Politicians to ‘micro target’ swing voters as general election nears
Politicians from across the political spectrum are to embrace big data ahead of the general election in May in a desperate bid to win over swing voters.
Increasingly sophisticated analysis of hundreds of different strands of publicly available information; such as house type, shopping habits and credit score, will allow swing voters to be ‘micro targeted’ in key election battlegrounds.
Labour is relying on its Contact Creator and Voter ID software written by supporters to win over wavering voters whilst the Conservatives have employed EMC Consulting to devise their Merlin database.
By punching in the numbers tacticians can gauge the likely propensity of people to vote a certain way and thus funnel their volunteers and marketing efforts toward those whose votes lie within reach.
No party was willing to discuss their systems in detail for fear of ceding advantage to their rivals but Sky News has set up its own Sky Data program to emulate the approach.
This found for example that UKIP and Labour voters are defined as owning PAYG mobiles, driving small cars and shopping at Aldi. Conservatives and Liberal Democrats meanwhile are characterised as homeowners with a good credit score and most likely to be found shopping at Waitrose.