Questions for Grassroots Central developer welcome

[a2planet2]

i think it would be great if PL's could find out who neighboring PL's are and be able to interact with them. even possibly on the state level. i know it's already built in to see others in the same county, but my meetup group spans three counties and i have no idea who in the group is signed up (and i can coordinate with) and whom i need to harass

Sounds like a good idea to me. We just did a big overhaul today and I anticipate being tied up for the next few days with bugfixes, but this is definitely something I'd like to implement in the future. Problem from a programming standpoint is there is no easy way to tell which counties neighbor others, but maybe I can figure out a solution in time.

 

[UnitedWeStand]

I'd just like to say that I am so glad they have brought you aboard. You're writings are so important for people just learning about Ron Paul for the first time. There are of course thousands of supporters who do not frequent this board.

My one criticism of the pl info is that the map of my precinct was inaccurate. I just got shown an almost full map of my entire city. Id love to see the specific streets highlighted, though I know that as a pl I have signed up to take most of the responsibility upon myself to research my precinct. Thanks again!

 

[sharpsteve2003]

I discussed this with the campaign, and the feeling is that voter history is a lousy predictor. Many, many experts have said that the #1 reason people vote is simply because they are asked to--by family, friends, people with common interests. We don't want to write off people who haven't voted before, we don't want to write off people who voted for Bush or McCain in 2000, we don't want to assume that people who didn't vote in recent years won't vote now. We want Precinct Leaders to talk to all voters in their precinct, find out whether or not they plan to vote, find out who they plan to vote for, find out if we can convince them to vote for Dr. Paul.

The earlier versions had all kinds of RNC micro-targeting data and even those seemed questionable. We want our precinct leaders to FIND OUT who is going to vote and who is going to vote for Paul, and we can't rely on RNC data, least of all voter history.

I agree completely. I plan on hitting every house in my precinct. My primary has already happened. I'm kinda glad I live in a trailer park because all the homes are so close together and my whole precinct is my trailer park. Even if they are not registered I can give them a voter registration form to fill out so they will be ready in NOV to vote For Ron Paul.

 

[sharpsteve2003]

I'd just like to say that I am so glad they have brought you aboard. You're writings are so important for people just learning about Ron Paul for the first time. There are of course thousands of supporters who do not frequent this board.

My one criticism of the pl info is that the map of my precinct was inaccurate. I just got shown an almost full map of my entire city. Id love to see the specific streets highlighted, though I know that as a pl I have signed up to take most of the responsibility upon myself to research my precinct. Thanks again!

usually if you go to your county's web site you can find a map for precincts. I have found several for others just by googling the county name and voter precinct map. ex: NYC Voter precinct map

doing this I am usually able to find the correct maps. some are easier than others.
for my precinct once I knew the boundries i went on google earth and printed out the map on there and could see every house. Depending on how big your precinct is this could or could not be useful. mine is small.

 

[CriticalThinker]

This is Adam, developer of Grassroots Central at ronpaul2008.com... just released a new version tonight, please ask questions/comments/bugs etc... I'll watch this thread tonight and respond to all.

I am a developer as well - looooooooooooooooonnnnngggg time

If you ever get "stuck" - feel free to contact me.

C++/C#/Java/.NET/XML<monster>/DBXML/BLA BLA BLA

 

[a2planet2]

A2 - CAN you set up daily update - communication thread hear at the forums? It would do wonders.....

Probably would, but I'm kinda notorious for not being responsive.... I get like 100 bug reports a day, it wouldn't be fun and people would get mad when I don't answer... I'll try to keep in touch though. But the best way is to just sign up; the campaign can issue message from the PL system to all registered PLs.

 

[a2planet2]

I'd just like to say that I am so glad they have brought you aboard. You're writings are so important for people just learning about Ron Paul for the first time. There are of course thousands of supporters who do not frequent this board.

My one criticism of the pl info is that the map of my precinct was inaccurate. I just got shown an almost full map of my entire city. Id love to see the specific streets highlighted, though I know that as a pl I have signed up to take most of the responsibility upon myself to research my precinct. Thanks again!

Thanks for the kind words. As for the maps, the problem is that the RNC geodata varies in quality... sometimes it's street-level, other times it's all the way out to Zip code. Having an accurately outlined precinct would be awesome but it's just not feasable with the data that we have.

 

[jblosser]

I discussed this with the campaign, and the feeling is that voter history is a lousy predictor. Many, many experts have said that the #1 reason people vote is simply because they are asked to--by family, friends, people with common interests. We don't want to write off people who haven't voted before, we don't want to write off people who voted for Bush or McCain in 2000, we don't want to assume that people who didn't vote in recent years won't vote now. We want Precinct Leaders to talk to all voters in their precinct, find out whether or not they plan to vote, find out who they plan to vote for, find out if we can convince them to vote for Dr. Paul.

You keep saying you don't want us to write off Bush voters. That is not what I'm talking about, at all. If I ignored Bush voters, I'd be ignoring 99% of the voters in my precinct. And we definitely aren't ignoring people who don't vote -- those are some of the easiest ones!

We are talking to everyone. We know what we're doing. We just want to talk to the soft targets first SO WE CAN GET THEM HELPING US. We have thousands of voters in most of these precincts, we need more than one person working per precinct.

We *have* the voter history data, and talking to these people first works. They flip easily and help us talk to others. We just would rather not have to do merge lists or risk confusing people by sending them to the precinct captain site for some data and us for the rest.

The earlier versions had all kinds of RNC micro-targeting data and even those seemed questionable. We want our precinct leaders to FIND OUT who is going to vote and who is going to vote for Paul, and we can't rely on RNC data, least of all voter history.

And yet you include a variant of the RNC party index score?

 

[a2planet2]

I agree completely. I plan on hitting every house in my precinct. My primary has already happened. I'm kinda glad I live in a trailer park because all the homes are so close together and my whole precinct is my trailer park. Even if they are not registered I can give them a voter registration form to fill out so they will be ready in NOV to vote For Ron Paul.

Whoa, hold on a second, SharpSteve! I'm from Michigan, and I hope you know that Michigan's county conventions are February 7th! There is NOTHING more important in Michigan right now than getting a list of precinct delegates from your county clerk's office and writing them and doing whatever you can to get them to support Ron Paul! ALL of the other campaigns are assuming Michigan is a done deal for Romney so NONE of them are paying any attention, but the reality is, regardless of the primary, the Michigan Republican Party can set whatever rules it wants!

You might recall that the national GOP instituted a rule cutting Michigan's national delegates in half, and you might know that all of the campaigns have said that their delegates will vote at the national convention to seat all of Michigan's delegates. That's the thing! REGARDLESS of current party rules, the delegates at the county convention can vote to change county convention rules and state delegates can vote to change state convention rules and national delegates can change national convention rules! The primaries and caucuses are NOTHING MORE THAN AN INDICATION OF WHAT REPUBLICAN VOTERS WANT. If all the precinct delegates at the county convention vote to send Ron Paul delegates to the state convention, and state convention delegates vote at the state convention to change the rules such that national delegates are not bound to vote for their district's primary winner, then the Primary is essentially nullified.

Sound crazy? Remember, the Republican Party is a private organization, it is not an element of government--it can do whatever it wants. The state party has authority to set state party rules. Some states bind their delegates for 2 rounds of voting at the national convention, other states, none!

So, don't worry about November, worry about February 7! And the state convention, which is the 15th and 16th! We can still win delegates IF and ONLY IF we try.

Iowa is not over, New Hampshire is not over, Michigan is not over, South Carolina is not over... and you can bet if Ron Paul won any of those states, the other candidates would be setting up the conventions for their favor so there is NO REASON why we should not, especially since the other campaigns are basically ignoring these events! If you haven't already, REGISTER REPUBLICAN TODAY and PLAN TO GO TO YOUR COUNTY CONVENTION!!!

 

[a2planet2]

usually if you go to your county's web site you can find a map for precincts. I have found several for others just by googling the county name and voter precinct map. ex: NYC Voter precinct map

doing this I am usually able to find the correct maps. some are easier than others.
for my precinct once I knew the boundries i went on google earth and printed out the map on there and could see every house. Depending on how big your precinct is this could or could not be useful. mine is small.

I'm working on a site feature whereby state coordinators can post links that will display for new signups in their state with links to pages of precinct maps...

 

[sharpsteve2003]

Whoa, hold on a second, SharpSteve! I'm from Michigan, and I hope you know that Michigan's county conventions are February 7th! There is NOTHING more important in Michigan right now than getting a list of precinct delegates from your county clerk's office and writing them and doing whatever you can to get them to support Ron Paul!

Oh we are working hard on the delegates issue as a matter of fact we have a meet up dealing with this tomorrow. I was just talking canvassing for voters, which for the time being I'm not doing immediately. I think most people need a bit of a break from politics till I concentrate on them again. But yes we are all over the delegates right now.

 

[Thunderbolt]

When I downloaded my pages I noticed that all I had were Republican voters. Now, this makes sense for my state because now it is too late to get any Inds or Dems - that deadline is past, but for the states that do allow all to vote are you giving them numbers to all voters?

I have found so far that I have better luck with Dems and Inds than Reps in getting them to vote for Ron Paul, so don't leave them out.

I also waited a long time to sign up because I had no idea what the program entailed.

Glad to see you are going to have a spreadsheet download. Was going to suggest that.

I would suggest you write a lovely email, explain simply and clearly what you are doing, how this works and then send it out to all supporters. Do this very quickly. I have seen things about the program but nothing explained well and so I ignored them all. I am already working inside the GOP party. I thought that was what you were talking about.

Can't think of anything else. Thanks for coming by.

 

[Rhys]

Hey Adam! My concern would be that until you told me (i'm in A2 too) I had no idea what a leader even was... that was a week before primaries here. I still think most people don't know and an email could go a long way to explaining.

p.s- adam works so hard, i dropped by the a2 hq on a sunday to see if anyone was there for slimjims, and he was there cause he'd been working like 48 straight hours

 

[sharpsteve2003]

When I downloaded my pages I noticed that all I had were Republican voters. Now, this makes sense for my state because now it is too late to get any Inds or Dems - that deadline is past, but for the states that do allow all to vote are you giving them numbers to all voters?

I have found so far that I have better luck with Dems and Inds than Reps in getting them to vote for Ron Paul, so don't leave them out.

One thing I found that can help with contact info for houses not on your lists for future is yellowpages.com. You can do a reverse lookup using address. if you don't put in a number just the street name you will get all the listed numbers with the address on the street and then compare to lists to see what is missing. again this is all depending on how close to primaries and delegate elections and whatever other first priorities you have in your area. I Plan on doing that once our delegate drive and elections are over. just another source for free to find info for houses not on the list. I carry voter registration forms with me for those that are not registered. As in any list not all entires are correct. people move or change their numbers and thats part of what we can do to help further make the list accurate.

 

[a2planet2]

You keep saying you don't want us to write off Bush voters. That is not what I'm talking about, at all. If I ignored Bush voters, I'd be ignoring 99% of the voters in my precinct. And we definitely aren't ignoring people who don't vote -- those are some of the easiest ones!

We are talking to everyone. We know what we're doing. We just want to talk to the soft targets first SO WE CAN GET THEM HELPING US. We have thousands of voters in most of these precincts, we need more than one person working per precinct.

We *have* the voter history data, and talking to these people first works. They flip easily and help us talk to others. We just would rather not have to do merge lists or risk confusing people by sending them to the precinct captain site for some data and us for the rest.

From a coding standpoint, it'd be really difficult to translate the voter history into something understandable particularly walk lists where people depend on the list being organized street-wise.

And yet you include a variant of the RNC party index score?[/QUOTE]

The RNC party index is one simple number, versus voter history which is like 10 numbers for 10 elections, very difficult to format for intelligible display and it only indicates that they voted, not who they voted for.

 

[a2planet2]

When I downloaded my pages I noticed that all I had were Republican voters. Now, this makes sense for my state because now it is too late to get any Inds or Dems - that deadline is past, but for the states that do allow all to vote are you giving them numbers to all voters?

I have found so far that I have better luck with Dems and Inds than Reps in getting them to vote for Ron Paul, so don't leave them out.

The filtering depends on the state. Some states don't have partisan registration at all, and in that case all voters are displayed. For party-registration states, the filtering depends on when the deadline is and what the rules are... some states are Republican-only, other states allow Republican and independent voters... some states the deadline isn't passed so all voters are on the list. State coordinators can change the party filter rule for their state, too.

 

[a2planet2]

All right... heading back into the fray. More features, bugfixes, to come tomorrow, for sure! Also, there'll be a video of me going over the site and various features and other things.

TTFN,

A2P

 

[sharpsteve2003]

bump for more questions wish this could get a sticky so people can get more informed.

 

[Soccrmastr]

Suggestion: Don't introduce the program always saying "It is a GREAT responsibility, which takes a lot of effort" etc.

Its what originally had me not signing up. I was worried if I signed up and didn't do much people would be angry. But even if someone does minimal work, they can still be an effective precinct captain. Instead say "Everyone can be a Precinct Captain!" something like that.

 

[gregb]

Sounds like a good idea to me. We just did a big overhaul today and I anticipate being tied up for the next few days with bugfixes, but this is definitely something I'd like to implement in the future. Problem from a programming standpoint is there is no easy way to tell which counties neighbor others, but maybe I can figure out a solution in time.

I probably could arrange something - if you want.