Obama's GOTV Process is STUNNING.

I don't have a link, but I just saw it on the news:

The pundits were talking, and said that Obama has a poll watcher inside each poll with a cell phone. As each person states there name to ask for their ballot, the poll watcher is to text that name back to the central office. Their name is then deleted off of the "master" list.

Around 3pm - 4pm, there is to me a major blitz to call everyone who is still on that list to make sure that they get out and vote tonight.

Has any campaign ever come CLOSE to doing this? I'm only 30.. but I have to think this is unprecedented... and that the McCain camp isn't nearly organized enough to be doing anything similar.

For one thing, nobody had the technology to do it in the past.

And it's really only been in the last 5 years or so that such a thing has even been possible due to the changes in technology.

The Obama campaign was the most amazing that I have ever worked with. They were able to track every voter and volunteer. They knew who was doing what.

internet and wireless. Information baby.

Kansas City since Sunday for Barack Obama. He's watching a polling place, and has his cell phone and phone numbers handy. At the training session, he met an attorney from California, in Missouri for the same reason.

This is a very well thought out, very well executed process.

Proof that Obama is the right person to follow Bush and clean up his mess.

Let's bury the GOP today. Bring salt for the ground. May they never have the opportunity to corrupt and destroy as they have since 2001.

I LOVE it! Totally true. We need to make sure that kind of corruption never sprouts again.

Unhighlighted names get reminder phone calls and offers of help, if people need rides or more info.

and to think that OUR TEAM is the brilliant side that figured all of this out. No stone left unturned...

This election, or to be exact OBAMA'S election is going to go down in the history books for so many reasons.. race... change... positive vs. negative.. and the amazing technology advantages that Obama has put in place. Amazing.

:evilgrin:

...the man who said he didn't belong to any organized political party, he was a Democrat!

We just didn't do it (until now?).

... but we couldn't be officially in the polls so we had to go in hourly and check the voter rolls.

our precincts, see if we could help drive to the polls or whatever. So it's been done, but the realtime cellphone master list update is a new efficiency improvement.

Thanks in large part to the technological advancements and a reduction in costs. Jeez, I remember 15 years ago when I first got my cell phone, not a lot of people had them and I only used it for emergencies. I also remember when Bradley and Gore (the Gorenet) started targeting small donations and mobilizing people over the internet. Far fewer people had computers 9 years ago than today. Dean/Trippy picked up on the internet as a way to reach people and things have just bloomed from there.

Great idea!

There will be a master list of Dems who have not voted yet, based on our research on mail-in ballots and poll watchers who are phoning in voting info.

This weekend, I was there calling people who requested mail-in ballots and had not mailed them in yet.

Obama has a sophisticated data base where they are constantly inputting data from phone calling and reports from the Denver Election Commission.

last week for him.. and it was amazing. Bar codes on each sheet that we had to make calls off of, and as we called and updated with "obama, mccain or undecided", they were put onto other lists.

Amazing.. what a well oiled machine. Let's hope it shocks everyone with the margins tonight!

I was under the impression that the Obama camp was the only one that had this extensive of a database.. but maybe i'm wrong??

of those who've voted and periodically throughout the day they make them available to interested parties.

It's been that way for as long as I can remember.

Plus there is a big sign saying "no cell phones" before you enter the voting area - well before you could get close enough to hear who has signed up.

If it's happening anywhere, that's impressive, but it's not 100%.

I am so pleased to have gotten an email with 5 of my neighbors to contact today to make sure they voted. Actual names and addresses. :)

Someone above posted that the poll watchers have a list of all register voters for each poll. As they say their name, they get crossed off of the list... and then those LISTS are getting faxed or emailed in every hour to get updated.

So, they wouldn't need to have the cell phones in the polls.. they could walk out every hour.. or pass the lists off to someone else.

Cell phones were required to be off. I live in a blue state however, with victory assured here.

A few people posted above that the poll watchers have lists of all registered voters for that precint.. and when people say their names, they cross them off the list. Those lists are then sent into headquarters and updated for the GOTV phone calls later. So, no cell phones required.. i'd update the OP.. but DU won't let me (to much time has passed). :)

Either way.. it's brilliant.

That is simply brilliant! No more calls to people who tell you, "look, I voted by absentee last week! Now will you people please stop calling me!"

I've been a poll watcher for many elections in Chicago over the past 10 years. I'd have a master list of all registered voters in the precinct, a majority of whom the election volunteers had gotten to know well through door-to-door canvassing. I'd mark off each voter as they came in and report it hourly to the precinct captain (my husband) in the afternoon. He and other volunteers would then call or knock on the doors of people who had not voted to remind them to come in. We had people ready with vehicles to pick up anyone in need of a ride, especially if the weather was bad. This scenario would be repeated in every precinct in the city.

This is classic Chicago Dems GOTV. I wish I was there today but am home with the kiddo. :)