Electoral databases: big brother or democracy unbound?

Abstract

Modern political campaigning is becoming increasingly professionalised to the extent that in Australia today the major parties use electoral databases to assist with their campaigns. The electoral databases of the Coalition (Feedback) and the Australian Labor Party (Electrac) store information on the constituents of each House of Representatives seat. The information gathered in the databases, such as the policy preferences and party identification of individual voters, are used by candidates for House seats to tailor correspondence to swinging voters, and to identify potential party supporters. Party organisations aggregate the information in the databases and use it to conduct polls and focus groups of swinging voters, and to tailor policy development and campaign strategies. Electoral databases have the potential to improve the level of communication between elected representatives and their constituents. There are, however, a number of ethical problems associated with their use. While the usefulness of the databases to the major political parties is undeniable, their use underlines the trend in modern campaigning towards targeting swinging voters at the expense of the majority of the electorate. Considerable public resources are devoted to the smooth operation of the databases. They would be much less effective were political parties not exempted from the Privacy Act. The use of personal information collected by members of parliament by political parties should be more closely regulated. Despite the wishes of the major political parties to keep their operation a secret, the advantages and disadvantages of the use of electoral databases should be more widely debated.

Notes

Whilst Australian major parties enjoy a substantial resource advantage over competing minor parties, their campaign resources are substantially lower than those of political parties in the United States (Corrado 2000).

It is generally recognised that the United States has been some years ahead of other countries in the professionalisation of campaigning, but that cooperation between parties in different countries quickly closes the gap (see Butler and Ranney 1992; Lees‐Marchment 2001).

For more recent studies on professional political practice (polling and staffing) in Australia, see Peisley and Ward (2001) and Gibson and Ward (2002).

Employment experience includes offices of both front and backbench members at both State and Federal levels. Such experience was derived across a number of Australian States. Our experience is therefore broad and varied in its sampling.

Campaign directors from both major parties have been similarly guarded about the details of their databases. See Australian Financial Review 1 February 1993.

Coalition: 50.1%, ALP 49.9% two‐party preferred (AG&P Website 2002).

The American databases now allow automated telephone messages from candidates, with separate messages for party loyalists (encouraging them to vote) and swinging voters. Canadian political parties have adopted similar practice (Marland 2003, 22). With compulsory voting and therefore less emphasis on getting out the vote, Australians have not yet had this inconvenience inflicted upon them.

Independent and minor party MPs are also provided this information for their electorates; however, in its raw form, it is unwieldy and difficult to operate.

The electoral roll contains all persons enrolled to vote over the age of 18. The AEC continuously works to update the electoral roll and parties benefit from this in their monthly electronic updates. The electoral databases therefore carry AEC information on the entirety of the voting‐age population.

Email correspondence is significantly less likely to generate a response from an MP, since much of it is generated through mass lists from outside the electorate.

It is interesting to note that training courses on database operation are usually funded under the Parliamentary Entitlements Act and supporting Act's provisions for staff training. This represents a questionable usage of public resources for party political gain.

Certainly, MPs in safe seats are less inclined to make full use of database technologies than are marginal seat MPs. This has been the authors' observations as well as being indicated in interviews.

This information is not completely reliable. MPs have been known to receive angry phone calls from constituents bemused to receive letters of congratulation on their 90th birthday when they are only in their fifties.

Census Collection Districts are the smallest geographic areas for which the Australian Bureau of Statistics compiles statistics. While their boundaries do not always coincide with electoral boundaries, they are a useful means of identifying statistical patterns within electorates.

Major parties term such representation ‘duty Senatorship’.

The GMS is a ‘sub‐unit of the Chief Whip's office designed to assist government backbenchers’ (Office of the Special Minister of State 2003). The manner in which it assists government backbenchers includes training courses for Feedback, shell press releases, shell fliers, and form letters for electorate distribution. It functions similarly to the former Labor government's Media Unit.

Though compulsory, the purchasing of Electrac is not a financial burden for ALP MPs, as the costs of the purchase are generally covered by electoral office entitlements.

As with staff training of Feedback, this cost can be borne by the electorate office allowance.

New MPs are increasingly likely to have experience in the party bureaucracy (van Onselen 2000).

The use of such letters embarrassed former ALP Member for Eden‐Monaro, Jim Snow, when their contents made the local media. He had sent quite different letters to supporters of the local timber industry and conservationists before the 1990 election (Australian Financial Review 2 March 1990).

Voter preferences can also be discovered through the postal‐vote application system, whereby both major parties send out postal vote application forms. Major parties, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, can assume that electors choose to fill in the postal form of the party for which they intend to vote.

The Feedback manual for MPs also highlights the value of identifying swingers for re‐election prospects. At the 1998 Federal election, MPs with less than 3,000 swinging voters identified in their electorate suffered a 5% swing against them, where MPs with over 3,000 swinging voters tagged only incurred a 1.9% swing against them (Feedback MP Training Manual 2000).

A small number of other constituents will be tagged as ‘no future contact’ because they have proved to be unreasonable in their dealings with the office, or in personal dealing with the member or candidate.

The question of the role of opinion polls in policy development is highly contested. See Jacobs and Shapiro (2000); Manza et al (2002).

A number of companies promote databases to assist in political campaigning in the United States. See, for example, Aristotle International (2004).

Some government departments have staff assigned to dealing with such enquiries from MPs.

Peter van Onselen is a Lecturer in Politics in the School of International, Cultural and Community Studies at Edith Cowan University. Wayne Errington is a Lecturer in Politics at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Australasian Political Studies Conference, University of Tasmania, 29 September to 1 October 2003. The authors thank those who attended the conference presentation for their helpful suggestions, and further thank Rodney Smith, for his manuscript suggestions, and this Journal's anonymous referees.