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What Really Happened With the DNC’s “Datagate”?

jacobinmag.com

31–40 of 103 posts

Re: What Really Happened With the DNC’s “Datagate”?

#31
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voter registration databases are available from the Secretary of States office in each state. Anyone can request a file dump; however, some states often charge a small fee for the file. GOP and NDP use different tech stacks, but both are tied to companies (like NGP) that have built processes around obtaining and updating voter registration data yearly from each state. They then tie in historic data they have from doo…

Do they have per-voter voting history, or is it a probability based on more coarse-grained voter turnout metrics?

Yes, most states track voting participation at the voter level. Some track method of voting, other just are a boolean participation flag for each election.

Re: What Really Happened With the DNC’s “Datagate”?

#32
The frien-nemy relationship that this database represents is super interesting. So each candidate has their own columns in the database. Does that me that, for example, if the governor of California (Dem) endorses a candidate for president, they will share their columns with that candidate? I'm imagining a crypto-key getting plugged into a Mandrill scrips at campaign HQ, and suddenly the emails get 5% more effective.

Re: What Really Happened With the DNC’s “Datagate”?

#33
post #25
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they have per-voter voting history, or is it a probability based on more coarse-grained voter turnout metrics?

Unless I'm mistaken, it's impossible have a per user history.

Individual voting records aren't public in the US (secret ballot). However, whether or not an individual voted in a specific election is often public. (It may vary by state or other jurisdiction.)

Re: What Really Happened With the DNC’s “Datagate”?

#34
post #3

This is OT but I wanted to ask before: what does the "Jacobin" in Jacobin Mag refer to? Presumably not the more genocidal fraction of the French Revolution which was my first guess?

No, it actually means exactly what you think it means: the kind of left-wing revolutionary who fully intends to see some bourgeois heads rolling.

As a subscriber, I do think most of us would settle for the abolition of bourgeois class-status rather than bourgeois lives, when it comes to it.

Re: What Really Happened With the DNC’s “Datagate”?

#35
post #27

A great writeup but reading things over the only thing this shows me is Bernie's people are a lot more dedicated. if Clinton's staffers had the same level/type of access as Bernie's staffers to VAN why wouldn't they be doing the same thing? I find it hard to believe that her staffers wouldn't have noticed the data coming up as well, ran a few queries to realize what was going on, and suddenly realized what was going…

>if Clinton's staffers had the same level/type of access as Bernie's staffers to VAN why wouldn't they be doing the same thing?

Because they firmly believe that she is inevitable, or perhaps even entitled to the nomination. Hell, Hillary talks like that herself:

>"I would just ask that when this nomination is wrapped up that they come and join with us to make sure that we don't turn the White House back over to the Republicans," she added.[1]

Her donors talk the same way:

>“Let Bernie outraise her — he’s not going to be the nominee,” a top donor said. “The idea that Donald Trump or Ted Cruz could actually be the president is going to be the greatest fundraising mechanism in the history of the world, and it’s just too early for that.”[2]

They don't think this is an election. They think it's a coronation.

[1] -- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/12...

[2] -- http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/bernie-sanders-fundrai...

Re: What Really Happened With the DNC’s “Datagate”?

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How on earth is stuff like that legal? There's even weirder stuff: more than half of the states allow people to declare their party affiliation when registering to vote anonymously. Some of them use those declarations to limit access to the primary elections and I'm sure they are very useful in the gerrymandering phase. It's really the lowest possible form of democracy. The next step is the single party system.

> The next step is the single party system. Given that politicians of all colors and countries mostly listen to whomever lines their coffers, we already have this system.

Given the actual distances between the parties on the issues, we already have this system[1].

[1] -- http://politicalcompass.org/uselection2012

Re: What Really Happened With the DNC’s “Datagate”?

#37

There's extremely bad blood between the Hillary and Sanders campaigns, and the Sanders guys think the DNC fabricated a scandal by immediately going public, and possibly set them up. https://www.yahoo.com/politics/the-sanders-campaign-is-takin... There's a big difference between Obama and Hillary, where he's pretty saturnine about attacks on him even when they get pretty crazy, and she takes things more personally and…

Sanders personally took a jab at Clinton during his apology, saying he wasn't sure that her campaign didn't do the same thing, but providing no evidence of that.

Re: What Really Happened With the DNC’s “Datagate”?

#39
post #3

This is OT but I wanted to ask before: what does the "Jacobin" in Jacobin Mag refer to? Presumably not the more genocidal fraction of the French Revolution which was my first guess?

For more info, here is a great writeup by Alex Payne on why he made a large donation to Jacobin and joined their board: https://al3x.net/2015/03/03/jacobin.html

> Democratic socialist politics are my politics. I’m a socialist because I want to live in a just society. More than that, I want to live in a survivable society. The form of capitalism we live under does not present a viable future ecologically, economically, or socially. It is a system designed for the creation and preservation of capital, not human life. I’m a socialist because I believe that the wealth of society can best be harnessed through cooperation, not competition.

Re: What Really Happened With the DNC’s “Datagate”?

#40

There's extremely bad blood between the Hillary and Sanders campaigns, and the Sanders guys think the DNC fabricated a scandal by immediately going public, and possibly set them up. https://www.yahoo.com/politics/the-sanders-campaign-is-takin... There's a big difference between Obama and Hillary, where he's pretty saturnine about attacks on him even when they get pretty crazy, and she takes things more personally and…

It's been pretty amicable but I think this incident is where they start putting iron into their gloves and spurs on their heels.
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