Interim Report ICT use in Getting out the Vote in recent US Presidential Elections: A Tale of Two Solutions. Xxxxxxxxxxxxx (for module ISM106) December 13, 2012

Contents.

1.0 Background and Objectives………………………………………………..3
2.0 Literature Search and Methodology………………………………………4
3.0 GOTV - The Problem Domain…………………………………………….5
4.0 Timetable……………………………………………………………………7
5.0 References…………………………………………………………………..8

“Good judgment comes from experience, but a lot of that comes from bad judgment”. Will Rogers, American Humorist (1879-1935).

1.0 Background and Objectives.
Getting out the vote (GOTV) is a very important activity in an election campaign. Within a typical polling precinct, campaign fieldworkers identify and confirm voters who pledge to vote for their candidate. A list of these voters is carefully compiled for each precinct, with up-to-date contact information and whether assistance is needed in getting voters to the polling station being crucial. On Election Day, campaign workers at the polling stations monitor the voters on the list and record which have voted and which have not. Great effort is then expended on contacting the “laggards” and getting them out to vote.
Periodically during the day, voter turnout data is sent, through aggregation points, to campaign HQ where it updates the big picture and allows the co-ordination and refocusing of further GOTV efforts.
The purpose of this paper is to describe the use of ICT by the Romney campaign, in its Project Orca in 2012, and the Obama campaign’s Project Houdini in 2008, in solving this critical problem of “getting out the vote” in their respective elections. It will highlight what worked and, especially, what did not and will advance reasons already identified within the growing literature of IT project failure.
The