Recently, the UTPL team has been getting recognition for the new Voter Fetch system. Meghann Olshefski from TechRepublican.com wrote a great summary of the system and how it can bring your campaign into the 21st century.
Are you looking for a new phone-from-home software for your campaign’s online grassroots efforts?
For some volunteers, showing up to a campaign headquarters to make phone calls can be an inconvenient and impossible feat. Every volunteer is different and many would like to help, but want to do so on their own terms and on their own schedule.
In a modern world, campaigns should do everything possible to make volunteering possible for mobile volunteers. Especially since many campaigns come down to the wire and GOTV efforts are the deciding forces in close races.
Today, Under The Power Lines launched VoterFetch.com a new tool designed to facilitate boots-on-the-ground grassroots activism for Republican and conservative campaigns.
VoterFetch.com increases the viral nature of campaign activity by giving supporters the ability to call voters from home.
Powered by Bivings Group developed technologies, VoterFetch.com is already being used in Beta by United States Senator Jim DeMint’s re-election campaign, US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison’s campaign for Governor of Texas, and the South Carolina Republican Party.
The company charges flat per-month fees for the application.
Don’t worry if you’re a smaller campaign – monthly fees are charged on a sliding scale, which means if you’re running for a state legislative seat you won’t be charged as much as a senate campaign would be and the price stays the same regardless of the number of volunteers who sign-up to use the tool.
Sure, there are other phone-from-home packages out there – how is VoterFetch.com different when it comes to price and functionality?
Under the Power Lines’ Wesley Donehue weighs in:
Voter Fetch is based on one concept in mind – simplicity. We didn’t include VOIP or make it too complicated because we want everyone to be able to use it. The biggest problem I’ve seen with other programs is that they’re just way too difficult for some folks to use.
As for the price, we might be the only ones who can provide this product for a cost affordable for every campaign level. A State House race can’t afford anything else I’ve seen.
If you don’t want to make the major commitment right away, you can try the service for 7 days, free of charge, to see if it fulfills your grassroots campaign needs.
We had a great opportunity this week when Ashleigh Walters from WLTX interviewed Representative Nathan Ballentine and UTPL about the popularity of sctweets.com and Twitter. By now if you know Wesley Donehue or myself, you probably have a good idea of what twitter is (hopefully you follow us on twitter!)… but in case you missed it… twitter is simply a micro-blogging service that allows you to tell people what you are doing. If you are familiar with Facebook, it is similar to your status update.
Now why is this important? Well… its important for many reasons- its important for our elected officials to inform their communities what they are doing (which is what sctweets does!). It’s great for communication (think of it as a conversation starter) and its very fun. It can also be used to help promote a business or idea or your very own blog!
Blog? What’s a blog you say? Just take that short sentence you wrote for your twitter account and expand on it. Blogs keep your websites fresh and give the reader more information than just “what are you doing.” Under the Power Lines is excited about twittering and blogging because we don’t like brochure sites. Brochure sites never change; they don’t engage your voter. Blogs and Twitter actively engage, organize and involve the voter in an on-going conversation.
Lawmakers have decided the people of South Carolina cannot have enough transparency this year, so they have turned to the Twitter Internet networking service to further open the doors of government.
Twitter users post short updates to their accounts, letting those “following” know what’s on their mind or what they are up to.
A handful of S.C. pioneers have taken it a step further, pulling together all those updates in one place: SCTweets.com. (A “tweet” is Twitterese for an update). The site now has about two dozen elected officials and more than four dozen consultants, media, spouses and other politicos in its network.
Readers of SCTweets can learn:
• What state Rep. Nathan Ballentine, R-Richland, thinks of the current House bill up for debate
• Who U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis is speaking to in Washington, D.C.
• Attorney General Henry McMaster’s latest Internet sex predator arrest
But SCTweets isn’t a one-way conversation. It provides Twitter users a direct, often instant, connection to talk to state leaders. Or you can just sit back and listen.
The lawmakers who Twitter say it is another small step toward more open government and hope it will break down some of the mystery about what goes on in Columbia.
The Buzz hopes those officials really put their money where their mouth is: When leadership asks you to come to Jesus, bring Twitter with you. Start Twittering about those closed-door meetings and caucus events that are closed to the press and public.
MAKING $%^* PAY
State Sen. Robert Ford was rediscovered by Internet bloggers last week, as Web surfers excoriated the Charleston Democrat for filing a bill that makes public profanity a felony.
Actually, Ford’s bill makes publishing profanity in front of minors a felony. (But why be technical, right?)
In one of 65 bills he pre-filed this year, Ford, who may run for governor in 2010, would have cursers, if convicted, pay a $5,000 fine or go to the prison for up to five years.
Net surfers unloaded on the Lowcountry lawmaker, blasting him for threatening to add to overcrowded jails, censorship, and kowtowing to right-wingers to win their support for his bid for governor.
It was all done in language way too explicit to print in a family newspaper. (Ford or not.)