Big Data in Politics

With the U.S. in the early stages of a presidential election I started asking myself what role big data can play when it comes to elections.  I did a little bit of reading and it turns out big data has a huge role to play.

To improve their chances of success campaigns need to use every dollar wisely.  There is a saying that “political campaigns run on dollars” and that is very true.  Very few candidates have unlimited budgets and so it is very important to make the most of the money that a candidate has.  This can be achieved by using data about voters to run a campaign more efficiently. 

Since I started this post talking about the U.S I will use that country as an example.  Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012 are often cited as examples of the power of big data in election campaigns. Two technological tools the Obama campaign team developed were called Narwhal and The Optimizer.  Narwhal integrated voter registration data with online activity to determine potential supporters.  Once these potential supporters were identified the campaign followed up on these leads through various activities to persuade these potential supporters to vote.  The Optimizer was geared towards television and was used to place targeted television adverts in front of certain audiences all while minimising cost.

The theme that emerges from the Obama example is that of targeted campaigning whereby campaign messages are tailored to suit certain audiences.  The power of big data is in identifying these audiences, figuring out where they physically are and determining what is important to them.  Of course historical election data can be used for this but there is the danger that the data is outdated.  By harnessing social media and other more current sources of data a campaign can develop a much more accurate picture of the electorate.

Targeted campaigning is much more effective than a blanket approach because a campaign is better able to connect with voters by speaking to them about their specific concerns.  If someone shows concern for the environment why bombard them with information on national security.  Rather spend more time getting your green energy policy across to them and explaining its merits. In doing this not only do you forge a better relationship with voters but you use your resources much more efficiently and get more out of every dollar you spend.

What data is collected?

So what sort of data is collected anyway?  Well it’s any data that can help understand a citizen better.  This includes age, race, gender, education level and income.  In terms of online activity it would be the websites a person visits, social media activity or which campaign emails devoted to which issues did they open.  All of this data is useful in building a profile of a potential voter.

Potential challenges

As with all big data initiatives data privacy is a massive concern.  There are laws governing what data can be stored about an individual and it is important that a campaign be aware of and abide by these laws.  It also important to safeguard the information that is stored as the threat of data theft is very real and can have negative ramifications for the campaign.  You do not want to go through all the hard work of convincing people to vote for you only to lose their support over a data breach. Another problem is the lack of skills.  Data scientists are in short supply and decision makers may not possess the necessary skills to apply what the data is telling them.  There are many ways to address privacy in skills challenges related to big data so I will not delve into them here.

In my earlier posts I mentioned that big data has many applications beyond business.  Politics is another example of this.  Although the context may differ the goal of big data remains the same; to use data to make better decisions.  It would be interesting to find out on a global level the extent to which big data has been adopted in elections.  Do people buy into the concept as yet or are they still sceptical?  What do you think?