Data-Driven Campaigning Beyond Elections

Centralised Databases Reinforce Power

Voter databases are created, updated and maintained over years by governments, campaigns and parties themselves. Datasets can be shared, traded and gifted within political parties. Local representatives in Australia reportedly were expected to contribute to the party database for fear of being ‘named and shamed’ if the contributions were less than other districts. Information gathered in party databases is collected over years and has become the central nervous system of campaigns, with years of data on the points of contact the party has had with an individual, as well as other actions the individual might have taken, such as if they put up a campaign sign on their lawn. Those who have the resources to maintain the digital infrastructure between elections and over time perpetually reinforce the advantages they gain of having access to this data, making it difficult for less well-funded candidates or parties to compete.

Permanent Campaigning

The term “permanent campaigning” describes the political phenomena of continuous campaigning and communications to influence voters throughout the years during, and outside of, election periods. Between the 24-hour news cycle and omnipresent social media channels, the permanent campaign has accelerated the need to keep voters donating, engaged in grassroots causes and viewing paid media.

Given the expanding, and seemingly crowded, media landscape, the competition for public exposure in order to hold the attention of potential voters has intensified. The easiest way to gain the spotlight has been to ‘frame the realities of governing in terms of political contests’ that possess qualities of dramatic conflict, human interest, immediacy and strong emotional value, even at the expense of understanding the complex policy issues at hand.

By keeping their constituents engaged, and collecting near constant feedback on this engagement, politicians and campaigns are also able to continue their data collection through digital listening, digital scraping, tracking clicks and web traffic. As journalists in Canada have noted, the adoption of permanent campaigning has created an insatiable appetite for data; parties have a strong incentive to gather as much information about us as they can, and the pace data collection is intensifying.

Hear for yourself:

"Officially? I don't know when it is planned, but unofficially, I think the campaign has never been off."

Listen as data journalist, Nino Macharashvili, comments on the general sense of permanent campaigning in Georgia ahead of the 2021 elections:

Find Nino's full interview audio and transcript or listen on PeerTube

Election Silences

Some countries practice by law a quiet period, or election silence, around or immediately before an election. During such quiet periods, active campaign activities such as speeches, advertising or campaign rallies are forbidden, and polling is also often restricted as well. These quiet periods have many purposes, including allowing voters to ponder their options in a media environment that isn’t saturated with political coverage. However, with social media, the boundaries of these important quiet periods can become blurred, especially through the use of ‘organic reach’ – which relies on volunteers or individual supporters to share their views on social media, thus bypassing the legal restrictions. Similarly, the lack of clear guidelines or enforcement policies on some social media channels makes it relatively easy for parties or candidates to circumvent the rules.

Election silences do not always pertain to social media circumventing the intentional quiet periods, Source: Tactical Tech

In Practice

In India, artist Manuel Beltrán and lawyer Nayantara Ranganathan found over $200,000 worth of campaign ads run by eight political parties on Facebook violated the country’s mandated quiet period in 2019. The identified ads were all published on Facebook.

Many countries have time-based quiet zones, but some countries also have geographic ‘quiet zones’ that are also possible to maneuver around with digital technologies. In the United States, it is illegal to advertise at polling locations. However, as Jim Walsh, CEO of the political tech firm DSPolitical stated,

Walsh went on to explain this geo-targeting was referred to as “The Last Word” as it was the last chance campaigns had to reach a person before they voted.