ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the efforts to mobilize citizens to vote and on the effects of election registration and administration procedures on patterns of political participation and political outcomes. Political parties focused on persuading citizens to support the party's candidates and mobilizing large parts of the electorate. The goal is the more narrowly activation of some citizens, seeking to turnout only those who are most likely to support the party, candidate, or policy aims of the mobilizing agent. The politics of activation is enhanced by the use of political profiling. Computer programs collate data from a variety of sources to categorize potential voters into types, which can then be used to target selected citizens for voter activation campaigns. Efforts to get citizens to vote are no longer mass mobilization efforts. Instead, what occurs is best described as targeted voter activation. Turnout stimulation efforts are carefully targeted through the use of political profiling.
