PTP Blog

I recently heard a comment from Roberto in New Mexico about the low quality of the telephone numbers in a voter file from a nationally known data provder.  One of the causes may be the demise of land line phones.

The Center for Disease Control  published a report on the issue this month. It turns out that (in their words) “In the last 6 months of 2007, nearly one out of every six households (15.8%) did not have a landline telephone, but did have at least one wireless telephone”.  This was around 5% in the first half of 2004. People without landlines tend to be poorer, younger and renting. The future?  More cell phones and less reliable lists from data providers.
 

 Read the whole thing at
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/wireless200805.pdf

Source: Blumberg SJ, Luke JV. Wireless substitution: Early release of estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, July-December 2007. National Center for Health Statistics. Available from:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis.htm. May 13, 2008.

On May 1, 2008, PTP wrapped up our first Voter Tech Training where community organizers from 24 organizations across the country gathered to learn state of the art technology tools and techniques for integrating voter and base-building organizing databases.

Many organizers are wrestling with understanding the relationship between the data cycles of voter engagement and base-building organizing. The Voter Tech Training group tackled this head on, and created what is possibly the most fully articulated description of various voter engagement activities and their related data needs. Members of PTP’s Power on Network can access that document at the Power on Network website http://network.progressivetech.org. If you’re not a member of the Network, click here to request membership.

Data models weren’t the only topic of conversation at the Voter Tech Training. Organizers also learned the nuts and bolts of cleaning, de-duplicating, and merging lists, and had the opportunity for some hands-on training with the Voter Activation Network online voter file interface.

Given the overwhelmingly positive feedback we’ve received, we’re planning to offer the Voter Tech Training again in August right before the heavy voter contact operations kick off. To get updates about the next Voter Tech Training leave a note in the comments here.