[Random-bits] Mintz and O'Harrow, Jr.: Software Digs Deep Into Lives of Voters

[James Love]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40787-2000Oct9.html

Software Digs Deep Into Lives of Voters
      
 
By John Mintz and Robert O'Harrow Jr. Washington Post Staff Writers
 Tuesday, October   10, 2000; Page A01 <BR>  </FONT>

This Election Day, Republican campaign workers will tape personalized
letters on the front doors of thousands of voters in Missouri. People
who recently hinted to telephone solicitors a concern about taxes will
receive notes highlighting that issue. Others who mentioned guns or
homosexuality will get letters on those topics.

People whose spotty voting records suggest they need a ride to the polls
or a reminder to vote will receive seemingly prescient offers of help.

These personal touches are the result of computer software that helps
political operatives intuit voters' beliefs and predilections based on
data about their income, lifestyles, past electoral participation and
other personal information.

Taking their cues from the world of direct marketing, candidates and
political organizations across the ideological spectrum are harnessing
high-tech tools to identify which voters to target with their calls,
letters, visits and, increasingly, e-mails. In a neck-and-neck election
in which turnout could be crucial, this effort will personalize many
politicians' pitches to voters as never before.

"I see us on the cusp of a completely new politics, a marriage of old
shoe-leather organizing with the high-tech of the Internet age," Ralph
Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition and now an
adviser to Texas Gov. George W. Bush, said of the new computerized
targeting. "Many believe that this race is so close, and that the two
sides will fight to a draw on TV and in the debates. So it'll come down
to the night before the dance, and these techniques could be the major
factor."

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-- 
James Love  mailto:love@cptech.org http://www.cptech.org
Consumer Project on Technology, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
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