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Winning your Election | Ease of use | Specific Features | Communications | Voter Registration Data

For the politician, MrDistrict is a set of constituency/campaign management tools that can help you get elected and stay elected. The program can improve both actual and perceived constituency relations, generate and save lots of money, and maximize your campaign efforts, as well as, help you build a better understanding of the people you represent.

For the politically active organization, MrDistrict can be used to get a measure on the ballot, while simultaneously running the campaign to see that it passes. Features for starting grass roots initiatives, gathering signatures, polling constituents, canvassing, campaign coordination and more make MrDistrict the right tool to choose for your political toolbox.

A simple yet powerful interface that a layman can learn to use in minutes and become proficient with in a couple of hours makes quickly benefitting from the program a snap.

Winning your Election

Winning your election

If you are a candidate for an elected office, you will have concerns about how to win, or if you already hold an elected position, you will be concerned about being re-elected, or if you aspire to run for a higher office, you will have concerns about how to win such an election. Obviously, in most elections of any type or size, costs are a huge concern.

Maximizing your resources while minimizing your costs is essential. For example, in a district of 120,000 people, the cost of using mail to deliver your message is substantial. At 17 to 37 cents per mailed piece, that amounts to $20,000 - $40,000 in postage (and does not include the cost of the mailed piece). Wow, that is a lot of money!

MrDistrict has the answer:

First, usually only about one-half of the eligible people in your district are registered to vote so MrDistrict can create a list just targeting registered voters via up to date voter registration data. Your postage is reduced by about the same percentage, but $10,000 - $20,000 dollars is still quite a lot of money. Yet, there is more that MrDistrict can do.

Second, many of those registered to vote have never voted or only voted once or twice in the last ten years. Using voting history data, MrDistrict can instantly create lists based on all sorts of criteria including but not limited to, the number of times a voter has voted, participation in a certain election, voted in the last X years, geographic location, age, years registered and combinations of those criteria. For example, when looking at (i.e. filtering) 'Active voters who have voted in the last five years' the list is substantially reduced. By also filtering to key on 'Active voters who have voted at least five times in the last five years,' the list is reduced even further.

Third, a significant number of voters in your targeted list probably reside with another voter. MrDistrict can identify voters having the same address so duplicate mailings are eliminate (MrDistrict can also list the names of all voters residing at the same address on just the piece being mailed).

Thus, by simply targeting (i.e. filtering) MrDistrict creates a ‘hot voter’ list of voters who are very likely to vote in any upcoming election with the added benefit of dramatically reducing the cost of delivering your message. This easy process, only requiring mere seconds, is a simple example of how to successfully target.

Fourth, MrDistrict is also indispensable for 'pavement pounding' candidates or a grass roots campaign using volunteers. For example, if there are 80 homes on Maple Street and only 42 contain voters, MrDistrict can create a carry-around-list that identifies those houses, how many times the voter has voted (and which elections) and includes space to gather contact information and maybe some checkboxes for things like: sign in yard, volunteer, supporter, aquaintance, possible donor, needs a ride to the polls and more. Thus, actual voters are targeted and you could pass out voter registration forms at the other 38 residences. In other words, you can more than double your efficiency and the number of actual voters you will meet. Also, your efficiency is further improved via use of MrDistrict generated printable maps showing the exact location of the 42 voters.

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Ease of use

Ease of use

The interface is powerful and yet easy to learn to use.

Dozens of features that speed the entry of data, and shorten the learning curve to becoming very productive, windows integrated color scheme and full screen zoom make working with the program, even for several hours, pleasant while underneath is a powerful 'politically optimized' relational database.

In the upper center of most screens is an intelligent help prompt that teaches a user how to use the program as they use it. Some fields learn what you usually enter and suggest a value before you finish typing. Other fields pre-fill based on the zip code entered or offer a list of previously entered values when double clicked. Automatic formatting and proper format casing in certain fields means even quick data entry.

The intelligent help prompt not only tells the user what a button does when the cursor moves over it, it watches what the user is doing and what the program is doing and makes suggestions based on those observations, as well, and contextual help for any screen is always as easy as clicking the F1 key.

MrDistrict is all about targeting and communicating with groups of your constituency giving you fingertip access to a myriad of sophisticated analysis and communication tools packaged so that a layman can learn to use the program in a few moments and become proficient with it in a couple of hours. Form generated queries and a patent pending filtering interface along with English translation of your query parameters adds up to ease of use.

Unlike CRM packages most of which require a staff of programmers to set up and administer and vary in price from six to ten times the cost or more of our program, MrDistrict is already optimized with the set of tools that you as a politician will instinctively know how to put to use, which can save you lots of money, can give your campaign an edge on your opponents and which we know can help you to serve your constituency better.

Security is strong and configurable. Backups can be automated. We looked at many other programs before designing MrDistrict, some were very utilitarian, others were very complicated to learn to use. We designed MrDistrict to be easily accessible to the average person, while being loaded to the gills with easy to understand tools that are optimized for political endeavours.

The program was developed by a skilled programmer who has written COBOL for state mainframes, been a member of the Microsoft Developers Network for a decade, designed and built scores of websites, taught numerous college and corporate courses on programming and is an innovative and creative talent with about a decade in interface design.

The MrDistrict program is what it is because we, at MrDistrict, have done our homework. A simple yet powerful interface that a layman can learn to use in minutes and become proficient with in a couple of hours that makes quickly benefitting from the program a snap.

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Specific Features

Specific Features

MrDistrict can easily create and administer unlimited email or postal newsletters. In fact, it can do all sorts of communications. Form Letters are integrated with Microsoft Office and allow you to create those Form Letters based on any template (.dot) file. Two click Phone dialing will save you time. Straw Polling features optimized for delivery by hand, phone, or by mail might be just what you are looking for. The Straw Polling feature includes advanced tools for creating 'samples' to poll and automation features for setting up a phone room for canvassing. The ability to email groups combined with the ability to easily create various groups and views of your data can help you target and personalize communications with your constituency.

Random and targeted random sets of Voters can be generated for Straw polling with specific options for walked, phoned or mailed poll types. Unlimited formulaic and arbitrary grouping also helps to optimize your communications tasks.

Track Donations to your campaign, automatically integrated with your Vendor purchases for finance analysis. Analyze any groups demographics, plan out localized campaigns with mapping features provided by the Microsoft© MapPoint© ActiveX© control, which is built right in.

Generate huge maps of thousands of addresses or a simple map showing all your sign locations in a certain precinct. Generate turn by turn directions for any journey in North America. Click here to learn more about the many features available to you using Mrdistrict's integrated MapPoint© control.

With a compatible copy of Microsoft© Word© installed, take advantage of Form Letters automatically generated from your data views: including integration with Microsoft© Word© templates. Zero in on relations and define groups of voters with an Advanced Find interface or use the many easy to use filtering/sorting features built right into the main forms.

Export your data for use in Microsoft© Office© programs like Excel© and Access© then import those changes back into MrDistrict. Why re-invent the wheel ? MrDistrict is tightly integrated with Microsoft© Office© and we are constantly working on even more integration features for the next version of MrDistrict.

Track all of your contributors with histories and all Vendors with balances in one convenient place along with any other persons or entities you would like to add so as to take advantage of the communications/analysis tools for 'out of district' persons and/or entities as well. Create contributions reports based on any time period, or indeed any view of your data.

The program does not require a knowledge of the SQL programming language. Although with MrDistricts' open import/export features your data can be exported and 'worked on' with programs such as Access® and Excel®, in order to make mass changes, and then those changes can be re-imported back into MrDistrict.

Group Power Tools allow you to perform advanced Groups creation tasks like, converting a Query/Filter based Group into an arbitrary group enabling adding/deleting of any filtered view from that arbitrary group. Group cloning creates an exact copy of a group. This means that in a few moments you can be analyzing quite advanced 'set of constituents' definitions.

Analyze contributions data against any view of your data.

Create a second copy of your data file for entering contact information. Delegate that data entry and later import the changes into your master data file.

Configurable security options range from protecting your data from other owners of the MrDistrict program and non-adminstrators w/passords to 'Do not use passwords' which turns the security down. There is also an option to make a data file's Notes and Donations records invisible to non-administrators. They can enter new Note and Donation records but cannot view them.

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Communications

Communications

Preparing a form letter based on or Emailing any group or view of your data can allow you to set up a newsletter or to target groups with messages that concern them, for example, all the active voters of a certain age group in a certain area, Fellow Senators, PACS, Members of the Press or even My Bowling Partners are a snap.

Polling features allow you to create and administer Polls optimized for Post, Walked, or Phone delivery. A random Polling set of arbitrary size can be generated from any group or view of your data, as in 'twenty people from precinct 23-11 who voted in 2003'. You can set up a 'phone room' where large samples can be gathered using MrDistrict's ability to break large samples into multiple Excel spreadsheets to be filled in at separate workstations. Data is then easily imported back from those spreadsheets and automatically entered into MrDistrict for analysis. The Polling mechanisms can also be used for canvassing/sweeping very large groups of your constituents. Ensuring, for instance, that each person is contacted only once or for creating a follow up list.

The program is quick so that if a constituent, say Mary Weatherspoon, called you. Typing weath,m and hitting enter will bring her record up in about a second or two. You now know her age, how long she has been a registered voter, how often she votes, if she is a contributor, volunteer, has notes in her file, You can see if you have asked and if so what is her opinion on your four most important platform issues, is she an acquaintance, supporter, possible contributor, her marital status, political party, has she expressed a desire to not be contacted, plus four custom fields two of which can be dates.

You can see a map of her residence and thereby her neighborhood in about two seconds.

With a few more clicks you can add her to any of your arbitrary groups that you feel she fits in.

Automatic phone dialing, instant emailing from within the program, instant mailings to a single person or any defined group or view of your constituents with Microsoft© Word© template integration, dynamic and private data that grows with you and helps to build understanding and political power among your constituency by developing your connections to them.
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Voter Registration Data

From this page you can gain an in-depth understanding of the benefits of using the MrDistrict Campaign/Constituency Management System .................................................................................................................The page is divided into five loosely associated topics ................................................................................... Click any topic to begin reading that section ...............................................................................................Thank you for taking the time to learn about this powerful political tool ................................................................................................................... If you can see the animated character but not hear him then you need a minor update available from Microsoft. The link is at the bottom of this page marked 'Agent Technology Upgrade'. ............................ The two downloads you will need are 'Text to Speech Engine' and 'Speech Control Panel'...............................................................................