voter
VOTER TECH TRAINING SESSION ADDED: Atlanta August 20-21
This is an exciting year for organizing groups engaged in voter turnout projects. The data collection and management can sometimes get out of hand though - especially if your technology skills are shaky. PTP has a solution for you.
VOTER TECH TRAINING SESSION ADDED: Atlanta August 20-21
We've been getting requests to offer our Voter Technology Training again.
Our first session was in April and frankly we were as surprised as anyone with how well it went!
We did a survey and decided to go ahead and to compress the program to two full days of training (August 20-21) in Atlanta.
If you need some help with mastering the technical side of your voter project this year, signup now.
We have 20 slots to fill for this to fly, so bring it to the attention of to your fellow organizers who could also use the help.
click here to learn more about the Voter Tech Training
There are some tuition scholarships for community-led organizing groups. Signup now on the course registration page. There may be some travel assistance available, but it's not from us. Check with your organizing network or funders. Contact us for more information.
The Training Team at PTP: Arif, Alice, Jan and Mark
PS Don't miss the Voter Tech Kit - a unique web site and book for community organizers working voter projects
Bad Telephone numbers for phone canvassers
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.
Voter Tech Training a Resounding Success
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.
PTP Seeking Proposals for Integrating Voter Engagement
Are you trying to get your membership database to talk to your voter canvass data? Are you interested in attending PTP's Voter Tech Training but don't have the funds? Do you need some help from political or technology consultants to move your electoral engagement planning forward?
If you answered "YES" to one or more of these questions, you might be interested in a new grant program that PTP just opened:
The Progressive Technology Project is announcing the VOTER Project, a new initiative that builds on its new Voter TechKit. In the Voter Organizing Technology Education and Resources Project (VOTER Project) PTP will work with community-led organizations to greatly increase their long-term capacity to conduct effective integrated voter engagement activities.
PTP will work with a select group of 501 C3 community organizing groups that are engaged in voter education and get-out-the-vote projects in 2008. This program is designed to develop, support and document efforts to integrate the organization’s voter engagement work with its on-going programmatic work.
Details and application information are here.
Voter TechKit
We're excited to announce that we've brought up the initial version of our new online training environment for community organizers. We're calling it a Voter TechKit because it offers a comprehensive orientation to voter projects for 501C3 community organizing groups, with a particular emphasis on technology. I find the best part to be the video snippets from experienced community organizers. Thanks to Henry Serrano from Community Voices Heard in Harlem, Bineshi Albert from Sage Council in Albuquerque, Anthony Thigpenn with SCOPE in Los Angeles and Robby Rodriguez from SWOP in Albuquerque for their willingness to be beautifully videotaped for this project. Learn more about them here. We also had great authoring help from election maven Jan Adams, formerly of Californians for Justice and Applied Research Center.
Check it out and make sure to give us feedback on what works and what doesn't. We're intending to keep adding to it as we go along.
