With the billions of dollars pumped into election campaigns, it's odd that a political party wouldn't keep at least a small team on the code to continually test, update, refactor, and generally improve the quality.

Fred Brooks, nine women / one month, etc.

The problem is that political parties are fueled by donations, and it's hard to get people to donate for something like that. Not to mention you'd be competing with local/state/House/Senate elections with actual candidates for that fundraising money. I've donated politically in the past and even having only given small amounts, I still get emails daily and calls monthly asking me to donate to about half a dozen groups (many of which I've never donated to). Heck, wounded firefighters and cancer-striken kids have a low conversion rate for their fundraising - "money for technical systems to help a candidate to be named later" is even worse.

This will seem a bit OT, but it is relevant: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pallotta_the_way_we_think_about...

I'm bothered that we as a society have trouble recognizing the point and purpose of overhead.

The DNC does the job of folding any successful and reusable parts from the campaign into a continuing technology stack.

They keep a small team, just not the full battalion.

Source: visit to OFA offices in 2010. May have changed by now because there is no third term, but I doubt it.