By Shaun Dakin, CEO and Founder of the National Political Do Not Contact Registry – StopPoliticalCalls.org – and Director of Business Development for Infield Communications - http://www.goinfield.com/ - a Mobile Technology Company in Washington, DC.

Carly Fiorina, once the CEO of HP, the world’s largest computer company, is now on the leading edge of political campaign technology.   Her campaign has deployed what I believe is the nation’s first mobile phone bank driven by SMS or text technology run by realGood Technologies.

If you go to her campaign’s website http://www.carlyforcalifornia.com/ (she is running for US Senator in CA) you will see this prominently displayed on her homepage.

“Hi, My name is Shaun Dakin and I’m a volunteer for the XYZ campaign, can I speak to REGISTERED VOTER please?”

If you’ve been involved as a volunteer for any political campaign over the past 30 or so years you probably “phone banked”.    However, I’ve never seen a campaign use SMS technology to enable phone banking from wherever a volunteer may be.  This is groundbreaking and could be part of a series of distributed volunteering for campaigns.

It seems to be the logical next step in phone banking technology.

Phone banking 101 -> When you had to got to the campaign office and use landlines.

In the 1980’s, when I started phone banking, volunteers were asked to come into a local office where we had, gasp, LAND LINES !.    In fact, I remember phone banking for Mike Dukakis in the 1988 Presidential campaign while I was a Senior at Colby College in Waterville, ME.  
I had to drive to Augusta, find the campaign office, get my “call list” and actually start dialing to Get Out The Vote (GOTV).  Needless to say, I did not make a lot of phone calls.

And, in case you don’t remember, Dukakis lost.  Big.

2004 - Virtual Phone banking -> Where you have the ability to call from any computer, with a computer generated call list wherever you are in the nation.

In 2004 MoveOn.org pioneered the technology that allowed volunteers to call from the safety and convenience of their own home.  I personally remember signing up for the “Call For Change” MoveOn.org campaign in the fall of 2004 where I was given voter’s names and phone numbers on my trusty old eMac at home and was able to make long distance calls to GOTV.    I think I made over 1,000 calls into Ohio.
 This time I was calling for John Kerry.  He lost.   Not as big as Dukakis.

2008 – The advent of Computer Generated Phone banking by companies like Activate Phone Banking

In the 2008 election cycle the Presidential campaigns were able to deploy sophisticated auto dialers that dialed voters for campaign volunteers and only connected a voter to a volunteer if there was a live person on the other end of the phone line.   

I personally experienced this for Hillary’s campaign and found the experience very helpful because I wasn’t spending hours dialing numbers that were out of service, busy, dead, etc..... Instead, every time the phone rang I was able to talk to a live voter on the other end of the line.

She also lost.

2010 – SMS / Text Distributed Phone banking by Carly Fiorina and realGood Technologies > http://www.realgoodtech.com/works/phoneBank.html

Intrigued with the idea, I signed up almost as soon as her campaign announced the SMS phone banking application.  

It is easy, as you would expect with a SMS application.

How does it work?

1. You sign up for SMS alerts > Text “Join” to CARLY
2. You then receive a SMS notice that the phone banking will start in the next 24 hours
3. You begin to receive voter phone assignments via SMS or Text on your phone
4. You make your call
5. You record your outcome of the call (1=yes 2=no 3=undecided 4=no answer 9=opt out)
6. Get your next phone assignment via SMS
7. Make your call
8. Record your outcome of the call (1=yes 2=no 3=undecided 4=no answer 9=opt out)
9. Do this until you are tired of making calls
   

Here are some of the actual SMS TEXT’s that I received this weekend from the Carly Campaign:

The First SMS I received was this one:

Carly4CA
Welcome to Mobile Phone Bank.
Your first voter to call will come shortly.
Top 3 callers win signed 'Tough Choices'.
More info http://tiny.cc/carly2

Then, a few minutes later I received my first voter assignment (I’ve masked the name and the phone number to protect the privacy of the voters)

Carly4CA
Pls call Margie T @ 1 (559)322-xxxx Ask-Will you vote Carly Fiorina for Senate Jun 8?
1=yes
2=no
3=undecided
4=no answer
9=opt out

I responded with one of the options and then received this:

Carly4CA
Pls call Gary B @ 1 (559)841-xxxx Ask-Will you vote Carly Fiorina for Senate Jun 8?
1=yes
2=no
3=undecided
4=no answer
9=opt out

This sequence continued as long as I was making calls.  I made about 5 before I moved on to other things in my day.

Observations:

1. The technology worked perfectly.  That is, if you understood SMS and were technically savvy enough to sign up for this option, you would be able to use it and use it quickly and effectively.
2. The tactic, on the surface, seems very well suited for the future of political campaigning.   Using mobile technology to reach voters wherever they may be and whenever they have a free moment to dedicate to your campaign is a great idea.
3. But, how many people are actually using it and understand it? I’d venture to guess that the Carly campaign will not see huge adoption rates for this virtual phone banking.   If she wins the primary, the campaign may decide to deploy in the general election.
4. SMS reaches 100% of campaign volunteers with mobile phones.   Unlike the techno “cool” iPhone or Android apps, SMS as a technology is available on every cell phone in the United States.  That is pretty compelling when you are running a political campaign and don’t have months to get Apple to approve your cool iPhone app.  Plus, there are simply not that many people that own iPhones.  100% penetration is much better than approximately 6%.
5. Phone banking is so much better than robocalls.   Robocalls are essentially phone spam by candidates.  They don’t work, but candidates do them anyway.  Phone banking is different.  Why?  Phone banking involves real people talking to real people.   Any technology that allows a candidate to increase the number of touch points between voters is of benefit to our democracy.
   

Any thoughts?