A great Liberal MP, John Bright used to say, “I believe in faith, hope and canvassing. And the greatest of these is canvassing.”
Canvassing makes a difference. Being canvassed by a party or cause increases the chance you will support them and increases the chance you will come out to vote. You can canvass on a street stall or on the phone. You can do it online. Still the most effective way, in my view, is going door to door, seeing people in person.
We are going to win this referendum. We are going to win it by a big margin that settles our country’s future. We are going to recruit thousands of new people to the Liberal Democrats in the process.
We will only do that if we knock on thousands of doors.
I have been canvassing for the referendum. It is a really pleasant experience. Only 8% of the nation are backing the Lib Dems in recent polls but around 50% are backing staying in Europe.
When you canvass you have to use a form of words that work for your personality. This is what I like to say and you might find it works for you too:
Hello, my name is Antony.
I am a volunteer for the local Liberal Democrats.
You many know there is a big vote on 23 June on whether Britain stays in Europe. We are campaigning to stay in because its’ important for peace, prosperity and the future.
Do you think you will vote to stay in?
It is always good to canvass with a leaflet to give people. You can produce a local leaflet or order ones suitable for the whole nation here.
If your local party is using the Connect system (the Liberal Democrat database of voters) the answers can be logged on there. The bank of Questions on Connect now includes:
Will you sign our petition for Britain to stay in the EU?
Do you think the UK should stay within the European Union, or should it leave?
Would you like a poster to show your support for the Remain campaign to stay in Europe?
Please let Lib Dem Voice know how you get on canvassing for the referendum.
* Antony Hook was #2 on the South East European list in 2014, is the English Party's representative on the Federal Executive and produces this sites EU Referendum Roundup.
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4 Comments
The main purpose of canvassing should be to obtain a person’s voting intention as accurately as possible for targeted direct mail and knocking up. Using the highly loaded canvassing question Anthony cites will just generate a load of false positives from politeness, suggestibility or conflict aversion. I’m unconvinced it’s a good approach.
Hi David,
When I was trained to canvass in the late 90s we were certainly told that it was purely about identification.
But I think techniques have moved on and there are situations where a push question like this is effective.
It’s for a similar reason that many people advise giving a leaflet to people when you canvass them.
It is aiming to give a message and persuade as well as identify. We’re not doing a scientific survey but trying to win an election.
We know the following:
A) Being canvassed by a side increases your likelihood to vote at all, and for that side in particular.
B) In the referendum our side needs to the turnout to be high, so as much contact as possible matters.
C) If you are given a message it increases the chance you will vote for that side than if you aren’t given a message.
D) You will get a false positive sometimes but the fact that the person has said “yes” to you increase the chance that they will vote that way. Some people say one thing on the doorstep and do another (false positives) but some people say one thing and feel committed to do what they said. It’s why some parties could “pledges” whereas we use the phrase “defs and probs”.
Obviously it’s your call what to do in your team. This is what I find works.
Anthony – great stuff. Are you also asking people about their recent vote /usual vote? Seems a pity to lose the opportunity if we are knocking on their door ?
any phone scripts anywhere ? yes doorstep face to face is best, but for those of us that cannnot really do that …..
But also I found when phoning for the locals last week a lot of very reasonable people were “undecided” as a lot of our friends, surprisingly, are. we need to be able to give people the links / addresses for the “neutral” facts on the issue as well.
Agree we need to use every opportunity to record party voting affiliation IF the conversation can develop at all.