The Conservatives believe they have fixed their beleaguered campaign database, VoteSource, after increasing complaints from MPs. Coffee House understands that a number of MPs in marginal seats complained to party co-chair Lord Feldman after they started to tire both of finding that their data wasn’t being saved properly and of being told that everything was fine.
MPs have been told that the party made repairs to VoteSource over the weekend and it is now supposed to be fully functioning. Those checking their data in the past few weeks had been growing increasingly agitated about the way the database was working, with at least one association threatening to start using old-fashioned cards to keep voter information. There was frustration with the repeated assurances from Feldman and his co-chair Grant Shapps when the reality seemed to be so different.
But it seems that CCHQ has listened to those nerves about the database, and MPs have been told that all aspects of the new software, which the party is now developing in-house, should be fully functional. Some of them feel they have heard this before, with the Tories suffering for many elections from data problems. VoteSource is still widely accepted as being better than the rickety ‘Merlin’ system that the party has been desperate to get rid of, not least because it is a web-based system. But one of the biggest mistakes the party has made was not to prioritise developing new software to replace Merlin in the first half of the Parliament, rather than in a rush now. It would have been better to be fixing bugs and reassuring MPs in 2013, for instance, rather than now.
We will see over the next few weeks if the database really is fixed.
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