Friday, November 7. 2008

Obama's "Houdini" Computer - Making Non-voters Disappear

Charles Lin, a starff writer for The Tech, MIT's newspaper, describes the technology at work behind the volunteer effort in New Hampshire.

In addition to having motivated ground troops, the Obama campaign is incredibly technologically advanced. The Obama campaign’s computer is named “Houdini.” It has a list of every single registered Democrat, Barack-leaning independent, and Obamacan. Each voter shows up as a black dot on a Google Map. The campaign records statistics on each of these voters, tracking the number of times each house has been canvassed, called, persuaded, and mainly badgered into voting for Obama.

When they do finally vote, the dot disappears from the screen, hence the name “Houdini.” Our job, as we learned when we arrived, is to make every single dot disappear.

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