By Rick Moore

When I first received the call to the Oklahoma Republican Party State Committee meeting for July, I noticed that we were having training on Voter Vault and thought to myself what kind of meaningful changes could be made to political software in two years that would be so enlightening.

But, following the meeting I had to find State Chairman Gary Jones and tell him that Voter Vault 3 is nothing short of amazing. And, with enough human and monitorial resources we could destroy the opposition with this software and its capabilities. As a member of the Republican National Committe (RNC) Technology Committee that Saul Anuzis chairs, Jones totally agreed with my assessment of Voter Vault 3. Oklahoma is in a unique position as Jones is also chairing the RNC Committee dealing with Get-Out-The-Vote and Targeting.

For those not familiar with the software programs Voter Vault and the DNC's version called VoteBuilder which came from Voter Activation Network, both are a form of voter relationship management. Political parties, candidates, consultants, and pollsters begin with a list of registered voters, including the particular elections the targeted person voted in, throw in other criteria using a query engine for data mining and one can begin to understand and somewhat predict a voter's profile and whether he or she is likely to support or oppose a candidate or ballot measure, contribute financially or volunteer.

The data used is vast. Statistics are culled from credit reports and ratings, magazine subscriptions and records traded among monthly and weekly publications, vehicle registrations, consumer polls that people answered or mailed in for a coupon to get something free, records of consumer buying preferences captured by discount cards at the grocery store, lists of every local evangelical church with a bus, even census figures about the racial and financial makeup of a particular neighborhood, how much a house is worth or how many TVs it contains. As you see the art of politics is becoming more and more scientific.

Some of you may have read this paragraph and just thought this is too much intrusion and decide to throw your hands in the air. Let us remember the wise words of Plato: "Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber." Voter Vault is a scientific tool that is being used for our betterment.

Okay, lots of data but how does it work? Voter Vault 3 has a numeric coding system. One is a hard Republican. Two is a soft Republican. Three is an Independent. Four is a soft Democrat. Five is a hard Democrat. Six is someone who we reached, but refused to answer our questions. A zero is someone we have never been able to reach, we know nothing about. The first five categories bring a certain scientific precision to the art of mobilizing the base -- but the political prize is in converting zeros to partisans by election night.

From watching a video of VoteBuilder on this link:

www.technologyreview.com/video/index.aspx?vid=196

I can tell you that the RNC with Voter Vault 3 is farther ahead in technology than the DNC. As you can see with the capabilities of micro-targeting individual voters by a single issue, our entire party can use this tool to focus on the same voters whether it be municipal elections, county elections, state elections, congressional elections, or presidential elections. Voter Vault 3 can help us not only to win every election in 2010 but it can also help us to build the Republican Party in all 77 counties! Think about it. We will know voters in our respective counties and what issue is important to them. What better icebreaker than to make a phone call to invite a voter to a county meeting and mention the issue that is important to him/her.

The Oklahoma Republican Party recently distributed an e-mail reporting 800,000 registered Republicans in Oklahoma. What's astonishing about that figure is less than 2-percent of Oklahoma Republicans have volunteered to help in a political campaign to elect a Republican candidate to public office in the last six years! Think of the issues which are important to you: health care, crime, abortion, Second Amendment, taxes, etc. What are you willing to do to help elect Republicans? Albert Einstein once said, "The world is a dangerous place to live -- not because of the people who are evil but because of the people who don't do anything about it."

While the opposition spends their war chest on old out-of-date lists distributed by the state election board, we can have a list better than the FBI could produce and it doesn't cost anything to reproduce. However, it will take volunteers to spend their time making phone calls and walking door-to-door prior to elections, now in the off-election-year, in order to gather this information which is better than gold.

How can you volunteer to assist with Voter Vault 3? Contact your Republican County Chair and inquire about Voter Vault. He/She will talk with you about the program. If you are a Republican, you can request access. You can help put a Republican in the Governor's Mansion in 2010! Each County Party will have their own policy on granting access so don't be offended if you are not granted access right away.

With your help the Oklahoma Republican Party will zero in on the prize in 2010!