There’s a debate tonight. No doubt, this overblown kerfuffle about a data breach will come up – and probably, the moderators will do their best to get Hillary and Bernie to attack each other. Here’s what they should say instead.
Hillary: “From what we know, it appears that a Sanders campaign staffer committed some serious improprieties. He should have been fired for it, and he was. I commend Bernie for taking quick action. I also commend the DNC for restoring the Sanders campaign’s access to its voter file, since there is no need to punish Bernie any further for the actions of the person he fired. Let’s all move on to the issues that actually matter to the American people.”
Bernie: “When I learned about what had happened, I fired a staff member who did not live up to the ethical standards I expect of anyone who works for me. The DNC overreacted, and did not have the legal authority to do what it did,* so I’m glad that they have reversed course and restored our access to crucial campaign data. I’m sick and tired about hearing about the damn voter file! I agree with Hillary, let’s move on.”
Also, the best two things I’ve read on the matter are this piece (by a campaign data guy who can actually explain the details of what seems to have happened) and this one.
*This would no doubt be disputed by the DNC, but it’s probably accurate.
I think this is about more than Hillary and Bernie. The Democratic Party is in such a place that campaigns have calculated (repeatedly) that inside-baseball attack politics don’t work. Their voters want solutions and thinking.
Whereas Republican campaigns have concluded the pettier and nastier they are, the more their voters like it.
…that while many of us and our circles have seen what’s on the other side of a VAN login page, the vast majority of Americans have no clue what the fuss is about.
I think both Sanders and Clinton handled the issue perfectly. The last thing it needs is more attention.
I thought Sanders had a very good night at the debate, BTW.
Rather than expecting these databases administered by the parties to function perfectly, I’d prefer to see an investment in government technology that would standardize voter lists across the entire country and make them available for free to all certified candidates in the appropriate districts. That would make it cost-effective for more vendors of campaign data services to enter the market. It would also save money for municipalities, who could use a standard system and not have every town clerk reinvent the wheel.
…the voter history lists are in fact standardized by the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office (although voter history is limited to even-numbered years), and available at no costs to the State Committees of all certified political parties.
Municipal voter lists conform to the same format as used by the State, but include voter histories for municipal elections and require payment to the municipal election authority.
You can see a voter’s track record for every type of election on the same list. I assume they are the middleman that gets the records from all sources and what clients pay for is the software that gives them the ability to manipulate lists and input their own additional information.
Let’s use Boston as a testbed case. A VoteBuilder account for costs several thousand dollars rising by District size. My Boston voter history list cost me $100.
I do Boston-specific list manipulation and data input in Access. Under most circumstances, for volunteers doing small-scale input, I alternate between Excel and GoogleSheets. On occasion, for those activists or volunteers who can’t afford Microsoft Office, I use freeware applications like OpenOffice.
I’m not disparaging NGP/VAN: VoteBuilder has useful add-ons (such as turf-cut applications and smartphone-friendly input from canvasses), which make it worth a campaign’s investment; however not every grassroots organization or candidate can afford an account.
More to the point, occasionally my job requires me to demonstrate how to perform campaign infotech and list management on the cheap. I’ll stipulate that the trade-off is one of labor for tech, but it can be done.
and then they moved on.
This is how mature adults deal with non-issues.
Fred Rich LaRiccia