This will be the UK's first truly data-driven election.
Political parties are tracking, processing, and interpreting several hundred bits of information on key voters across the country; from house type to shopping habits and credit quality.
In uncertain times, this data could decide the winner.
In Wirral South - shadow minister for children and families Alison McGovern held the seat for Labour in 2010 by just a few hundred votes - the clipboards and chats on the doorstep are important, but she believes it was data that made the difference.
"We had a small dedicated bunch of volunteers who went out and talked to people about what they were really interested in," said the MP.
"And we used data to make sure that we were able to win, even though the local Tories certainly thought that we couldn't - and it was a victory against the odds."
Labour uses two pieces of software, Contact Creator and Voter ID, coded by Labour enthusiasts.
The Conservatives have a database called Merlin, which was developed by EMC Consulting, and contained 200 million records - even at the last election.
The Liberal Democrats use a system called Connect.
Most simply, 'Big Data' is used to create computer models to model the likelihood or "propensity" of every voter to vote for your party.
It is done on the basis of target marketing groups from the popular Mosiac database that splits the population into affluent professionals, people with elderly needs, or "careers with kids".
It can increasingly be done in an even more sophisticated way. Scarce volunteer canvassing time can then be focused where it is most effective.
But "data" means much more than that.
The actual message can be focused on groups and subgroups. And then, actual policies are developed to focus on giving those groups the "right" message.
The campaigns don't want to give too much away about these strategies - it's a kind of secret sauce. But it's changing the way we do politics.
So Sky News has developed its own analytical tool to try to understand the insights the parties have gained using data.
We've heard from more than 20,000 voters across the UK. The patterns we can now track show how the parties are gaming out the next few months.
The answers emerge from a large panel of Sky customers, who have answered questions on politics.
Sky Data, as we call it, enables us to mimic what the political parties are doing.
It shows us, for example, that on average UKIP voters are most similar to Labour voters in terms of consumer behaviour and affluence.
UKIP supporters are much more likely than average to have pay as you go mobile phones, shop at Aldi, live in a smaller-than-average house and drive a small utility car.
However, if you shop at Waitrose, drive an executive car, own a house worth more than half a million, and have a good credit score - you're more likely to be in the sights of two parties - The Conservatives and Lib Dems. Perhaps THAT explains the coalition.
Among Conservative to UKIP switchers, the largest single issue for well over half, is immigration.
Europe is the priority for fewer than one in five.
SNP voter priorities - so crucial to Labour's chances - are poverty and devolution, very different to rest of the UK.
In Washington DC, sophisticated American political data labs are starting to move into the UK market, exporting the techniques developed by the Obama campaign.
Analyst Drew Dougherty has been tracking who in the UK is in favour of a living wage: "People who are in favour of a liveable wage have these 15 or 20 similar data points, and then we can go from there."
Closer to home, these techniques have had an early outing in the rash of recent by-elections.
Back in November, UKIP won their second MP by targeting less wealthy voters in Strood who were sympathetic to their message.
The Conservatives focused their efforts on more affluent Rochester, minimising their margin of loss.
UKIP leader Nigel Farage used what he calls "data mining" techniques for the first time in the two autumn by-election wins.
He says he has no doubt UKIP would have won in Heywood and Middleton had these technologies been used there.
Across the country, canvassers are arming themselves with this data - the crucial ammo that will decide the battle of the doorstep - and feeding the information back to their party.
The Conservatives are trialling a new phone app to make use of these methods.
A big test will be in the last hours of the campaign when all this data is used to track core voter turnout. But it is impacting the campaign right now, in ways few understand.
As competing databases are deployed during the election, Sky News will keep you in touch, using Sky Data.
In The Margins: The 150 Key Election Constituencies
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Parties Harvest Voter Data For Election Battle
Dengan url
http://pasanganbacklinks.blogspot.com/2015/01/parties-harvest-voter-data-for-election.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Parties Harvest Voter Data For Election Battle
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Parties Harvest Voter Data For Election Battle
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar