Posted on 11/08/2012 10:45:37 AM PST by jeffo
Much was made in the closing days of the election about the GOP's "Project ORCA", a Smartphone-linked network of volunteers who would enable the party to know who had voted in real time, allowing them to target their resources on election day to people and area who had NOT yet voted or had low turnout. It was a brilliant idea, and I know for a fact that when the Dems found out about it, there was some grave concern from a number of them.
Well, here in Virginia my wife volunteered, participated in three training calls, plus online training - many hours. However, she was never contacted to receive her credentials, and was unable to join the election eve conference call (she kept getting the message that there was no meeting). Repeated calls and emails to GOP and Romney headquarters the last 2 days were not returned.
So we lose Virginia, and here was my Wife willing to spend the entire day at any polling place they sent her to help. And they ignored her. I don't know if this happened all over the state or country, I don't know if the whole thing was a bluff, but you know that good feeling you get when you are appreciated? We don't have that. We voted for Mitt, of course, but if this is the level of disorganization and neglect that the campaign showed at the end, its no wonder we lost. Does anyone else involved in ORCA have anything to report?
It flopped...
Last I heard, it walked the Jersey beaches with Obama.
If memory serves, Project ORCA relied on the Republican voter database called Voter Vault.
We notified GOP and other officials that Voter Vault was compromised as far back as 2004 to no avail. The Dems have access to it and they manipulated it in the state of Virginia quite a bit. Of course, the GOP denied that there was a problem even in the face of Dems admitting to it in Loudoun County.
The party has been infiltrated for a long time. A lot of good ideas have been destroyed by these infiltrators. The party is done until they man up and fix the issues instead of denying them.
Good luck. I’m done beating my head against a brick wall.
Harpooned?
Like everything else from the Romney campaign, it was just smoke and mirrors.
I read that the Warren(D) campaign used it in Massachusetts, and some other D campaign in Indiana(? maybe)
I have no faith in any of our voter roll info. In OR the GOP was putting together a new system called Merlin. We were supposed to be able to pull out data from SOS on who had voted. I was calling the non-voters & found tons of disconnected numbers. And virtually all of the people I talked to said they’d already voted. One elderly couple said they’d sent their ballot in as soon as they received it (two weeks ago!).
Perhaps your wife called too late? Project Orca needed 15,000 volunteers - they had over 34,000.
I can only speak to my experience:
I volunteered making calls and knocking on doors - I also signed up to be an ORCA volunteer.
The call system was sophisticated and efficient - it was light years ahead of the one we used during the McCain Palin campaign.
The campaign office was well stocked with signs from day one - during McCain Palin you couldn’t BUY a sign.
The rallies were were well organized and well attended They were gave away loads of signs, flags, pompoms, etc.
We had TOO many volunteers for the polling place I was assigned to.
There was a technical problem with the app for the state of Colorado’s gateway but it was corrected by 11:00 am. Data flowed smoothly after that.
I worked calling the strike list later in the afternoon. What was striking to me was how many people had already voted! The Early Vote GOTV effort looked pretty darn successful.
We still lost Colorado and the election. :(
What can I say.
LOL....
Ask Reince Priebus. I’m sure he has an answer to your question.
If he doesn’t answer, try again ... and again ... and again ...
This is exactly the same story I heard from someone who signed up in Florida who participated in on-line training and conference calls, never got credentials, and just received busy signals trying to get on election eve call. Could it have been sabotaged internally or was it always just a scam?
Monday night I tried the call in number - could not get through. Within 5 minutes Project Orca called me for the last 2 minutes of a disjointed message and then got disconnected. No paper work or assignment or download to smart phone ever arrived.
That's only as accurate as the individuals who are supposed to enter that info at the respective clerks offices......
I was on the Obama email list and marveled at the efficiency with which it was run.
The Obama campaign team kept in touch regularly with list members. Each member was assigned a serial number, and the campaign would keep track of how much money he donated. In future campaigns, the GOP needs to match this level of efficiency.
“No paper work or assignment or download to smart phone ever arrived”
Everything you said was exactly my experience. Did all the training. Got my badge & credentials from my Supervisor of Elections, but never got final packet from Orca. Called, left messages, emailed on Monday and early Tuesday. I went to the polling booth anyway in case there was someone else at the polls for another candidate. There was another poll watcher who never got his final paperwork or APP login info either.
He got through to someone and they emailed the APP login info. Had trouble with his phone staying connected to APP. Tried my Iphone 1/2 way through day and it worked ok.
But I’m in FL, with driver’s license, very few people said their name. Our polling location didn’t have books and wouldn’t print anything until the end of the day.
About 9am, we decided to count the people coming in to let the campaign at least have an idea about turnout.
Only 1 poll watcher per candidate allowed. Both of our badges said Connie Mack, but the election clerk never caught on to that.
It seemed so organized, but the pdf’s not getting to people was a total mess.
We did post a few problems on the trouble log and got called back right away about them.
We worked it here in Illinois. It was excellent and a much improved version. We consistently hit people who were voting for Romney/Ryan.
The enthusiasm was extremely high. Go figure.
It doesn’t work unless you run the voting machines. Then it works every time.
Interesting snafu. So much for Romney running a “brilliant” campaign.
The Rebuplicans seem to have a hard time to turing grassroots enthuiasm.
For example instead of using the Tea Party to their advantage the GOP spent a lot of energy to distace themselves from these ‘dangerous radicals’.
If they only needed 15,000, then they should have let the rest of us know we weren’t working instead of sending us credentials, etc.... I would have helped out at the campaign office or somewhere else.
I took a whole day off work right after a vacation when I was out for a week and spent alot of money switching my Iphone from AT&T to Verizon because AT&T’s service is so bad. I had the expense of an Iphone, plus early cancellation charge, but was willing to do it to help Romney. I was worried that I wouldn’t have good enough service with AT&T. Would have rather known that they weren’t going to send me the pdf or ever respond to my calls or emails.
I still like Mitt, but Dan Centinello can go blow!
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