Amazing things are being done these days with regard to voter targeting and customized mailings and automated calls to select demographic groups. Campaigns must reach the people who actually vote, and that means every campaign needs excellent political data.

There are lots of voter lists available out there, but many of them are old and inaccurate. Before purchasing any political data from a vendor, a campaign should make certain the data is updated regularly from reliable sources, says campaign guru Craig Varoga, writing in Campaigns & Elections magazine.  

Varoga says that with the right data and support, a campaign should be able to:

• Create walking lists, phone lists, and mailing lists, with crosstabs
• Search for individuals or create lists using geography (county, city, political district, zip code), age, registration date, party affiliation, gender, ethnicity, race, household makeup, likelihood of voting, voter history, Census data and survey and ID information
• Put canvas, survey and ID information back into the database for future targeting and get-out-the-vote activities
• Share data with other campaigns, which is often valuable late in the campaign
• Track their own voter IDs and append information that is secure and only seen by their campaign subgroups
• Enter results with bar code scanners or by hand