LittleWyvern.com

I made a few final phone calls yesterday but then this morning changed the focus of my volunteer work for the Obama campaign. Although Nevada does not have a dedicated Director of New Media for the campaign (that ‘new media’ meaning the internet), the state at large boasts one of the most technologically advanced voter information systems in the country. I volunteered my skills in that arena (databases and web interfaces) and this morning I spent about 90 minutes going over what is to be my new project.

I had to sign an NDA, but that only covers the particular information that I will be working with (voter IDs and polling data) and not the general nature of the project. Interestingly – to me – the NDA included a clause saying that it was to be enforced by the laws of the state of Illinois, even though our work is obviously in Nevada.

Anyways, there are actually two projects in the immediate works. One is a bit boring but fairly difficult. It essentially involves coordinating various voter and volunteer information within a couple different databases and making it usable to the campaign. The problem is that there is a database of registered voters in the state of Nevada, another database run by the democratic national party, and still another database run by the Obama campaign. The same person is likely listed in all three databases but the information being tracked is possibly different in each, and each system has a different level of security. For example, if the Obama campaign wants to collect information about a registered voter (state) who is a democrat (party) we will canvas that person and then store the results. But even though we are in the same state and party, we don’t want the Clinton campaign to have access to that info (for instance, to learn that the person is leaning towards Hillary but is still undecided).

The situation is further complicated by the fact that information about the person can be updated in any one of the three databases, but then there is no good way to find out which of the system’s info is correct. My task is first to design a method of maintaining a logical consistency between the databases (so we know what is right), and second to design a method of parsing through the different levels of info (to create a complete list). It is a bit boring and technical but it will also prove to be very important and useful to the campaign.

The other project on my plate is a bit more flashy and glamorous, but a lot less difficult to accomplish. Essentially what we want to do is combine the Google Earth software with voter and polling information to build accurate maps of the state. The most basic idea would allow a user to pull up their address and get quick and easy directions to their polling location (where they vote). It will also allow members of the campaign staff to visually track the status of the campaign. We can see at a glance which areas are more heavily Clinton for instance. We are going to import the precinct boundaries into the software as well which will also allow us to visually track the results of a simulated caucus – if the vote were held today which precincts contain which number of supporters of which candidates, etc.

Anyway, that is how I’ll be investing my volunteer time for the next few weeks. We are still in the theory phase of these projects but I am pretty excited to be able to help in a way that requires more than a telephone and telemarketer script. And better still, even though we are working on this at the state level it is entirely possible to envision that, if done correctly, our work will be able to improve the campaign and party work on a national level. It is a bit strange to think that what we’re doing now hasn’t already been done before. The benefits seem so completely obvious. But then again, this is the government we’re talking about.

Oh, and I was also asked to be a Precinct Chair, which means that not only will I be participating in the caucus but I’ll actually be in charge of running my location. Whatever. They asked. I said yes. We will see how it goes.

The only interesting thing – and I probably use the word ‘interesting’ in a very loose context here – about the role is that technically my title is Temporary Precinct Chair. The word temporary is necessary because by law the Precinct Chair is an elected official. You can’t just volunteer to run an election I guess, you have to actually be elected to do it – which makes me smile. As it was explained to me I am going to be the temporary Chair, and then on the day of the caucus those present will hold a small election for my job, which I will then almost certainly win. I will run the caucus, count the votes, and then call in the results to the state party. About two hours later, when the caucus is over, my office is dissolved.

I won’t be printing business cards, but still, I am going to be an elected official.