Last week, Advokit version 1.0 was released. It’s been a long two years since I first laid my hands on this open-source, web based voter contact management tool. It was late in the summer of 2004 and the New York State Democratc Senate Campaign Committee had deployed four instances of Advokit. Little did we know that this open-source tool would propel the New York State Senate Democrats three seats closer to majority rule and upset the third most powerful Republican in Albany. (NY Times Coverage) For ANY campaign – large or small – with access to a knowledgeable technologist, Advokit is one solution you should review.

As demonstrated by the Republican National Committee’s launch of myGOP and the 2004 Howard Dean for President campaign, political campaigns are no longer top-down operations. While Advokit can be used successfully for top-down voter identification, the real strength lies in utilizing social networks for distributive campaigns – "with Advokit, the people are not just donors they are full participants in the campaign."

For more information on the Advokit software community, visit http://advokit.net