Motivating Voters

Guests on the Digital Politics podcast this week are Rich Berke, HCD Research and Chris Borick, Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion talking about the E-Voter Institute’s 4th Annual Survey of Voter Expectations–Persuading and Motivating Voters:  What Will It Take in 2010?

We all agreed that there are remarkably similar attitudes between people along the political spectrum, and across gender, ages and ethnic groups.  The study shows how pervasive the web has become in our everyday lives as well as how it has changed the expectations of voters.  Provocative indications in the study point to the need for new ways to motivate voters to contribute, show support for candidates, and turn out to vote in order to break through the media clutter.

The study reveals that people find debates informative but the high percentage of people who say this makes me wonder if they are all watching the full debates, selections on cable news shows, downloading YouTube excerpts or reading about them online or in the newspapers.

Download the study and check out this interview for more insights:

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The Art and Science of Targeting Voters

My guest today on the Digital Politics podcast was Matthew Dybwad, Senior Director of Internet Strategy, emotive LLC, a Virginia based Internet consulting firm. We talked about the panel Matthew moderated at the IPDI Politics Online Conference in DC this week on targeting voters and being smart about setting up databases and using the information to make better decisions about what messages individual voters should receive.  Segmentation is the name of the game but only if you have the ability to mine the data you have collected.  Matthew encourages campaigns to collect in any way possible, the names, addresses, emails, mobile phone numbers, and the means by which the contact was made.  Whether that info comes in on paper, electronically or over the phone, it all needs to go into one database.  Do most campaigns understand the need for good data management?  Expect to see more campaigns take advantage of voter segmentation the more user friendly these database tools become.

Listen to the interview.

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