Shared LD Database and Canvassing Effort

Our Democratic Party database is inadequate.  For example, the walking list for our 12 Lake Hills precincts contains only 700 identified likely Democratic voters. And based on 1996 and 2000 primary registrations, many of these are outdated.

Through canvassing for 225 hours last summer, we identified 1000 additional likely Democratic voters, gave them brochures of our three legislative candidates, registered some people and recruited 300 as members of our Lake Hills liberals. Our database of all registered voters now contains 1700 likely Democratic voters, with some to be added this summer as we canvass newcomers and households missed before.

I propose that each LD district create its own database of all registered voters, to be owned and maintained by their Democratic legislators and candidates. An alternative would be ownership by the legislative district organization, but legislators have a more direct interest and could provide better management.

Database Structure

The database could be non-relational like MS Excel or relational like MS Access (with databases for addresses and for voters).

The database would have fields for the information provided by the King Country registered voters database, including especially voter registration number; voter last, first and middle names, precinct, city, zip code, and street address. It would have fields for email addresses and phone numbers

Fields for voter identification: Republican (R), Cynical (C), Democrat (D), Undecided (U), Can’t vote (X), and Vacant (V) and for Supporters: people who give email address to receive newsletters

Fields for source: state database, legislator canvassing, PCOs, other groups. Other fields (such as which newsletters and mailings they have been sent) as desired.

Data

The data on registered voters would be obtained from King County. Additional data would be obtained from canvassing and perhaps from constituent correspondence to legislators. After review, data from others, such as PCO’s and local groups would be added. The basic voter registration data would be updated, perhaps every January of even numbered election years, with the other data transferred from the old to the new database.

Data Base Maintenance

A part time employee would be required to maintain the database, hopefully only a day or two a week, except there may be times when lots of data is obtained from King County (January) or when lots of canvassing is done (June and July) when more time is required. But often there will be no rush, so the work could be spread over time.

This employee might be hired by one of the legislators with all sharing the cost, or by all jointly, depending upon what is most convenient and any legal campaign expenditure requirements.

Data Base Access
Access would be restricted to the legislators. They would authorize any reports such as unidentified voters in certain precincts to assist PCO’s or LHL to canvass on their behalf. They could share data, reports or allow mailings by other Democratic (presidential, congressional, gubernatorial, etc.) candidates.

Legislators might also decide on policies governing their own use of the data such as frequency and scheduling of mailings, emailings and phone calls.

Uses of Database

I would hope that canvassing to obtain data and distribute campaign literature (such as our Lake Hills Liberals did last summer) would be joint efforts. Legislators could also issue joint email newsletters or do them separately.