Ontario Liberals to target ethnic voters with demographic database software
The Ontario Liberals are stepping up their efforts to target voters by ethno-cultural group ahead of a spring election, banking on off-the-shelf software to map the electorates demographics down to the address.
The development, announced at a closed-door campaign briefing last month, is part of a push by the governing party to catch up with their Progressive Conservative counterparts, who are said to have built a mighty computer program that can slice and dice demographic data to find the best ways to reach out to voters.
Such technology could ultimately make the difference especially in the seat-rich multicultural suburbs ringing Toronto, which will likely determine the winner of the next vote.
In a record of the Liberals March 22 briefing obtained by The Globe and Mail, campaign director Patricia Sorbara described the new tool as ethnic append software from Connecticut-based Pitney Bowes, which adds cultural information to the partys lists of potential supporters.
It is basically a program that integrates the cultural background of our voters with the voter file, she told hundreds of party organizers gathered at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
The party has also adopted Liberalist, the database built by its federal cousin, she said.
A Liberal source said the software processes census data that can then be fed into Liberalist and matched to individual addresses. It would show, for instance, which houses or apartments are likely to contain Italian-speaking residents, allowing a campaign to target them with Italian-speaking volunteers.
The software lets users see where particular cultural groups are clustered, so they can tailor their campaign efforts to the community. If the tool identified a neighbourhood with a high number of Muslim residents, for example, a campaign can structure its canvassing efforts around prayer times, the source said. The program has already been used by the federal Liberals.
Pitney Bowes makes a range of commercial software generally used by companies for marketing campaigns or to analyze demographic data when determining where to do business.
Provided with a sketch of her briefing, including the software, Ms. Sorbara declined to be interviewed.
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Ontario Liberals to target ethnic voters with demographic database software