If you’re one of Louisiana’s 2.9 million registered voters, says Jeremy Alford in his latest column, the state Democratic Party has a file on you.
“The Louisiana Republican Party does, too. Even if you have no party affiliation, both of the major parties are tracking your voting habits, updating your address when you move and combing through your social media to mine perceived leanings,” Alford writes. “They’re not alone. You’re also being tracked by independent groups—like one backed by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers—that are gathering information and building files in an effort to influence elections and game turnout.”
In Louisiana, Alford says, Democrats have created a system that serves as an asset for all of its candidates, while Republicans have invested in a tool that will soon, among its candidates, separate the political wheat from the chaff.
“Folks from both parties here will argue that they’re inputting data and sharing lists in the same manner, and to similar ends, but it’s clear the state Republican Party is going about it with a harder edge,” Alford writes. “The other difference is the Louisiana Republican Party produced results during the 2014 election cycle, aside from a clean sweep of federal offices and domination nearly everywhere else. Using voting data, which is public record, and different variables in the GOP Data Center, the party was able to mobilize more than 16,000 new early Republican voters in the December runoff who skipped the November primary.”
Louisiana GOP Executive Director Jason Doré tells Alford the data center allowed the party to not only single out likely voters—and skip those who would be a waste of time—but it also showed them the voters who would be susceptible to messaging that focused on social pressure. Read the full column.
Jeremy Alford publishes LaPolitics Weekly, a newsletter on Louisiana politics, at LaPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter, or on Facebook. He can be reached at JJA@LaPolitics.com.
