The Netezza appliance allows the DNC to process the 200 million files -- one for each voter -- and 900 fields for each file 20 times faster than it could in the past, Self said. Since the overhaul, the DNC has increased the number of high-quality phone numbers in its database by 20 percent, he said.

The committee has also installed data modeling tools from SPSS Inc., data quality tools from Firstlogic Inc. (acquired by Business Objects SA earlier this year), and extract, transform and load tools from Sunopsis SA, which was acquired by Oracle Corp. last month.

The Republicans' expertise in microtargeting -- appending consumer-based information to the demographic and voting history in a voter database -- was important in the 2004 election and will be even more crucial in Tuesday's elections if the outcomes are as close as expected, said Mike Connell, president, chief political strategist and CEO of Business Objects SA Inc. in Richfield, Ohio.

Connell worked with the Bush/Cheney campaign on Internet strategy in 2000 and 2004, and his company works for the RNC. In Michigan, for example, Republican volunteers are canvassing door to door in Detroit for the first time since 1962 because microtargeting has identified 44,000 traditional Democratic voters who are likely to side with Republicans on social issues, said Saul Anuzis, chairman of the Michigan Republican Party.

Before the use of microtargeting, the party would not campaign in areas of the state known to be made up of less than 50 percent Republican voters, he said. "Now, we literally target household by household," he said. "Michigan is a swing state, and [we] cannot afford not to talk to every single potential voter in the state."