voter databases

September 27, 2004 12:31 PM

Voter Vault versus Demzilla
Compare and contrast the voter databases of the major political parties. Open source or proprietary? Locally operated or offshored? Paid staff or volunteers? Do these attitudes and/or methods reflect a more general mindset of the parties? Are there other distinctly different ways in which the national party organizations do business that may reflect wel or poorly on them?
posted by nofundy (5 comments total)

I asked this on Daily Kos, but I think that it bears repeating here.

Does anybody know where I can find a spec for Demzilla? I'm working on an FOSS list-management package for precinct and state-level campaigns, and I want to make sure that this program can cleanly exchange data with the DNC.
posted by waldo at 12:50 PM on September 27, 2004

that is interesting. does it also reflect one party being more grassroots than the other?
posted by H. Roark at 1:12 PM on September 27, 2004

Perhaps on the upside, we are quickly approaching an era where the "security moms" may learn the free-market lessons of the Bush administration when their 9-1-1 call is routed through New Delhi after little Timmy is found face down in the family swimming pool.
posted by wfrgms at 1:24 PM on September 27, 2004

168 million voters?!? Sure, and pigs fly out of Bush's ass each time he opens his mouth. There are only 193(ish) million citizens 18 and older. Did they just dump every single adult US Citizen into that database?

In 2000, 110 million voted, out of 129 million registered to vote. (if i'm reading those correctly)

Meanwhile, more people are trying to vote, but getting disqualified because of the weight of the paper they used to print out the form in Ohio.
posted by amberglow at 6:53 PM on September 27, 2004

I don't know if either paid staff or volunteers are particularly better conduct-wise. One creates jobs and ensures quality work, the other leaves money for campaigning and taps into a pool of willing volunteers that would otherwise be unused anyway.
posted by abcde at 10:24 PM on September 27, 2004