Sunday, 10/26

A more leisurely morning allowed us to get up, have coffee and breakfast, and walk the dog before 10:00am. With no New York Times arriving on the doorstep, Maida was a little off and we decided to head out to stroll the aisles of Office Depot for the supplies we would need for our new-found job.

After finding the color-coded folders, post-its, card stock and various other accoutrement, we drove to the office to get the day started. The weather was nice this morning and we arrived to find the office door open and already hustling. Canvass teams were already gathering to grab their clipboards and turf sheets to head out to the various neighborhoods. Maida and I spent time carving out out niche (which consists of two folding chairs, a card table, and assorted boxes) to set up shop. The GOTV Help Desk was open and ready for business.

Our tasks for the day were to plan and set up the EDAY Staging Location Flow Charts (to keep track of important shifts on EDAY), respond to the EDAY email address (where volunteers can email their questions, requests for changes, etc) and learn how to enter shifts into the Voter Activation Network (VAN), an online database and data management system. Following that, Matt taught us how to "cut turf" which basically allows us to sort through registered voters in specific areas, based on various data points, and create walking lists for canvassers. This allows canvassers to walk specific areas, with lists of voter info (address, age, regularity of voting, latest leaning related to the presidential and senate race, whether they requested a mail-in ballot, and so on). What is so fascinating with this data is that on Election Day, we will be able to track who on our lists have voted and then seek out, using Election Day canvassers, to go to the houses of supporters who have not voted and remind them to go vote prior to the close of the precincts.

And so, our next task began today. Our job: make Election Day run as smooth as possible by creating, maintaining, and teaching as many systems as possible. Damn, this campaign is hustling. Some polls suggest that Obama has Colorado in the bag. The Obama campaign is running as if it's 20 points behind and won't rest until the last precinct closes on Nov. 4.

This is fun.