In the Eye of the Political Storm

Several months ago I decided that Washington DC would be a fun place to be during the presidential election. I had never visited the Washington attractions and was anxious to see the Smithsonian, the Capitol building, etc. I also have a group of friends that I worked with at Amazon.com who were in DC volunteering for the Democratic National Committee. So off I went to our nation's capitol. When I got there I met up with my Amazon friends and in rather short order had volunteered for the campaign and was on my way to Cleveland, Ohio where the party knew they would need help.

When I got to Cleveland, I helped with their IT infrastructure, security, and other logistics. I worked 20+ hours a day for the short week I was there trying to solve their technology and general operational problems. As part of that, I had the amazing opportunity to see up-front what was happening in the eye of the electoral storm. I set up a communications center where most of the important decisions were being made in Cuyahoga County, and I got to sit in it and observe the entire process. It was a once in a lifetime experience.

The most important thing that I take away from this experience is that the voting process, at least in Cuyahoga County, was as fair and legal as could be expected. Of course there were irregularities and problems. But none of them appeared to be part of a large conspiracy, and most could be explained by poorly trained, or just poorly performing polling place personnel. Everyone involved that I saw wanted this to be a clean and fair election.

The second take-away for me was that we need to spend more money on our elections. In Ohio the voting machines were archaic, supplies were often in short supply, and too often the poll workers were under-trained in voting procedures. Cuyahoga County is so cheap that the ballots are sent from the polling locations to the Board of Elections by taxi.

Finally, at least for the Democratic Party, campaigning has changed very little in the last 20 years. Despite the opportunity to know more about individual voters' demographics and issues, most communication to the public is done on a broad scale. At best, communication is tailored to a specific precinct, but usually there's a one-size-fits-all mentality. Mass media rules. I think that if the Democrats want to get serious about wining back the population, they need to think about individualizing their campaigns to each voter. Every successful business today does that, why should a political party expect otherwise?

I never did get to see all of the Washington sights that had drawn me there in the first place. I still want to see the Air and Space Museum, the Building Museum, the Corkoran, Ford's Theater, and many other American treasures in the capital. I'll get there eventually.