CAMPAIGN UNDERGROUND: You can now start data-entry for your state.

PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE POST CLOSELY. IT CONTAINS IMPORTANT INFORMATION.

Elad has been coding furiously for the past two weeks, and the skeleton of our Campaign Underground database is now finished and ready for data-entry.

The database is not super user-friendly yet, but the basic structure is ready. You can input data, you can delete data, you can over-write entire sections, and you can see a listing of all of the data which you input. But there currently is no edit function for the database, so be very careful when you input your data. The only way to edit data is to re-enter an entire section and over-write that section. It's tedious, but it works. Elad is working on an edit function, and he will hopefully have it ready to go in a few days.

In order to data-enter your info, you need the following information:

- The username and password to enter the CU Administration Center, and
- The password to edit your specific state

The administrative area is here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/cu/admin

I will send an individual private message to each of the individuals who volunteered for each state, who are listed below. If you do not receive a private message by 2:00PM ET, today (Thursday), please send me a private message and let me know.

If you have any questions, please post them in this thread.

Thank you for your help. I think this is going to be pretty cool when it's finished. :thumbsup:

Skinner
DU Admin

State volunteers

Alabama - syrinx9999
Alaska - northofdenali
Arizona - ZombyWoof
Arkansas - democratreformed
California - Kadie
Colorado - travisleit01
Connecticut - Mattforclark
Delaware - SteveG
District of Columbia - northzax
Florida - Postmanx
Georgia - ulysses
Hawaii - rezmutt
Idaho - NoEvilTony
Illinois - neverborn
Indiana - Kathleen04
Iowa - lunabush
Kansas - mistertrickster
Kentucky - Don_G
Louisiana - oxymoron
Maine - Sufi Marmot
Maryland - Insider
Massachusetts - meegbear
Michigan - susanna
Minnesota - indigo32
Mississippi - devrc243
Missouri - soup
Montana - ironflange
Nebraska - rasputin1952
Nevada - NV1962
New Hampshire - JohnLocke
New Jersey - ElsewheresDaughter
New Mexico - RoadRunner
New York - sangh0
North Carolina - leyton
North Dakota - markus
Ohio - Paragon
Oklahoma - OKNancy
Oregon - sandnsea
Pennsylvania - benfranklin1776
Rhode Island - Lexingtonian
South Carolina - SCDem
South Dakota - suegeo
Tennessee - gore42004
Texas - VelmaD
Utah - demwing
Vermont - trekkerlass
Virginia - Virginian
Washington - JulieRB
West Virginia - foamdad
Wisconsin - eyesroll
Wyoming - bigskydem

can we post all the stuff we have and then be able to add to it and edit it within the next couple of days?

But you will see that the edit function is currently very primitive, so you might want to add complete sections as you finish them. You'll see what I mean when you start poking around with the software.

I've been doing Florida and parts of Wyoming and New Hampshire. But I'm not officially sighed up for any state. How do I input the data? :shrug:

That person can input the data for you, or else that person can give you the access code for that state.

But you need to be very careful not to accidentally over-write the data that someone else already entered! Check the complete list of state data for the state before you start entering data.

By the way, we log the IP addresses of people who edit any state.

And I've recieved no feedback from the florida guy (assuming that listing is correct).

Oh, and JohnLocke,

New Hampshire - JohnLocke

since there is no governor, do you want the Tony williams' info? hand the city council for state legislator? and how about the shadow senator?

Just put in Mayor Tony Williams and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. Put their titles before their names. Put in the city council instead of state leg. Don't bother with the Shadow Senators.

I haven't yet checked the database, but all the Hawaii info is nearly complete and ready to input.

However, there's a situation with the Hawaii District 2 U.S. Rep. that I'm wondering if the database is set up to handle.

It involves a series of one-off events:

The Democratic incumbent, Patsy T. Mink, died before the 2002 election, but was elected anyway. To fill her seat, the state held a January 2003 special winner-take-all election, which was won by Democrat Ed Case. He is up for re-election this year.

Again, I haven't checked the database to see if it can accommodate all the details, but if it cannot, should I blend Patsy Mink's election numbers with Ed Case's -- treat them as a single entity, as it were?

Many thanks.

That's the important part.

What does "Year(s) Elected" mean under the U.S. Senators section?

Like:

1986, 1992, 1998

District 12: Jerry Costello (Democrat, Challenger)
Website:
Email:
Phone:
Last updated: Dec-31-69 07:00 PM

for IL

Just click that link, and you can select the record you wish to remove.

To the House Members area? I made a goof on my District 2 congressperson (wrong party affiliation), but I can't seem to get rid of it.

I put the right info in once I realized the mistake, but both entries are still showing.

(I'm updating Michigan and it's District 2. That representative a Republican and I accidentally put him in as a Democrat first.)
Thanks!

I'll contact Elad and have him take a look.

fixed the problem with why it didn't automatically overwrite.

Ernie Fletcher-R won in 2002 at 72% to 26% but resigned to run for and win Governor of KY. Ben Chandler-D was subsequently elected in a special election in 2003 to replace him at a 52.1%-D to 42.9%-R win.

Which set of data should I use?

I guess we're going to need to add a space for special comments in cases like this.

Was in February 2004.

Started out slowly. Decided to do the state Democratic party info to get a 'feel' for what needs to be done.

I entered the address like this:

The Missouri Democratic Party
208 Madison Street
PO Box 719
Jefferson City, MO 65102

and it 'shows' like this:

The Missouri Democratic Party 208 Madison Street PO Box 719 Jefferson City, MO 65102

Will that sort itself out, or do I need to add commas to indicate a line break?

Thanks in advance,
soup

Put in the line breaks without commas. It will sort itself out later.

The Local primary date in Missouri is August 3, but it doesn't seem to want to 'take'.

It's showing as the same date (February 3) as the Presidential primary.

Tried it twice, with same results.

thanks,
soup

I don't know why that would happen. I think Elad needs to check that out.

I added Oregon's House District 1, David Wu, and it didn't ask me to add more people. What did I do wrong?

And all 5 House people are up for reelection all at once? Does that seem right? Or is that how it is for every state?

Click "U.S. House Members" to input data on current house members. And then click it again to add additional members. There will only be one per district.

Click "U.S. House Campaigns" to input data about all the candidates currently running for House of Reps. There will likely be more than one for each district.

And every house district is up for reelection every two years. So, yes, all 5 House people are up for reelection all at once. ;-)

The addresses for the other categories show up (so far), but those for Russ Feingold and his three challengers don't. (This is Wisconsin, BTW.)

Thanks for the heads-up.

On the whole, looks great, it operates very smoothly. This should turn out very well!

That's just going to help them. :shrug:

It's important to know who your opponents are.

But I took a shower after I was done. :)

"Dear Republican Candidate,
The Democratic party has decided to cease all operations. Thus, there is no need for you to keep campaigning, for certainly you will *cough* win the election."

I've got some stuff I need to change, but I don't want to re-enter everything.

Also, Chris Dodd's re-election campaign doesn't seem to have a functional website.

That is, the office number, or the number to call in to an actual show?

Thanks.

I think.

OK, first off I wasn't paying attention and entered the Texas newspapers as TV. But when I tried to go back in an re-type in the info to overwrite the original entries it just added them on at the bottom (I guess since I was changing the media type it wasn't seeing it as the same outlet). I don't know what to do to fix this. Can y'all go in and just erase all my media entires so I can start over pretty please. :-)

In the enter media scren, there is a link for "delete media" or some such thing like that. That lets you delete entries, although you may have a hard time differentiating between ones with the same name.

that worked like a charm. :-)

:thumbsup:

tomorrow or anytime during the day?

I said April 12, but I understand if some people still need more time.

All other info appears in "view all state data", but not the specific names of the papers, TV stations, radio channels, etc.

When I look at my input in the "view all state data" area of the database, I see all info but the name of the media outlet at the top of each heading.

You can tell what the entries are by the snail-mail info, but the prospect of re-entering all 19 of these again is rather grim.

Where did this data go? :shrug:

It's just not printing out properly. I'll have Elad fix that asap.

my state lost one electoral vote....this item shows on main page, but there is no input line.

( it shows up as 0...when it should be -1 )

Apparently Elad still needs to set it up to work properly.

Skinner:

I am almost done entering data for New Mexico. I have a couple of small errors that I want to fix, but am reluctant to delete entire section and re-enter if the edit function will be available soon. Do you have an estimate for when the edit feature will be available? Or, should I go ahead and delete and re-enter? The errors were that on some office-holders I entered D/R votes in actual numbers instead of percentages.

I'm not sure how long it is going to take. But if you have a lot of edits, I suggest waiting until it is done.

trying to get all this information in before the deadline ends today. Can we continue to add to some of the media resources after today? I have found quite a few in the state I'm doing.

If you need more time, that's fine.

LOL

I was hoping I would be further along by now. Any news about the edit function on inputting data?

Maybe Wednesday. Probably Thursday.

the Governor is up for re-election and he has a couple of announced candidates; however only 2 of the 4 have websites listed. The governor has a website listed but gives me a 'page not found' error. should I enter any on the websites? And on a related note, the marijuana candidate is also apparently running for US Senator also. Should I put her info anywhere? Geez gives me a headache thinking about it :)

Trek

Otherwise, leave it blank.

And yes, include third-party candidates.

Vermont's Jr senator, Jim Jeffords was elected as republican, jumped ship (as you know) to independent. I put his party as Independent and the Electoral split as how it stood after his election as a repug. Is this correct, or should I have done it differently?

At the time of the election, he was a republican, so the results for that election should show the Republican winning.

I read the whole post, but I can't figure out the purpose of this database. Is there a link that explains it? Thanks.

to get info in. :-)

I keep getting error messages when I try to update the list of media. they look a little like this:

Parse error: parse error in /home/httpd/html/cu/admin/modify_state.php on line 1149

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: modify_state() in /home/httpd/html/cu/admin/cu_admin.php(25) : eval()'d code on line 1

then I lose everything, and I'm trying to get the massive media entries done. thanks.

I also wish we had a "save" feature. I got a bunch of stuff to enter.

haven't been able to get in at all for awhile today.

I was interrupted in the middle of making updates by our server issues and left something unfinished.

:hi:

I had a crash last week and it ate a bunch of info, including my sign-in info for the database!

Awaiting reply with bated breath............my state info ready to go!

I've finished the editing functionality, so if you run into problems, please report them (I tested it but there's usually one or two kinks that fail to be found in the testing).

For most categories, the software will simply automatically fill-in the information you've already entered so you can edit it (if you haven't entered anything, you get blanks).

For the races and the media categories, which require multiple entries per state, you'll see a link called "Edit records." This will allow you to edit specific records without having to delete them and re-enter them.

Thanks!

I already made one edit on state info and it worked great. But I can't seem to find the edit link for the info on House members. :shrug:

I can see a couple of mistakes I made.

That will overwrite the one that is already in there.

I am trying to edit some records on the US House Races, but when I use edit, that record disappears.

Thanks.

It seems I overlooked that category. I'll add the editing into that one today.

Or should remarks be included in the coverage area?

I.E.: Courier-Journal - Statewide, Frankfort State-Journal - State Capital newspaper, Kentucky New Era - Ft. Campbell, WHAS 840 Radio - 250 mile daytime coverage radius.

I've also come across quite a few fax numbers that should be included.

I am almost done, just doing some double checking for typo's etc. and I think I have one more media outlet to get information on. If you have a specific date I can push myself to get it done. :-)

It's looking pretty good so far. I can't wait to show it to all of you.

I have a little more to do, unfortunately I probably won't be able to get to it until Friday. Will we be able to edit information after you get everything on-line?

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but there might need to be a little editing done down the road. I am surprised that many running for congress do not have campaign web-sites and info available, but am assuming they still may do so.

If you want me to continue to keep the info for California updated after you have everything up and running, I would be more than happy to do so.

Thanks. :hi: