It's all about that (data)base #ge2015

2 min read

In an election this close, database software development may play a key role – and the Conservative party may be at a disadvantage. For close marginal seats, getting out the vote – literally knocking on the doors of people whom you know are likely to vote for your party but have yet to vote and asking them to head for the polling station – can mean the difference between winning and losing. And with national polls so inconclusive, doubly so in 2015.

In modern campaigns, a party database is used to spit out a “knock-up sheet” to tell activists which doors they should knock on. Incredibly, for the second year in a row, the Conservative party have been storing the information that allows them to do this reliably – often gathered over several years of getting to know a constituency – in a largely untried and incomplete database system.

In 2010, this was a system called “Merlin”. Commissioned by Francis Maude in 2005 to replace the late and little lamented “BlueChip”, great promises were made of Merlin as it went live in 2008, but a stream software errors blighted the efforts of activists in the run up to the general election. Significant complaints from local associations, many of whom reverted to old-fashioned pen-and-paper during the 2010 campaign, led to the development of a new system. 

When Grant Shapps launched “VoteSource” late in 2014, it was meant to address all of these concerns. Though some felt that it was too close to the election to introduce new software, the party began to phase it in to local party infrastructure. Some associations continue to run “Merlin” and “VoteSource” in parallel as data is gradually migrated over.

Sadly for the Conservatives, “VoteSource” has been plagued with issues. Only today, Tory blogger TechnoGuido has reported on an issue in generating knock-up slips, following earlier reports of problems in the Spectator. 

Well so what? - you may ask. Simply put, if the Conservative activists cannot reliably access data they have collected about their constituants, they are less able to ensure that everyone who is likely to vote Conservative does. And with so many seats liable to come down to a handful of votes - a slightly dodgy database could change the course of British parlimentary history.