Posted on 11/05/2012 4:11:40 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
For months now, the Romney campaign has been putting together a high-tech voter monitoring operation to use on Election Day that will identify which of their committed supporters have voted -- and then corral those who haven't.
They call it the Orca Project, named for the powerful killer whale. Why Orca? It seems the Orca is the greatest natural predator of the Narwhal, the name of the Obama campaign's top secret voter micro-targeting system.
Orca will deploy 34,000 operatives in key precincts tomorrow, linked by a smartphone "killer app" to 800 volunteers on the floor of TD Garden (formerly Boston Garden). The Romney campaign has tried to keep Orca under wraps until the past few days. But today, Romney for President Communications Director Gail Gitcho proudly described it for us. Watch the interview with Gitcho above.
"At 5 o'clock when the exit polls come out, we won't pay attention to that," Gitcho said Monday. "We will have had much more scientific information just based on the political operation we have set up."
Similarly, Election Day for President Obama's campaign will be the culmination of an extensively detailed and precise get out the vote effort put together by the Democrats.
For several months, the Obama campaign has been operating sophisticated efforts, most notably code named Dreamcatcher and Narwhal, gathering information and sorting voters using a comprehensive set of analytics. Placing potential supporters in categories based on such seemingly benign information as the grocery stores they shop at or brand of beer they drink. From there the campaign has been able to identify voting trends based on specific issues and has targeted its messaging appropriately to maximize the efficiency of its efforts.
On election day, the Obama campaign will shift to its final phase, with Gordon -- a vote tracking system similar to the Project Houdini effort it launched on election day four years ago. Gordon seems to be less ambitious than Houdini was. Four years ago, the Obama campaign assigned each of its likely voters a four digit code that would be messaged to a database by a poll site volunteer after the voter had signed in. The effort overheated and this year the Obama campaign has decided to use a less robust tracking system and divert volunteers to other, more traditional get out the vote efforts.
I’m part of it - it’s real. Going to be a long day tomorrow!
Yes, I do. Thanks, you’re a scholar and a gentleman.
Why would we? This article basically says Obama has a system as sophisticated as Romney’s.
Its a little frightening that each campaign knows when their supporters cast their vote. (Or not). Sounds a little too big brotherish.
I’m kind of with Paul, 2DV. Can you ‘splain why I need to feel better? :)
What still worries me is that while Romney will be corralling live people to vote Obama’s people might be calling dead ones. The stinch of the Franken fraud in MN still looms large in my head. If this race is close in OH it’s stealable.
Could it be that some of these pollsters overweighting the Dem vote maybe knew about the Obama strategy to get out votes but not this one, thus they factored that into their over representation of Obama voters in the belief that Romney had old fashioned methods only?
” Sounds a little too big brotherish.”
It is! Most people don’t know or care, very sad!
I didn’t realize Congressman Paul was running. Do you know something I don’t know?
I agree. Why would we feel better. Basically both campaigns have a “we are watching you” get out the vote machine.
I don’t feel good about anyone knowing that precisely who voted and when. And I certainly don’t feel good about Obama’s campaign going after the vote just as well as they did in 2004.
Obama’s vote targeting system is named after the Narwhal, aka the unicorn of the ocean.
Read it again.
Ground game man. Ground game. All those huge rallies wont mean diddly squat if there is not a solid door to door GOTV, non stop phone bank, free ride the polls, the whole nine yards, with GOP poll monitors checking hourly as to who (committed to the GOP) has voted and not yet voted, and work their TAILS off until closing time to get those darned people, every last one of them, to the polls. Not to mention, we gotta keep our eyes peeled to Democrat/SEIU type corruption, ballot box stuffing, vote buying, bussing across state lines for multiple voting, you name it. PS And SCREW the United Nations trying to monitor this one...they only want to assure that the “Messiah” is reelected and neo-colonialist, oppresive America is cut down to size a bit more—all the while Uncle Sugar continues to fund projects in these two bit tin horn dictatorships which laugh along with Hugo Chavez at us at the U.N. I seriously hope one of them steps over the line and is arrested somewhere tomorrow.
Good for you. I signed up and participated in a conference training call, but was not assigned to a precinct. I assume they probably had the precincts in my area covered well enough.
In the training, they said they could predict with 93% accuracy how every registered voter in the nation would vote.
Even in the primitive precincts, the party knows who voted if there are precinct watchers. I might be one tomorrow, for a local race. I was told I’d be checking a printed list that is updated throughout the day and posted outside the polling place. Based on who isn’t checked off as voting, we start making phone calls or personal door to door visits. This is just a bigger system than that. If anything, because Orca is not your neighbor looking down the list at your name and forming a personal opinion of you, it may be less invasive than somebody like me doing it the primitive way.
One of the biggest differences is the Smartphone app Romney’s people developed. Much faster and more accurate than calling in on a regular cell phone and punching in a four digit code for every voter.
Voter database for each precinct where a volunteer is assigned is online. With just one touch/swipe, the voter is checked off.
Time and effort won’t be wasted on people who have already voted, so all resources can be directed toward the people who haven’t yet.
And longer for others!!
I got a call this afternoon from the Obama GOTV people (apparently the person who had my number before me was a donor to the dems, as I get these calls with some regularity).
They asked me if I was voting tomorrow for Obama. I said I was not, my car was in the shop and I had no way to get to the polling station.
They are picking me up tomorrow between 5:00 and 5:30. (and no, I did not give them the correct address) LOL
i signed up but never heard from them....maybe because i’m in NY....
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