Call me skeptical
At a mixer last night, a friend mentioned the Democratic Data Exchange referenced recently at Axios:
The database, run by an independent firm called Democratic Data Exchange (DDx), allows Democrats and allied groups — campaigns, state parties, super PACs and hundreds more — to bridge a longtime inability to share information.
It’s a legal workaround. DDx allows 501(c) nonprofit groups to pool data with campaigns and the party that their nonprofit status otherwise prohibits. They cannot formally coordinate. Here groups just dump data into a pool that other allied groups can draw out of. The GOP has one too.
How it works: DDx doesn’t hold any information that identifies voters by name, Democratic officials say.
- Instead, it uses a numbering system that’s attached to names in public voting files and organizations’ databases that typically include people’s names, addresses, phone numbers and preferences.
- Democratic campaigns and allied groups such as House Majority PAC and Everytown for Gun Safety pay a membership fee to join the exchange and earn credits by contributing data.
- They can then take out as much data as their credits allow. The more data they contribute, the more they can harvest.
- Campaigns and organizations receive data associated with ID numbers that they can then match with individuals with the same ID numbers in voter files.
Efficiency, huh?
Back in the corporate world, when buzzwords like “efficiency” and “shareholder value” began circulating in the office it was time to update your resume.
What they’re saying: Becca Siegel, a senior adviser who led the Biden campaign’s analytics team in 2020, said access to DDx data allows the campaign to be more efficient with their resources — zeroing in on voters who seem persuadable voters and spending less energy on those who don’t.
- “When we’re talking about billions of dollars of voter outreach, a little more efficient is very meaningful … and may be the difference between winning and losing an election,” she said.
Listen, I do a lot of voting data analysis. Enough that I regularly hear Darth Vader in my head insisting, “Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed.”
Not that this DDx effort is not worthwhile, but it’s doubling down on microtargeting. What it’s not about is Democrats growing their voter pool.
Michah L. Sifry commented on the recent “The Experience of Grassroots Leaders Working with the Democratic Party.” One complaint that jumped out at me involves our targeting being too narrow (something I’d already concluded about independent voters):
Most volunteer leaders see their state Democratic party’s efforts to organize outreach as “too little, too late.” One in four call their party unresponsive. A majority of respondents said the party does a terrible job targeting voters, saying that its lists are far too narrow.
In Murray Waas’ “Rule of Law” newsletter this morning he writes, “Unaffiliated voters in Colorado are currently the state’s largest voting bloc— a sizable plurality of about 46%—and their numbers are growing.” It’s the same in North Carolina where they are 36%. Party registration and past voting history are principal factors that make a voter “seem persuadable” to campaigns.
I’ve identified hundreds of precincts across North Carolina where unaffiliated voters who do get to the polls vote 60, 70, 80-90% for Democrats. Except they turn out at 12% below their Democratic neighbors. Those who stayed home bothered to register but are not regular voters.
Are they not turning out like their neighbors in these already heavily Democratic precincts because they are unengaged, or because they are not being engaged? Because our technological terror does not see them as low-hanging fruit? I’m talking about tens of thousands of Democratic votes left on the table in blue, blue neighborhoods because efficiency means these voters are, in Seinfeld terms, not “sponge-worthy.”
Efficiency was the sprite behind corporate consolidation, massive layoffs, and sending jobs overseas. Be careful about putting too much faith in it:
The pilot made the following announcement over the plane’s intercom: “Ladies and gentlemen I have two announcements to make. One is good news and the other is bad news. First I’ll give you the bad news—we’re lost! Now I’ll give you the good news — we’re making very good time.”