An email from an Atlanta RP meetup member in Iowa

[specsaregood]

I will NOT lay blame. Techincal issues happen. HOWEVER...I will declare that if the campaign does not do something to ensure the procedures they are doing are going to work, this can easily happen again. This is what I do for a living. Trust me, I am a Doctor for Computers. <Sorry, bad joke>. Anyway, I truly will give my time for the campaign to help them in this regard.

Indeed. There is plenty of computer talent in this campaign. That is no excuse.
Should the headline read, "Ron Paul Revolution stumbles due to computer issues"?

 

[PledgeForPaul]

I wish you guys had posted these problems on the forum. I have a list of several hundred likely caucus goers that never got called.

 

[ShowMeLiberty]

This is terrible news. Maybe there needs to be more than one person in charge of each database from now on - if there was some foul play involved, or just plain incompetence, another set of eyes might have been able to prevent it.

 

[fireworks_god]

This is why we've got to take advantage of the Ron Paul Precinct Captain program, and start compiling our own lists:

http://voters.ronpaul2008.com/grassrootscentral.test/signup.php

This is why we need to efficently facillitate this process by becoming more organized here, with a strategic planning/coordination forum for New Hampshire, and then South Carolina and Florida, and other crucial states as they arise. We have ONE MONTH and then its Super Tuesday and its just going to take care of itself.

We NEED to WIN this for Ron Paul, for America, guys!

 

[fireworks_god]

This is terrible news. Maybe there needs to be more than one person in charge of each database from now on - if there was some foul play involved, or just plain incompetence, another set of eyes might have been able to prevent it.

Yesterday there were thousands of Ron Paul supporters on this website, don't you think we should take care of stuff this crucial? Don't you think we should all be involved in actually securing votes for Ron Paul, instead of emailing the media and watching them cover us and telling each other why we are going to win?

 

[Fyretrohl]

First...I agree with decentralizing the work. Also, to some degree, the planning. But, NOT the general organization. We do not need duplicate efforts. This may just mean that the campaign gets out word of what THEY are doing so that the grass roots leaders don't duplicate. It is a fine line between the campaign coordinating and us being to careless.

 

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

If this is true, the person in charge that didn't make backups and store them in multiple locations should not be allowed to be in charge ofanything ever again. Backups of a critical system like that is RULE #1.

Yeah... it's hard to call it sabotage if there's only one database, and one database location.

 

[fireworks_god]

I wish you guys had posted these problems on the forum. I have a list of several hundred likely caucus goers that never got called.

We would have been all over this if we would have had a coordinated, organized effort in this forum to ensure everything that needed to happen, happened.

Let's learn from Iowa, all the lessons it has for us, and not make the same mistake twice, in New Hampshire. Let's get the ball rolling for South Carolina and Florida. We have only days for all of this. We cannot fail on this.

 

[rockwell]

Trusting the campaign isn't going to accomplish anything, they have as many moles as this forum does if this is the case. They were supposed to get the list the day of? There's a genius move, takes all the last minute disaster scenarios out of the equation.

We need to simply do this on our own.

 

[nc4rp]

If this is true it's truly unfortunate. I can't believe no one kept a back up of the database. Even a partial one that was usable. Ugh.

let this be a lesson. back up every day. then backup the backup, distribute 2 jump drives with the backup to 2 trusted supporters. this way you have 4 copies- one on teh machine, one backup on another device, then 2 other jumpdrive backups that are off-site with teh paulo supporters/workers.


this will prevent this sabatoge for the remaining 49 states. (iowa is only 1/100 of the nations total delegates i think)

most important is LEARN and ADJUST FAST. on-the-fly excellence.

 

[fireworks_god]

First...I agree with decentralizing the work. Also, to some degree, the planning. But, NOT the general organization. We do not need duplicate efforts. This may just mean that the campaign gets out word of what THEY are doing so that the grass roots leaders don't duplicate. It is a fine line between the campaign coordinating and us being to careless.

The campaign cannot effectively coordinate this, at least as much as we can. We could have had buses there in Iowa if we saw the need. We could have ensured that we did everything we could to get Ron Paul votes in.

 

[Molly1]

Hasn't the campaign heard of backup?

I'd call the police and have them investigate it.

Or maybe there is some regulatory agency that investigates such things.

 

[fireworks_god]

let this be a lesson. back up every day. then backup the backup, distribute 2 jump drives with the backup to 2 trusted supporters. this way you have 4 copies- one on teh machine, one backup on another device, then 2 other jumpdrive backups that are off-site with teh paulo supporters/workers.


this will prevent this sabatoge for the remaining 49 states. (iowa is only 1/100 of the nations total delegates i think)

most important is LEARN and ADJUST FAST. on-the-fly excellence.

The official campaign is too limited and few in number to manage this. The grass-roots organization is much more capable of coordinating our efforts to BRING IN THE VOTE.

What about the blimp, huh? 11/5? The Boston Tea Party? All of our newspaper, radio, and television advertisments? All of our efforts on the ground?

We are the only hope for Ron Paul, and he is the only hope for America. We didn't play the game in Iowa, we lost, we desperately need to learn from this and ACT FAST!

 

[fireworks_god]

Hasn't the campaign heard of backup?

I'd call the police and have them investigate it.

Or maybe there is some regulatory agency that investigates such things.

Definitely, bring them to justice, but it doesn't change the fact, does it? This could have been prevented if the grass-roots was intimately involved with BRINGING IN THE VOTE.

 

[ShowMeLiberty]

Yesterday there were thousands of Ron Paul supporters on this website, don't you think we should take care of stuff this crucial? Don't you think we should all be involved in actually securing votes for Ron Paul, instead of emailing the media and watching them cover us and telling each other why we are going to win?

Of course. I've been saying so for weeks now.

 

[LinearChaos]

It was a damn spreadsheet. I do marketing research and this sounds like a classic case of someone who doesn't know how to sort properly and messed up the list, like they only highlighted and sorted one column instead of the entire row.

And it isn't like you need a bunch of extra servers. This list could have been backed up by simply emailing it to people or taking a minute to copy it on some flash drives. There is NO excuse for "not having the people" and NO excuse for not having backups. This is Murphy's Law, Computing 101 stuff, the FIRST thing you learn: Back up early and often.

It doesn't take long to save a spreadsheet, even with multiple tabs and tens of thousands of names, to a external disk.

 

[msirilla]

Yesterday there were thousands of Ron Paul supporters on this website, don't you think we should take care of stuff this crucial? Don't you think we should all be involved in actually securing votes for Ron Paul, instead of emailing the media and watching them cover us and telling each other why we are going to win?

Yesterday, many people on this website were making calls to Iowan voters, but...

This sounds right...I was on the phone with Meagan the whole day

ghemminger posted several threads yesterday in rapid succession saying that Meagan was telling us all to stop calling people in Iowa!
(e.g., see: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=73024)

So what is up with that?!!! The campaign in Iowa can't make calls because their database got screwed up and then the campaign tells us not to make calls that could have helped.

To say this is frustrating doesn't describe it! This is beyond words!!!!!

Edit: Perhaps I am mistaken about something. GoTV may be a different group than the campaign HQ where Meagan was. If so, sorry for the confusion!

 

[jblosser]

I have at least provisional confirmation from the PCC that this did happen.

Obviously we aren't going to see this covered in the MSM but for those down that we didn't do better, this is huge news. GoTV is key and this many missed voters could have put us in 2nd or 3rd if any reasonable number turned out.

 

[Green Mountain Boy]

I have at least provisional confirmation from the PCC that this did happen.

That the database accidently got jumbled? or Sabotage?

 

[hasan]

ok now that we know why it happened we should make sure it doesn't happen anywhere else.

lets start working in the other primary states.