HD51 recall - why did it succeed?

by: Grebner

Sun Jan 08, 2012 at 03:16:49 AM EST

I'm as glad to see the last of Paul Scott as anybody, but we at PPC were taken aback by the result.  We had conducted five separate polls, for various clients, and it seemed pretty likely that the recall would fall short.

Of course, we hedged our statements to that effect, both because the results were within the "margin of error" and also because nobody has much experience polling recall elections in Michigan.  Nobody really knows exactly how to project election results from robo-poll responses to questions about an imminent recall.  Still, it was a pleasant surprise to discover the next day that his constituents had contrived to shove Paul into the gutter.  

But - inquiring minds ask - exactly where was the polling wrong?  Answers!  We have answers!

How to Recall the Governor

by: Grebner

Sun Aug 21, 2011 at 14:57:22 PM EDT

There's a long joke about a bunch of academics shipwrecked on a barren island.  To skip the body of the story, the punchline has the economist declare that he's found a simple solution to their predicament: "First, I assume a boat...."

I know how to collect enough signatures to place a statewide recall question on the ballot:  "First, assume someone gives us $10,000,000..."

If anyone is interested in the details, here they are.  

Arithmetic of Recall Petition Signature Gathering

by: Grebner

Sat Aug 20, 2011 at 07:26:57 AM EDT

I've been quoted as saying it's essentially impossible for volunteers to gather enough signatures to force a recall election for the governor.  I'm sure it sounds as if I'm disparaging the volunteer spirit, or the importance of commitment in bringing political change.  But I was really just trying to make a technical point:  collecting signatures for a recall is different from other kinds of petition drives.  I'll try to explain.

The basic problem is the fraction of signatures needed:  25% of the gubernatorial vote.  (This post refers entirely to Michigan law; it applies to a greater or lesser extent in other states which permit recall elections.)  Understand, it's not the number of signatures needed, but the fraction.  That is, an all-volunteer effort might be able to collect 160,000 signatures statewide to place an issue on the ballot - 5% of the gubernatorial vote - if they were sufficiently motivated by the underlying issue.  But if that same organization tried to collect the 22,000 signatures needed to recall a state senator, they would fail.

That doesn't mean recall campaigns are impossible, only that they can't be all-volunteer.  In order to succeed, a substantial amount of money would be needed, much of which will be needed to pay some of the circulators. 

I'll try to explain why.  

Presidential Primary "News"

by: Grebner

Fri Apr 15, 2011 at 01:14:08 AM EDT

I guess it's news...  For over a year, I've wondered just how the Republicans were going to try to escape the dilemma they've constructed for themselves, just how they'll allocate Michigan's delegates among candidates for the Republican nomination.  I've asked Republican officials, media folks, pundits, consultants.  Until Bill Ballenger spoke up (Inside Michigan Politics, 4/11/2011) I've never gotten a complete answer.

Possibly due solely to my insistent prodding, Ballenger has asked around and concludes that the Republicans intend to reinstate a requirement for party declaration in order to vote in the presidential primary.  That boggles my mind, given how much the public (and election officials) hated it three years ago.  But since there aren't any easy ways out of the box, I suppose it's possible they'll hold their noses and scrape together the needed legislative votes.  But it really seems like the sort of vote that no individual legislator really wants to defend back home.  Party declaration - at least in a state which doesn't ordinarily require it - really hacks off the very voters who matter most in November:  the independents.

Kathy Nickolaus - the County Clerk who "found" the ballots

by: Grebner

Fri Apr 08, 2011 at 05:25:40 AM EDT

PPC has repeatedly crossed paths with Ms. Nickolaus, and we can offer a distinctive perspective on recent events in Wisconsin:  she would have been willing to steal the election if she could have, but I don't think she got the chance.

It's important to understand first that Nickolaus was at the very center of a conspiracty to embezzle millions of dollars of public money, which was secretly used to create voter lists for the Wisconsin Republican Party.  (Unfortunately, that operation was matched by an exact mirror-image, which was operating on behalf of the Democrats.)  By the time it was all over, both the Speaker of the Assembly (Republican) and the Majority Leader of the State Senate (Democrat) were convicted and sent to prison.  Nickolaus was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony, but there isn't the slightest doubt that she was involved in huge diversions of public funds.

Dismissed from her job running the political operation for the now disgraced Speaker, she returned to her base in Waukesha where she was elected County Clerk.  There, she has acquired a reputation for ruthless partisanship, indifference to propriety, and inability to follow instructions.

If the tallies in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race were fabricated, it was done by somebody with a great deal of organizational and arithmetic ability.  In other words - not by Kathy Nickolaus.  It's conceivable there is some evil genius lurking in a shadow, pulling strings, and keeping her from getting caught.  But if Nickolaus wasn't somebody's puppet, I think she screwed everything up by herself.  

GOTV - Conclusion

by: Grebner

Mon Apr 04, 2011 at 00:39:19 AM EDT

These fifteen posts contain everything I have to say on the subject of reforming GOTV in Michigan:

15 Campaign Finance Law 

GOTV - Part 15 - Campaign Finance Law

by: Grebner

Thu Mar 31, 2011 at 03:58:02 AM EDT

GOTV - Part 14 - Money

by: Grebner

Thu Mar 24, 2011 at 05:33:59 AM EDT

GOTV - Part 13 - Built-in Research Component

by: Grebner

Tue Mar 22, 2011 at 05:03:45 AM EDT

If you've waded this far through the turgid waters of my prose, you should have noticed repeated references to control groups, careful record keeping, objectivity and other hallmarks of academic research.  This isn't just a matter of style, but a fundamental break from the legacy of running GOTV operations as an informal folk-way.

If we decide our goal in managing GOTV is to turn out the greatest possible number of additional Democratic voters - in other words, if we are trying to optimize the operation - we have to allow ourselves to be governed by scientific methods.  You might think the actual science might be done someplace else, and merely imported to Michigan - the way crop methods are perfected at agricultural colleges and transmitted to individual farmers by extension agents - but in the field of GOTV, there's so little genuine science that we'll have to do most of it ourselves rather than relying on distant experts.

In practice, building science into our methods means four things:

1.  We need to think in terms of clearly defined "interventions" to which some voters are exposed while others are not.  Thus, we need to think of a round of bulk rate mail as a "treatment" which we apply to a specified group of voters.
2. We need to hold back randomly selected, and statistically similar, groups as "contols" who do not receive the intervention, so we can later see if what we did actually made any difference.
3. The comparison must be done using actual statistical methods (at this point, insert all the forgotten terms from that Methods class you hated so much:  chi-square, Student's t, correlation, variance, etc.).  That is, the comparison can't stop with the question whether there was ANY difference, but must go on to ask whether it was "statistically significant" or whatever.
4. There needs to be some degree of external supervision of the process, to guard against short-cuts and distorted analysis brought about by insiders who have personal reasons to want to show their project succeeded.  In general, this means turning over a copy of the data to a trusted outsider BEFORE election day, guaranteeing that the control group was genuinely random and comparable.

GOTV - Part 12 - "In-Your-Face" Feedback

by: Grebner

Sun Feb 27, 2011 at 04:59:18 AM EST

Our conventional GOTV methods provide little or no feedback in the gray, conventional sense, of "reports on how things went", and I suppose it might be a good thing to distribute such information.  But that's not what I'm talking about here.  I don't care how many volunteers showed up or how many precincts were walked.  When I talk about "feedback" I'm talking about something with much sharper edges.

What I mean by feedback is letting voters, volunteers, consultants, and organizations know that we remember what we asked them to do, and now the election's over we've checked up on them, and here's their report card.  To some we say, "Congratulations!  Thank you!  We KNEW we could count on you!"  To others, things like: "Where were you on Election Day?"  "Why didn't your mother mail her absentee ballot back?" Or, "We spent $10,000 and 200 volunteer hours on your project, but it appears to have produced only 20 additional voters."

In short, the February after each even-year November election ought to be a time of much angry shouting, excuse-making, pontificating, and maybe even a little proud boasting.  Whereas today, nobody has any clue which individuals did a good job, which techniques were successful in turning out voters, or what money was well-spent.  As I've argued before, our GOTV management and methodology is reminiscent of Soviet Russian agriculture.  Plenty of rhetoric and medals, but not much wheat.

GOTV - Part 11 - Bayesian modeling

by: Grebner

Wed Feb 09, 2011 at 04:51:44 AM EST

(Today's title was selected to scare away everybody but the hard-core.)

250 years ago, Thomas Bayes figured out a fundamental, but very hard to understand principle of probability theory, which has become known as Bayes' Theorem.  I'm not going to prove it, explain it, or even apply it in this essay.  Instead - like everybody else who claims to apply Bayesian theory - I'll just refer to it in a hand-waving way, and treat it as an inspiration.

Bayes figured out exactly how observing something should affect our understanding of the world.  First, he says, you have to believe something. It doesn't matter where that belief comes from, or even whether it's true or false, but you can't get anywhere if you don't have a basic idea of the world.  For example, in October 2009, I would have said "Dave Bing has about a 98% chance of winning re-election as Mayor of Detroit, and Tom Barrow has only a 2% chance".  That's called an "a priori estimate".  (Latin!)

Second, you observe an "event" which might occur in two or more different ways, which serves as evidence to strengthen or weaken your belief in each of the possible outcomes.  In this case, it was a poll by a previously unknown polling firm, showing Barrow with a wide lead:

 (http://www.michiganliberal.com/diary/15633/new-detroit-mayoral-poll-probably-fake) 

Third, we perform a set of calculations which depend on the probability connections between the original question (which candidate will win) and the evidence (the outcome of the poll).  The outcome is an adjusted probability.  In this case, because I was so sure Bing was leading, and because the poll seemed so flaky, I only slightly altered my opinion - in this case it was just enough to cause me to run a poll of my own, which proved conclusively to me that the Barrow poll was fraudulent - which it turned out to be.

In short, Bayes figured out exactly how to evaluate statistical evidence - his work has stood the test of time, and his insight permeats the physical and social sciences today.  If only he had figured out some method ordinary people could understand and apply!

Now, to apply Bayesian thinking to GOTV. 

GOTV - Part 10 - Semi-Pro Volunteers

by: Grebner

Mon Jan 24, 2011 at 00:39:13 AM EST

Today's post isn't mainly about GOTV, but a necessary excursion into typology of volunteers.  

One measure of failure of our GOTV methods is treating all volunteers more or less interchangeably:  hand them a list and a stack of flyers, and send them out to cover their precinct.  Whether they're a 16-year-old novice, or a retired state representatve makes no difference.  We don't have time to coddle them, or inquire into their abilities or preferences.  What drives us is the need to cover a certain amount of territory, to pass out a certain number of leaflets, to make a certain number of phone calls, and everybody is treated as equally valuable in advancing those objects.

Which means we waste more effort and talent than we put to productive use. 

GOTV - Part 9 - Micro-Volunteers

by: Grebner

Tue Jan 04, 2011 at 00:37:44 AM EST

Money and volunteers are the two critical resources in running GOTV, and it's hard to say which is squandered more.

People who manage volunteers for a living know the rules for nurturing their commitment over the long haul:

• Let them feel their time is appreciated and efficiently utilized.  Don't tell them to "hurry up and wait".
• For each individual, try to assign them work which they will find comfortable and familiar.  Don't expect them to go into strange surroundings and do something outside their previous experience - especially not alone.
• Show you care about their comfort and convenience.  You don't have to spend a fortune, but free adjacent parking, coffee, padded chairs, and protection from bad acoustics make a big difference.
• Try to make everything a group activity, shared by people who can see they have something in common, whether that's pre-existing friendship, shared values, or just demographic similarity.
• Give them specific, timely, feedback, so they know what difference was due to their effort.  Don't have their experience end with them simply leaving the site and never hearing from you again.

GOTV - Part 8 - Specific Geographic Sites

by: Grebner

Wed Dec 22, 2010 at 22:59:37 PM EST

Because our GOTV programs lack long-term memory, we tend to treat everybody as if they live in single-family houses.  We phone, knock, leaflet, mail.  When we run into something anomalous - say a college dormitory - we just stub our toes on it.  Then we recover our balance, walk around to the far side of it, and continue sticking our leaflets under the doormats.  We figure  we don't have time or energy to spare on the "exceptions", not realizing that tens of thousands of our best prospects live in "exceptional" situations.  While we devote the bulk of our resources contacting people who are almost unaffected by our reminders, we skip the very people for whom the smallest push would produce the most votes.

GOTV - Part 7 - Need for a Continuing Organization

by: Grebner

Sun Dec 19, 2010 at 02:24:51 AM EST

Every second year, around late July, the Democratic Party starts thinking about how to organize GOTV for the fall election.  It's always a mix of equal parts tried-and-true, and "we won't make the same mistakes this time".  We use some left over office supplies, print more or less the same handouts, and employ almost identical contact scripts.  In the end, each cycle's campaign almost indistinguishable from its predecessors.

Breaking with the past would open the way to dramatically greater impact: more Democratic voters turned out, more Democrats elected to office.  One necessary step will be to create and maintain a continuing, permanent operation, which can preserve valuable information gained during one cycle for use in the next.  Instead of shutting down for 20 months out of 24, we need to spend the downtime getting ready.

At the national levels, these lessons have been recognized and are being put into operation by the Analyst Institute, which is dedicated to bringing the scientific method to bear on GOTV problems.  But they haven't made any impression yet here in Michigan.

GOTV - Part 6 - The Role of Voter Registration

by: Grebner

Fri Dec 10, 2010 at 22:01:46 PM EST

Nothing is more misunderstood in Michigan politics than the potential role of voter registration.  We have ignored the opportunity created by changes in state law that occurred 15 years ago.  And we don't understand why people fail to register, so the efforts we do make are mostly wasted.

Until 1996, when private citizens registered voters in Michigan, they were acting as agents of government, under the law that existed at the time.  Voter registration wasn't a part of campaigning, it was almost the opposite of it:  it was illegal to discuss politics or hand literature to a person who was approached about registering.  While you were acting as a "voter registrar", you stopped being a member of either team, and acted as a neutral observer, like an umpire, or the Red Cross.  As a result of changes to federal law, which created what was called a "mail-in form", Michigan abolished its voter registrar system, and we suddenly became free to use voter registration as a partisan tool.  This should have been a big deal, but apparently nobody told the campaigns or the political parties, which have ignored the change.

GOTV - Part 5 - Need for a Longer Time Horizon

by: Grebner

Fri Nov 26, 2010 at 05:49:59 AM EST

In order to encourage someone to vote, we stick a leaflet in her door, if she lives in a particular class of precincts. If her name appears on a particular list, maybe she gets a call from a volunteer phonebank.  If she says something in response, unless it fits into the handful of specific categories the volunteer has been told to record, the voter's comments are simply ignored. 

Without thinking, we have constructed a GOTV system that deals with individual voters almost solely in brief stand-alone contacts that are each nearly anonymous.  Where did we lose sight of the fact that voting, or not voting, is a decision made by each voter in the complicated context of their entire life?  Why do we believe the most cost-effective interventions can be broken into tiny, atomic, fragments?

[Note - My GOTV essays, plus many more, are collected under Technical Politics]  

GOTV - Part 4 - Marginal Costs

by: Grebner

Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 21:49:32 PM EST

You can skip today's lecture if either 1) you already understand the difference between marginal and average costs, or 2) don't feel any need to understand the arithmetic behind my arguments.  For anybody in the middle, I promise this post will be the low point of the series.

[Note - My GOTV essays, plus many more, are collected under Technical Politics] 

GOTV - Part 3 - Resources

by: Grebner

Tue Nov 16, 2010 at 04:00:42 AM EST

If GOTV is an enterprise, in need of optimizing, we should search for methods which transform our limited resources into the greatest possible amount of output.

But volunteers make up a major part of our "resources", and they stubbornly resist being treated like "inputs" and insist on being treated like human beings.  Unlike a railroad carload of potatoes, if we treat our volunteer "resources" badly, they walk away.

The other major resource - money - comes with a web of restrictions on how and where we can use it.  Money provided by an organization almost always comes with legal or political strings attached.

You can think of my entire thesis here as an argument for breaking those strings (to the extent we can) in order to liberate the activity from excessive control by history and tradition.  We need to convince the people who control the money that they will never get their money's worth as long as all the details are dictated by people committed to preserving the old ways and afraid of change.  It's as if we need to fight the industrial revolution all over again. 

GOTV - Part 2 - Ceremony versus Enterprise

by: Grebner

Sun Nov 14, 2010 at 19:13:51 PM EST

Human activities can be classified in many different ways, depending on what you want to analyze.  If we think of GOTV as primarily a "ceremony", it's easy to see the roots of many failures and inefficiencies.

[Note - My GOTV essays, plus many more, are collected under Technical Politics]