Campaigns are also seeking the answers to two basic - and for campaigns, essential - questions, according to Roeder: "What candidate is this voter likely to support, and second, is this voter likely to vote?" They spend months of effort - and millions of dollars - calling voters, knocking on their doors and scooping up information about them in databases of consumer data.Ĭampaigns want to know which issues interest and motivate specific voters. Using that database, campaigns take this information and begin building on it. The Democratic National Committee stores all this information on a central database run by a company called NGP VAN (more on that later). In Southern states you'll even have the race of the voter," explained Ethan Roeder, who worked as data director for President Obama's 20 campaigns. "Typically you're going to find age, gender. On the Democratic side, every campaign begins with the same basic set of information that states collect about people when they register to vote. These files are the central collection of everything campaigns have learned about the voters they're hoping will support them and then turn out to vote on Election Day. Looking at the voter file as a whole, that's really not an exaggeration. On the day the data breach became public, Clinton's campaign manager, Robby Mook, said "anyone who accessed it really had access to the fundamental keys of our campaign." The Sanders campaign has access to its data again, and the DNC is conducting an investigation that both campaigns and the company that runs the program are cooperating with. That left the Sanders campaign essentially unable to function, a situation it responded to by suing the DNC over breach of contract. And more consequently for the campaign as a whole, the DNC reacted to the news by locking the Sanders campaign out of the entire database for nearly 48 hours. The fallout was harsh and swift: One Sanders staffer was fired and two others were suspended.
#Destiny breach and clear software#
The Sanders staffers were able to access the files because of a temporary glitch in the software that every Democratic campaign uses to not only access the party's central file of information about voters, but also store the proprietary data they gather over the course of the campaign. The documents identified likely supporters in key early primary states like New Hampshire and South Carolina. This information had been stored on a central server that every Democratic campaign uses. Here's our attempt at answering every question you have about the DNC data breach.īernie Sanders' staffers gained access to private Clinton campaign data. The whole thing has led to a lot of questions - about what, exactly, the Sanders campaign did, and how important these voter files are to begin with. Lawsuits were filed and threats were made, but the situation has now, for the most part, been resolved. Bernie Sanders' staffers had accessed, viewed and saved sensitive files belonging to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's campaigns. That's because earlier in the week, several of Vermont Sen.
It's just that usually, campaigns don't really talk about it.īut on Saturday night, the very first question in the Democratic presidential debate was all about the voter files that the Democratic National Committee maintains for its candidates to use. Bernie Sanders apologized to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the data breach during their Saturday debate in Manchester, N.H.ĭata collection and analysis is a central aspect of a modern political campaign.
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