Area Assessment
From Operation Cat Herder
Return to the Grassroots r3VOLution Field Manual
GET PAULITICAL – CONTRIBUTE!
You must be logged in to submit material: Login or Register
To contribute material to this page, click here: Post My Stuff!
Contributed material is approved and imported into public pages several times daily.
Contents |
Area Assessment
The indigenous population
Political views
Economic situation
Values
Demographics
Politics
It makes sense for me to become an expert on how delegates work in my state and county. It makes sense for me to learn where my Registrar of Voters is. Since June, I have attended every local Republican Central Committee meeting in my county and brought other Ron Paul supporters learn about the local political system as well.
Republican Party
Democratic Party
Other political parties
Voter registration data
This is a FYI of what we are doing in MD to obtain this information. Your state will probably be different. Note that our state does not include voters phone numbers, so there are 2 alternatives to get them:
cost intensive: buy them from a company that supplies this type of information. alternate - buy them from the phone company, I've been told that someone in another state was charged 20 cents a number for this.
labor intensive: have a bunch of volunteers do lookups at yellowpages.com or like sites and manually enter the information.
If anyone has comments or suggestions on the process or strategy, I would love to hear them! This should also give you some insight on the process in your state.
Nathan
==
Great job Kim!
I finally got through to her just now and cleared up the other questions.
The data is fresh as of today!
On question 12, we need the supplemental list and it costs $5, payable now. It gets sent in December when voter registration closes.
on question 13: area: statewide type of list: county voter walking list (it's the whole state) voter information: all voters, all party affiliations, active and inactive voters.
OK, the bad news - if we make it past the primaries, we can't get another supplemental list without buying another main list. But lets worry about that after the primaries.
It's going to cost us $133.00 for everything and they provide the CD's. They will not honor the $50 price. Be happy - some states charge tens of thousands of dollars for this information. We are extremely lucky to get it for so little.
I've been looking into this more, and think we should do a 2 tiered approach to block walking: for registered voters, trying to sell them on our candidate, and maybe get them to switch parties, if needed. For people that are not on our list as a registered voters, do a voter registration drive and try to sell them on our candidate. This is also a better approach for setting up tables, etc. at fairs and may qualify us for waved fees for anything state sponsored. Remember that a lot of our support has come from people that have never voted before and who have given up on the system. I do have a call in to the county election board about training to be voter registration volunteers and it is done on an individual, walk in basis here in Catonsville. The web page tells me people have to come in between 9 and 4, but they are open till 4:30, so it should take 30 minutes or less. I'm also under the impression that it is free. Better, they will make arrangements for groups of 20 or more to do the training. I don't know if we can get that done in the evening. The person I have to talk to is out till Monday.
I know there was not a lot of enthusiasm for going through this training in the meeting, with only a few volunteering, but we really do need to do it. Could I get feedback from people as to why that resistance is there? I could then ask about any concerns when I talk to the person on Monday.
Here is a link to a group doing a voter registration drive via block walking in another state:
http://www.busproject.org/programs/buildingvotes/walklisttool
If someone can look into getting a list of fairs, festivals, etc. in the state, that would also be good.
Finally, I believe someone had volunteered to pay for a county wide list. This is more expensive, but we raised, I believe $174.29 at the first meeting, that's $144.29 after room rental. Are people OK with spending this on getting this list? Would the person that had offered before, be willing to cover part of it?
We will need to pass the hat again to do any printing, but I think we are very close to getting out in communities and having an effect.
If anyone has other ideas as to what we should focus on FIRST, so we can get out there now and start doing things, please speak up. I know we have some looking into silk screen production, etc. and these other projects will also cost money.
thanks,
Nathan
Kim & Russ wrote:
I emailed the state board of elections since everyone was getting different information. Below is their reply. Mike was correct, they now charge $125 instead of $50 and the website has now been updated to state this. As a government worker I am embarrassed that it took someone to contact them before they did their job and updated the information!
I am going to contact her and say we had agreed to purchase this
based on the price advertised on the website and see if I can get them
to honor it.
Kim
- From: Joan
- Sent: Friday, June 08, 2007
- Subject: Statewide File on CD
- Good morning Ms.
- This email is in response to your recent query concerning statewide voter registration data. :Please be advised of the following information.
- Please ignore the product information cost that is listed on the website, it is incorrect and will :be updated. The correct costs are listed on the actual application (refer to the application :itself.)
- The application specifies 3 types of lists you can purchase and the costs for each:
- (1) Walking list – used to go from door to door. Information includes the name, address, party :affiliation, district/precinct information and is presorted by district/precinct, but applicant :can do his/her own sorting.
- (2) Basic Voter list - includes: name, residential & mailing address (where applicable), party :affiliation, dob, gender, registration date, district information (legislative, congressional,
- commissioner/councilmanic, district/precinct numbers of everyone in the database at the time the :file is processed. However, it does not contain voting histories.
- (3) Voting History list – includes 2 files, the 1st file will contain the name, address and similar information that is in the basic voter list file above and the 2nd file will contain the actual voting histories of those people listed in the first file. The applicant will be responsible for merging the 2 files together to get a file with the names and voting history for each person listed on the file.
- Please feel free to contact me at @ elections.state.md.us should you have any additional questions or concerns.
- Thank you
- Joan
- From: Russ & Kim
- Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2007
- Subject: Statewide File on CD
- Can someone please tell me what information is provided on the statewide CD advertised on your :website for $50? I have joined a committee for the 2008 Presidential elections and am interested in obtaining voter information.
- This is what your website advertises:
- Compact Disk (CD) $50.00 plus $3.00 set-up charge for a statewide file or $10.00 per county (when specific counties are selected), plus $3.00 set-up charge (Deposit of $10.00)
- Thank you for your assistance.
- Kimberly
Politicians and committee people needing replacing
Local Events
Country and State fairs
Festivals
Farmers Markets
Cartography
Precinct Maps
Street Maps
Internet Map Servers
Google Earth (World)
National Geographic (World)
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (World)
Topozone (US only)
Terraserver (US only)
National Atlas (US only)
ReliefWeb (World)
Live Search Maps (aerial photo's - US only)
USGS (topo maps]
AIMS (Afghanistan maps)
Meta-resources
The Library of Congress American Memory Map Collections
National Defense University Library Map Resources
University of Colorado Department of Geography (Lists other Internet Map Servers)
Open Source GIS (Open source GIS applications)
The Map Room (A Weblog About Maps)
List of National Mapping Agencies
Many have Internet Map Servers that are open for public access. Don't expect them to be in English. National Map Agencies
NOAA URL to Compute Declination
Check your maps. Make sure you keep your declination up to date on them
Books
Mapping Hacks (Fantastic Meta-resource)
- Paperback: 568 pages
- Publisher: O'Reilly; 1 edition (June 9, 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN: 0596007035
- Product Dimensions: 9.0 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
- Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
The above book is based on being a user of open source mapping applications and services, if you want to program / develop your own applications, this text gets into that:
- Paperback: 368 pages
- Publisher: O'Reilly; 1 edition (June 17, 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN: 0596008651
- Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.1 x 0.8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
