Help me generate a walklist (MS Streets & Trips?)

[skfornh]

As mentioned in another thread, there is a small possibility I may be running in the primary unopposed. But since I will not know officially until the candidate filing period is over (June 13), I have to prepare for a contested primary. In New Hampshire, a list of Republicans who participated in the 2012 state primary costs about $25 per town. My district has two towns. I have already started processing the numbers and know that approximately 1,000 households voted in the 2012 state primary. If running opposed, I intend to knock on all of these doors personally and via volunteer. I will be taking time off work to knock doors full-time from the filing period until the primary date (approximately three months).

Does anyone here have a copy of Microsoft Streets & Trips wand know how to use it? I have found this software package to be the most useful by far for generating walklists. In late 2011 and Jan 2012, the official campaign provided NH volunteers with useless lists of address sorted alphabetically by street name :mad:... as you know, Ayn Road on the other side of town of Bastiat Street. Needless to say it was a complete disaster and a waste of valuable resources. In the case of the town I chaired, an out-of-state volunteer introduced us to Streets & Trips. Unfortunately, I have been unable to get in touch with him yet.

I will have all the data electronically. I'm hoping it can be be easily imported into the program but I won't be able help. I would buy the software package and figure out how to do the work myself but I own a Mac, which unfortunately appears to be incompatible.

I would like the list in my hand before the day the filing period ends (June 13). At that time, I will know if I even have to knock doors. Either way, I need to continue planning assuming the primary race will be contested and that I will have to knock doors.

I am hoping someone here has the package and has used it to imported data.

I'm reluctantly open to suggestion to use a different software package.

Thanks

btw, I need funds to to buy palm cards each one of these voters and could use some help: http://www.shemkellogg.com/donate/

[GunnyFreedom]

I don't know anything about streets and trips, but what I did was get an exhaustive list of eligible voters (primary or general) fromt he Board of Elections, asked someone here on RPFs who had the expertise to split out the address number from the street name, sorted by zip then street then number, made my own walk lists and then printed maps from Google Maps for my volunteers.

[skfornh]

GUNNY! thanks for the expertise. when the RP campaign gave us the bad lists we used googlemaps to build lists too. Unfort at that time (2012 NH primary) google only allowed 20 or 25 addresses at a time. this package can import lists (i think up to my 1,000 addresses) and put it into one giant list. i think this would be more convenient. with one copy i can knock, with another copy i can tear pages away for volunteers to lit drop, etc.

[GunnyFreedom]

GUNNY! thanks for the expertise. when the RP campaign gave us the bad lists we used googlemaps to build lists too. Unfort at that time (2012 NH primary) google only allowed 20 or 25 addresses at a time. this package can import lists (i think up to my 1,000 addresses) and put it into one giant list. i think this would be more convenient. with one copy i can knock, with another copy i can tear pages away for volunteers to lit drop, etc.

Oh, I never tried importing lists, you don't need to plot the addresses on the map. The actual LIST is good enough by itself. The map is just for a reference. I would print out a map and highlight the blocks that said volunteer would walk, and then hand them the text-based list for the addresses corresponding to the highlighted area.

It would take a couple hours of work the night before, but I could serve 5 to 8 volunteers each a highlighted map with a list of that area to mark prospects etc.

In your case, with such a small district as NH provides, you could personally visit pretty much every eligible voter yourself, which is unusual in America. It's not really as complicated as you think. Just get your district list from the BOE and pick out an area, and plan out "Street A, 1000 block to 3000 block, Street B, 3000 block to 1000 block" etc, and build your walk-lists by hand. If you had a bigger district you would need to rely on more automation. With your NH House district you really can do all of this by hand without a real time/effort penalty.

[eduardo89]

My district has town towns.

I'm not good with numbers higher than schwiftyfive, how many is towns is town towns?

[skfornh]

I'm not good with numbers higher than schwiftyfive, how many is towns is town towns?


lol oops sorry meant to say two towns. more about my district profile: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?437263-Campaign-Evaluation-Shem-Kellogg-(State-House-NH)

[cjm]

I don't know anything about streets and trips, but what I did was get an exhaustive list of eligible voters (primary or general) fromt he Board of Elections, asked someone here on RPFs who had the expertise to split out the address number from the street name, sorted by zip then street then number, made my own walk lists and then printed maps from Google Maps for my volunteers.

I've done this before but used precinct ID instead of zip. I'd be happy to do whatever filtering/sorting is needed.

[FindLiberty]

I've done this three times. Usually, the official voter data comes from the county board of elections containing only the involved precincts based on that particular LOCAL election. It is a small list for local elections but it gets huge for state races such as governor.

Last time I did this it was for a non-partisan elected position -town of ~40,000. I used another data source for the top secret version of the voter list that was a HUGE .xls file covering ~1m people. I carefully edited-sifted it down to ONE TOWN, reformatted and sorted it by streets (a few hundred pages), even sub-sorting odd/even address numbers, etc. for very efficient door-to-door walk list(s) down each side of the street.

I set columns up to show R/D, and flag last few pri/gen elections the voter had showed up for to identify likely voters to concentrate efforts on. Of course the data completely omitted any homes that did not vote at all. It even had birthdays and phone numbers. Armed with that kind of info, the sales pitch could be fine-tuned to each particular voter / age and even spun for best R/D appeal angle. Permission was even asked so that follow-up "reminder" phone calls could be made just prior to election day.

I also found out the whole thing is an illusion that is designed to vent public frustrations, yet always keep the existing R/D D/R tyrants in power! The corruption / favors-rewards / backroom deals between R's and D's begins at the very bottom, just above the voter's level (with the elected precinct committeeman for each party - the people who just pass out the fliers and organize the campaign walkers might be asked to allow the other party to succeed in particular election!) and it just gets worse the higher up you look at the elected or appointed office.

It's a powerful club that dos not like change or honesty. They can get real nasty...

Good luck!

[skfornh]

but after you got the lists how did you turn them into something useful?

[skfornh]

FYI I downloaded a free 14-day trial of Microsoft Streets and Trips and imported my lists.