Posted on 11/09/2012 11:30:09 AM PST by Steelfish
Romney’s Get Out the Vote Fiasco Bethany Mandel 11.09.2012
The Wednesday before the election, Mitt Romney sent a special message to volunteers about a special project his campaign was working on: “With state of the art technology and an extremely dedicated group of volunteers, our campaign will have an unprecedented advantage on election day.” What is it they say about something that sounds too good to be true? It probably is. That was the case with the Romney campaign’s “Project ORCA.”
The idea behind Project ORCA was simple, albeit far too complex in execution. Romney’s Boston headquarters wanted a way to track who had been to the polls in swing states, and who had not. It was the most complicated GOTV (get out the vote) effort in GOP history. Volunteers in swing states would be assigned polling places. They would be given lists of every registered voter assigned to that polling location.
Those voters would be reported on to Boston via a web application when they arrived to vote, and if that failed, via phone or, as a last resort, voice. Volunteers were to log in to the application, use their assigned pin number and password, and begin reporting on voters who had come through their polling place by ID number. A source familiar with the campaign told me that Boston would initiate calls and visits to those who had not yet gotten to the polls.
The story of how monumental a failure Project ORCA was on Election Day was first reported by a volunteer, John Ekdahl, on the Ace of Spades blog. After tweeting the article, I was contacted by several other volunteers who were eager to explain in greater detail just how many things went wrong with Project Orca on Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at commentarymagazine.com ...
I am not a registered Republican and I answered no polling calls. Yet, I never received one Democrat phone call or Democrat mailing. Why not? They saved a lot of time and money by not going after my vote. How did they know not to try? I didn’t donate any money under my name. Are they psychic? Nope. Once again, the Republicans got infiltrated. We don’t understand our enemies. What is their motivation? Why MUST they win?
Yep. Remember after the first debate when Romney’s wife and son took over the campaign? Now, there’s a great idea. Mrs. Romney is a wonderful lady, a great role model and very pretty, but running a Presidential campaign? Nope. Not a good idea.
Does it really matter we got the Dick Obama so live with it.
If no one wants to focus on voter fraud than why focus on this unless you just hate Romney and are trying to make him look bad.
All hail Obama that is all that really matters
Does it really matter we got the Dick Obama so live with it.
If no one wants to focus on voter fraud than why focus on this unless you just hate Romney and are trying to make him look bad.
All hail Obama that is all that really matters
I was one of the 30000 volunteers - one very dissatisfied with the operation. I did receive the voter list and credentials well in time, but was never able to log in from my phone. Never worked. There was another volunteer at my voting location, he was able to get through for a very brief period. Absolute disaster in operation - I called and did get through to headquarters, only to be told it was down and would be up in a few minutes - then resetting my password, then my Logon ID and password - never willing to implement any of the backup procedures they had established. 30000 volunteers - I would really like a report on the result but haven’t seen one. How much information was actually gathered on election day - about 20 names made it through from my voting location in a timely manner - out of almost 1600 that voted, leaving several hundred that could have been contacted. We gathered the information by hand on our printouts but had no way to effectively give the information to them - even though I offered multiple ways to effectively give it to them, either by marked up email or by phone.
Romney’s team really blew this one. Big time. I know they were worried about being hacked, and maybe they were - they should let us know. I spent 13 hours straight dedicated to trying to make this work - 30000 people that were vetted (they checked all volunteers to make sure they didn’t have telltale signs of being pro-Obama - checking social media, etc...)and were enthusiastic to help make a difference - and instead of truly organizing to the local level where things could have been effective - they wasted our time and lost what should have been won.
It’s obvious the Democrats cheated - the high (100% in some cases) voter turnout is absolutely unbelievable - but even if cleaned up Obama probably still won a very, very slim majority due to some conservatives unwillingness to support a non-perfect candidate. When all the votes are actually in, the analysis seems to support he will have had more votes than McCain - while Obama’s numbers collapsed from 4 years ago. If Project Orca had actually worked, Romney should have won by a large margin.
Sorry to vent - I’m just p****d that Centinella did not get this thing field tested - a dry run that would have given them time to fix the flaws. In retrospect, at least in Ohio where voter lists are updated at 11am and 4pm, the Party needs to work a deal with the state to just get a download of the information - even if they pay for it. Would be well worth it, would have accomplished the goal for knowledge and freed up 30000 volunteers to actually get the vote out.
We had quotas for the number of contacts made, and the number of confirmed votes.
Republicans were FAMOUS for their precinct data.
I didn't volunteer as captain in 2008. I don't know what system was used then.
I have not been personally contacted (except by phone, mail, and email) have not had a door hanger, NOTHING since 2004.
What the hell?
Have public-school-educated non-performers now demolished a perfectly good voter turnout system? Looks like it.
Sabotaged from the get-go. It only takes ONE double-agent ‘working’ on the program. The O campaign had millions of dollars to spend on saboteurs. Yes, he’s THAT evil.
Maybe its just me...but I don’t a phone call to remind me to go to the polls and vote in the most important election of my lifetimee.
Uh, yeah, sure. Try reading the entire article. It waqsn't a rogue coder who made the decision not to load test the system. Or keep users away from it until the day of the system. And not have a test of PINs well before election day.
That was the fault of those in charge of implementing this. And it takes an echo-chamber mentality for someone to not stand up and say, just what the **** is going on with this?
And that is just the start of the problems.
Maybe its just me...but I don’t a phone call to remind me to go to the polls and vote in the most important election of my lifetimee.
You missed the point. The lack of a phone call to registered Republicans meant there was no GOTV here.
Exclusive - Inside Orca: How the Romney Campaign Suppressed Its Own Vote
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2957375/posts
I didn’t miss anything. You were whining that you had to get your own yardsign and didn’t get a phone call. Then you made the leap that because you didn’t receive a phone call there must not have been a GOTV where you were.
My point is that it shouldn’t take a GOTV effort to get American citizens to the poll. And if that is what it takes...then we got what we deserved.
Sabotage?
Do you vote in primaries?
So not only was Romney a coward, non-Conservative, wishy washy tool with boat loads of $$$ even after running for 6 years for the office he screwed up the GOTV system! Hopefully there actually was massive vote fraud otherwise Romney is really an idiot!
All this from a fool with a keyboard who is not fit to wipe Mitt Romney’s shoes.
“The Wednesday before the election, Mitt Romney sent a special message to volunteers about a special project his campaign was working on”
what was the RNC doing?
in 2004 they, the RNC, had such a system up and running before the GOP convention was over; were they even asked by Mitt what they had; did they even offer to Mitt what they had; inquiring minds would like to know
because to me the operative phrase in that quote is: “the Wednesday before the election”
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