to impart personalized information, such as the voter’s polling location.
I’ve been thinking about how to create a good user interface for phone banking. I’m picturing an interface with a personalized outline (not a script), coupled with a grid of colored boxes containing common questions (where’s my polling location?). You drill down on any question to reveal both an answer and additional questions on that topic. There’s also a button to pop back up to the top level. I wonder if anything like this already exists.
