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A breakdown of Campaign software and political software

In these days of technological advances it would be unthinkable to expect anyone to run for political office without using some sort of campaign software. Political software is important not just for balancing the bottom line but for getting the right message out and knowing exactly what the response is before it hurts the candidates image. There are several different companies offering multiple levels of campaign management software. Each company claims that their products are the best but what does campaign software really do? Political software these days is almost an essential, especially for those who have not entered the political arena before. For those that have never run a political campaign the concept can be daunting and winning it even further out of reach. Political software is intended to break down everything a candidate needs into one tidy campaign software package. These programs can make it far easier for regular people to get into the political arena without tripping up in election statutes and get elected. There are even free open software versions to help minimize campaign costs. Camelot for example is an online voter database and campaign manager application. It does everything from tracking voter data to contacting voters directly by email, phone, and mail. The campaign software even allows you to target specific voters within those groups for publications. Since the campaign management software is online based and can be accessed from anywhere at any time through the internet. The political software also backs up and stores all documents so that a candidate need never worry about losing files, deleting the wrong document or even needing a previous version to check figures that may have been changed. Completecampaigns.com offers political software that covers all aspects of the campaign trail. Completecampaigns.com campaign software comes in 5 separate packages. CompleteGov is their campaign software options that essentially is a database that manages constituent information. It controls contact information and helps with mailing lists and phone banks to stay in touch. Their campaign software choice for simple voter data by area is called VotaDataOnline. This is probably the most useful campaign software at the beginning of a campaign as it will give the candidate a good idea of the area they are hoping to reach and a realistic view of the number of votes they can expect based on political affiliation. This is a service not offered by some other campaign software such as Camelot. They offer several other options for campaign software however they are also the more pricey of the campaign software options being that it is aimed at state and national campaign management offices. Activate direct is rather the poor cousin of campaign software, concentrating only on PR and press issues. Contacts and contributions are pretty much the only thing this campaign software tracks is it really is only functional for seasoned professionals who have campaign managers that know what they are doing. An additional flaw in this software is that it is geared solely towards republicans, with this in mind the campaign software is useless for a large proportion of consumers. The software itself is extremely reasonable, besides being a tax write-off political software comes in at around $80-$350 a month depending on the number of voters expected. Some open source software such as CiviCRM which is intended for non profit organizations but can be applied to the political arena as well for a basic campaign software need such as contacts and contributions. Candidates need to assess their campaign software needs before making any hasty decisions on programs or they might find themselves out of a sizable contribution for something that really is completely unnecessary. Political software isn't about using plain spreadsheets anymore. As the needs of voters diversify so do needs of candidates and campaign software needs to be ready to reach that demand. Campaign software does not have to be an expensive investment for candidates but it is a necessity these days in running a successful campaign and making sure that everything is tracked and taken care of correctly.