Many Australians are intensely interested in the US presidential race – and who can blame us?
And while the Aussie media does a respectable job of covering the race, there’s on major, decisive factor that few in our country have been exposed to.
In America, elections all come down to four letters: GOTV.
‘Get Out The Vote’ is an innocuous sounding name for a sprawling, invasive, expensive, strategically targeted voter turnout operation.
Hillary Clinton campaign volunteer Cynthia Herman canvasses a neighborhood in Mason, Ohio, a northern Cincinnati suburb in strongly Republican Warren County. Source: AP
It has the ability to swing elections, and sometimes it’s downright creepy.
Voting in America is voluntary - so it's not enough to convince the most people to agree with you - your supporters need to actually show up to the polls.
That makes polling somewhat of a challenge, as , but it can also mean that your ability to organise and energise people is just as important as your ability to persuade them.
Only around 60% of Americans vote in presidential election years, even in fiercely fought campaigns like the one between Trump and Clinton.
More than 70 million voters aren’t even registered.
That means that if you can boost the turnout of your supporters by just a few percentage points, or register a few thousand more supporters to vote, then you can win the day.
Even in presidential elections the margins can be narrow. In 2000, it was just 537 votes which determined the winner in the race between George Bush and Al Gore.
That means that as well as persuading voters, campaigns must also invest significant resources into their field campaigns – making sure their supporters are both registered to vote and actually make it to the polls.
It’s not a simple process, and here’s where things get creepy.
For over a year now volunteers have been making phone calls and knocking on doors to ask people who they’re going to support.
Retiring Senator Barbara Boxer speaks to volunteers at a home to train and organise supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Source: AP Photo/John Minchillo
They’ve been pulling names, addresses and phone numbers of registered voters from cross-matched public records.
Data scientists will also be matching Facebook profiles who have liked campaign pages to those public lists, as well as payment details from donors and supporter email lists.
Campaigns will even be using computer algorithms which analyse the ethnicity of your name to predict the likelihood that you’ll vote for a certain candidate.
With support for Democrats as high as 70% or 90% among African American or Hispanic voters, this sort of data can be invaluable.
All that information will be used to mark every voters name with who they support – Trump, Clinton or Undecided.
Undecideds might get more campaign mail or see more online ads, supporters might get asked to volunteer or donate, and those who support the opponent will be completely ignored.
Blake Gibson walks past yard signs before entering a home serving as a canvassing site to train and organize supporters of Hillary Clinton in Cincinnati. Source: (AP Photo/John Minchillo, FILE)
You can't waste your resources on lost causes.
Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012 were renowned for efficient, data-driven, targeted field campaigns which turned out millions of people – often from minorities – which pollsters weren’t expecting to show up.
Clinton’s campaign will be harnessing the voter lists, volunteer lists and donor information from Obama's campaigns – as well as the army of trained field organisers who helped twice elect Barack Obama.
The Republican National Committee says it has been focusing on matching the Democrat’s sophistication, but with a Trump campaign apparently dedicating few resources to a national operation, many Republicans that they’re being shown up.
For weeks now, campaigns have been sending volunteers and interns down to the local election offices, asking them for the lists of people who have returned their vote-by-mail ballots.
They put that data into their computer system and if there are any supporters who have received a ballot but not yet sent it back, they get a phone call or a door knock reminding them to do so.
In one campaign I worked for we sent letters to voters reminding them that their neighbours could look up their voting records to see whether they voted or not.
That trick can boost turnout by more than 10%.
See, creepy.
This year, the Clinton campaign has been holding in areas where they’re worried about turnout – setting up ticket collection points across the road from early voting stations and hammering concert-goers with messages on the importance of voting.
More than 22 million people have voted early, and the trend of early voting seems to be on the rise.
Today, millions of volunteers will be making phone calls and knocking on the doors of the supporters they identified in the months before to ask if they’ve voted.
Beyonce's backup dancers were wearing Hillary-blue pantsuits during a concert to woo young voters. (AAP) Source: EPA
They’ll skip people who have voted by mail, and people who have a record of showing up every election anyway – you can’t afford to waste one iota of your resources.
Campaigns will even send cars and buses to elderly, poor and disabled people’s homes to make sure they can squeeze out every last vote.
For volunteers, it’s a hectic but exciting time, often fueled by Dunkin Donuts coffee and takeaway pizza.
For campaigns, it’s a critically important and stressful time, because after months and months of relentless, tireless work, it all comes down to those four letters.
GOTV.
