Election '05: Can technology change a campaign result?

People have debated whether innovative use of technology helped decide the recent US Presidential Election. Did the Republican Party's use of the Voter Vault database to profile and target undecided voters prove, by the fact of George Bush winning the election, more effective than Democratic candidate John Kerry and Howard Dean's use of email and the web for fundraising and organising supporter meet-ups?

This side of the pond many of the same technologies are being used in campaigning for the General Election, though with different effect, largely due to legal concerns. Databases of voter information, for instance, are not as valuable in the UK because of strict European data protection laws and email fundraising is less widespread due to stricter spending limits than in the US.

Yet both elections have shown technology is changing the way campaigns are run - or at least improving common tactics. But can it change the result?

This is a difficult - perhaps impossible - question to answer. Dr Justin Fisher, head of politics and history at Brunel University, points out: "Determining impact is notoriously difficult."

What's clear is that database technology such as Voter Vault - used by the Tories in combination with personal data on voters from Experian's Mosaic database - are making it easier to target 'swing' or undecided voters.

Professor Stephen Coleman of the Oxford Internet Institute tells silicon.com: "The use of Mosaic in the British election has been one of most important developments in campaigning."

He continues: "[These databases] enable parties to be more sophisticated in not talking to people who have already made up their mind or who don't matter very much."

Of course, focusing on marginal constituencies is nothing new. What the technology provides is the ability to be more accurate in pinpointing the swing voters and then in allowing parties to find out which information they're interested in and persistently contacting them with follow-up telephone calls or emails.

Parties like the technology for this targeted approach, which allows for effective use of resources, as well as for the ability to keep canvassers on message through a prepared script.

Brunel's Fisher says: "The scripted bit is important because you avoid idiosyncrasies of ordinary party members."

Database technology also does away with the disadvantages of door-to-door campaigning - such as requiring lots of energy and the need to get the timing right. "Canvassers tell you never campaign during EastEnders or a football match," Dr Fisher says.

In addition, door-to-door canvassing is criticised for reaching a limited demographic, the sort who are home in the evening and answer their doors - mostly older people.

This is why email and phone are seen as better means for contacting younger age groups. Oxford's Coleman says: "18- to 25-year-olds are the least likely to vote, yet the most likely to be using internet."

Still, there is that element of face-to-face communication that you lose with the high tech approach.

Fisher says: "When voters feel disengaged, a visit at the door is more likely to engage them than a phone call."

Coleman explains the two sides of the argument: "Some politicians will say it is pressing the flesh, knocking on doors... that is absolutely irreplaceable. Others say it's most important you give people a chance to think about what you're saying, and go back to them a number of times."

In the end, parties appreciate databases but also realise the method "excludes lots of voters, voters don't really like it and it makes the campaign less visible," Fisher explains. "The parties are in a dilemma over this."

Along with databases to target campaigning, email is seen as a good medium for spreading the party message. Politicians realise the best way to get the word out is to incite recipients to pass the message on to others - through including jokes, for example. But this promise has proved difficult to realise.

"The problem parties have, when they try to be funny, is it can backfire," says Fisher. "There's a fine line between what people think is funny and what is offensive."

According to research Professor Coleman conducted during both the US and UK elections, the most common use of technology in elections is the discussion of issues via email between people who already know each other - friends and family.

"It's technology going back to very basic social units, going back to the family and community structure, people discussing issues in a safe content," he explains.

The blogging phenomenon, too, has had the greatest impact at the grassroots level as opposed to when politicians try to start their own web logs, says Coleman.

"Blogging is about the public trying to take control of the election. Both here and in the US there's an impression elections have become stage-managed, scripted, remote from people. Blogs put people at centre stage again. It's a very democratic thing."

Blogs by the people, for the people have "mushroomed" in this General Election, says Coleman, while politicians' blogs are largely ineffective as they don't seem immediate or genuine - there's mistrust, for instance over whether the candidates are actually writing the blog themselves.

Databases, email and call centres - when used properly - have improved on parties' ability to identity the voters they need to reach and communicate with them.

But in the end will being bombarded with the party line really change voters' mind?

This, says Coleman, is where technology reaches its limit.

"People are not persuaded by technology but by the messages of parties," says Coleman. "In the end if you're selling a lousy message, people won't vote for you just because of the technology."