The result is going to be decided by whichever side can get their supporters out to vote.
As the Chief Executive of ALDC and the Deputy Director of Campaigns (as well as us both being local councillors in Bury and Hull respectively), we know Lib Dem campaigners are the best in the country at driving up turnout.
That expertise and experience is what the referendum needs – and has been recognised by a £30,000 donation given specifically to incentivise Lib Dem activity in the next few weeks to win the referendum for Remain.
We’re using that money to fund the Referendum Pledge Challenge.
In short, here’s how it will work:
– Every local party will receive 1,500 pledge cards in the post this week. A Riso-friendly version is available on the Google Drive now, so you don’t have to wait for the printed cards to arrive. In the meantime, you can print on the riso or even a laser printer. If you don’t have access to the Google Drive, you can get access to it by emailing [email protected].
– Use the target pools in Connect that identify the most likely Remain voters to pick which doors to knock on. When you speak to a Remain voter, ask them to sign on the dotted line and pledge to vote on June 23rd. Make sure they give you an email address so we can keep in touch with them about our campaign. When someone signs their name to say they will do something, extensive research has shown they’re more likely to go on to do it.
– The eight local parties that get the most pledges and email addresses each week until the referendum will get £1,000 each.
– Plus, every local party that gets at least 300 pledges and emails between now and polling day will split £6,000 between them. So hit 300 and you are guaranteed to earn a substantial sum for your local party.
You can find more details about the scheme here.
This is a really exciting opportunity for the party to try something new. And it gives your local party the chance to earn thousands of pounds over the next few weeks, and capture email data that will be a lasting legacy for your local campaign efforts.
Since launching the scheme on Friday we have already seen a fantastic response across the country.
It is increasingly clear that the referendum is going to be much closer than people previously thought. If every Lib Dem campaign team in the country throws its weight behind this scheme, together we can make a huge difference.
Good luck in the challenge -and let’s help win this referendum!
* Dave McCobb is Deputy Director of Campaigns and Elections for the Liberal Democrats and Tim Pickstone is Chief Executive of ALDC.
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12 Comments
But if you pick the people already most likely to vote Remain by default are you not giving less time and effort into swaying the undecideds? And wouldn’t it be more productive to work with Greens and Labour and moderate pro-EU Tory local party activists so you’re not all tripping over yourselves targeting the same group of people already going for Remain. This is not a party political point scoring exercise is it?
Stevan – it’s an effort to raise turnout, which is absolutely crucial. People minded to vote Remain doesn’t necessarily translate to people actually going out to vote Remain, unless sufficient effort is put into making sure they do.
more practically where would I go to get help responding to a list of Leave ‘facts’ posted on social media?
Stevan, I hear your frustration. A lot of this is down to the campaigns not being able to share data which is at the root of this,and I am sure Leave are having the same issues.
I had a targeted leaflet from welsh labour yesterday, I think they have been targetting known liberals – probably as we’re more likely to put a remain poster up!
I think in this case, and in any highly publicised and clearly salient referendum, that turnout will be driven up more by the media than by pledge cards. Of course you cannot write off personal, local contacts, friends etc, but this is NOT the same mechanism you would apply to a (particularly) local election.
Great to see the party finally starting to take GOTV seriously and promote some well established techniques
@Tim13 – yes and no. Certainly as turnout generally rises the potential gains from differential turnout diminish – and reach a point where there is a greater return from converting people who are very likely to vote than getting reluctant voters to the polls.
But there evidence that remainers are less likely to vote than leavers so this makes a lot of sense: YouGov said recently:
“YouGov’s data currently shows that, when it comes to the question of European Union membership, those who wish to leave the EU are more likely to say they will vote than those who wish to stay. This means we can conclude, generally speaking at least, that a lower turnout come polling day should favour the Leave campaign.”
OK I’ll take the point about getting the Remain vote to actually vote. And sad about sharing data though door knocking could be split up. But pledge cards with Lib Dem branding is party political and no-one needs reminding that broken pledges are one of the root causes of our current lack of popularity. I wish they had been Remain pledge cards.
I am frankly at a complete loss at to why hundreds of boxes of pledge slips have been sent to constituency organisers. I will be out In,my town centre on Saturday – as I have been for the last four out of five weeks – to engage with voters with the previously supplied IN leaflets. Do those who have issued these slips really think that we have the time and the public the inclination to sign up thousnds of people this weekend? What I would have preferred is 500 double sided A4 leaflets pressing positive messages and countering Brexit nonsense such as Turkey and the £350 pw claim. Keep it simple guys!
Hookachook – those 500 leaflets would have les impact in terms of generating votes in the box than targetting marginal turnout supporters. It’s a simple case of time spent vs return in votes and motivating voters to turnout has a clear established benefit. As it stands if support is split 50:50 then leave wins as their supporters are more likely to go out to vote.
But – half the the party MPs – and neither of the local parties of the two authors didn’t have anything on for yestersdays day of action according to the party website. I live in the third biggest city which is the only big city to have a Lib Dem MP and they did something miles out of the city centre which really makes little sense.
ALDC are spending next weekend running a day long conference – with another day event on the Friday and a dinner and drinks reception on the Friday night. That doesn’t suggest an overwhelming commitment or planning by that organisation. Certainly I remember as an ALDC staff member cancelling a conference at short notice to help in two byelections (Hodge Hill/Leicester S) – so Tim might want to give an explanation of the organisations priorities.
“Am in Bremen at the moment and even here Brexit is on the lips of all my German friends. They have just given me a copy of Der Spiegel, (number24), which has pages of articles on the subject – highly informative reading. The front page has an Union Jack with the plea: Bitte geht nicht! Please don’t go! All articles are in German as well as in English, side by side. If you can look it up on the Internet, you may find them of great interest and I was hoping, may give you some additional ideas for a leaflet drop into letterboxes – am back Sunday night and could be out Monday morning for you doing some streets, a last ditch attempt. I shall be bringing the magazine back with me.
Hope you did not mind my writing – but I know you are interested in being in and may have other friends to pass this onto. ”
On email vis Stronger IN
John Milnard: http://www.strongerin.co.uk/get_the_facts#4kvBb6RtkOIYiV3B.97