The DNC database has been a source of controversy in recent months. Following the 2004 debacle, factions within the Democratic Party decided to start their own voter information project, dubbed Data Warehouse and now known as Catalist, under the guidance of former Clinton administration deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes. Ickes was beaten out by Dean to head up the Democratic National Committee.

The Catalist project also bore fruit last week, according to its CTO Vijay Ravindran, who worked for Amazon.com before joining Catalist.

The system, which relies on EMC storage hardware on the back end, was built using open source components such as Linux and MySQL and development frameworks such as Hibernate and Spring. Like the DNC voter file project, Catalist's Data Warehouse is used and is designed to support third-party applications such as VAN, he said.

As for the role Catalist's Data Warehouse played in last week's midterm election, Ravindran said the database of 150 million people was used for a variety of activities including mailings, phone banks, and get-out-the-vote and canvassing efforts in 12 states, affecting around 60 million voters.

Groups using the Catalist data included Emily's List, The Sierra Club, Moveon.org, labor organizations, and America Votes, an umbrella group representing 250 different organizations. Like the DNC, Ravindran pointed to races where the data may have swung outcomes: A group called Women's Voices, Women Vote used modeled data on single, unregistered women in Missouri to target a voter drive in support of Claire McCaskill's successful candidacy against Congressman Jim Talent.