We are down to the last two days of the campaign in the UK General Election of 2010, so we’re in a holding pattern. So, a quick look at how things are done over there fills the time nicely. Usually, political innovation moves from the US to Britain (e.g., teleprompters, leader debates, spin rooms). However in one regard, the innovations could move the other way. I have never seen an American campaign pull a get out the vote drive the way the British do it – they do it much better, and much of it has to do with the party apparatus and some to do with geography.
To see the differences, we need to do a quick thought experiment. Suppose for a moment that you want to run for office, say a state senate seat, in the US. You would form a campaign committee, which probably consists of a spouse, two neighbors and a guy or gal from the job. You’ll make some calls to raise money, you’ll petition to get on the primary ballot, and you may even win the nomination. Then, the general election rolls around, and you continue to do much the same. However, in the general, you will have some support from your state and county parties, and perhaps a union local or two. On election day, the unions will make sure their people get to the polls, and the state and county folks might be able to help out. Maybe a few community groups get together a couple of vans to drive people to the polls. And then, you hope for the best. If there is a big race on the ticket (president, governor, US senate, big city mayor) and your ticket’s top is weak, you're in trouble. If the top person is favored, you may get a free pass thanks to the coat-tail effect.
That isn’t how it works over there. First off, there are no primaries for local councilor, Member of Parliament, or Member of the European Parliament. You get the nomination by turning up regularly at your local party and working for other campaigns before you get your own. Maybe you are a surrogate speaker, or an envelope stuffer, or a canvasser, but you work for the party before you are its candidate for anything. Rising in the Youth or Student wing of your party is also a viable path. Then and only then, does the local party (usually its executive committee) bestow the nomination. In the US, this is kind of the way it works in those urban areas that still have a "machine." They aren't as numerous or as effective as they once were.
OK, so now you are the Party’s candidate in the fictional constituency of North Umbridge, and you were selected months before the election. During the months preceding the election, you canvass the constituency. That means you actually go and knock on doors and talk to people about issues – it could be something so simple as the absence of a bench at a bus stop that has a voter up in arms. But the point is, you find out whether the person who lives there is for your party, against your party or can be persuaded. And you write it down. The most important person in the campaign is not the candidate. It’s the bloke with the clipboard.
How do you tell how a person is going to vote or how they even lean? Actually, it’s not that hard. You knock on the door, good idea to travel in pairs (and ideally one of the pair is female because people are more likely to open the door to a couple than to a strange man – and let’s face it, the strangest men you'll ever meet are political canvassers). The conversation runs like this:
"Whaddya wont?"
"Good afternoon, I’m Jeff and this is Eileen, from the Umbridge Liberal Party, and we’re going around the neighborhood asking people what they think about" and pick from a list of local issues (schools, jobs, crime, the superiority of the single transferable vote over the alternate vote plus – OK, schools, jobs or crime). The point is, we want to listen to you! Very important that this is understood.
Now, the conversation can go dozens of ways, the most common are:
"Liberals? F*ck off out of here before I let loose the dog." You say thanks for your time and you leave marking the address as pro-Labour.
"Liberals? F*ck off or I’ll have my gentleman’s gentleman, Sneed, call the hunt master to release the hounds." Same as above, but this is a Conservative house.
"Liberals? Come on in an have a cup of tea and we can chat about . . ." This conversation has to stop right away. This is a politically active enemy who is trying to waste precious minutes of your time. "Thanks, we can’t," and you leave a pamphlet to cover your retreat.
"Liberals? Yeah, glad to see you’re here." Hand over the pamphlet, ask if the person wants to help out and explain that there’s always work to be done. Then, leave marking the house as one of ours.
"Oh, I’m not very political." Reply, "Neither was I until recently. Here, have a look at this brochure, and if you have any questions, ring the number on the back." Mark this house as a "possible" and move on.
As you can imagine, this takes lots of time, and lots of shoe leather. But, you have help from party activists who do this rather than have a social life. And before too long the Liberal Party has a list of every voter in Umbridge categorized by political allegiance and their home address. This is feasible because Britain is geographically more compact than America. North Dakota, for example, elects one Congressman and has an area of 70,762 square miles (183,277 sq km for those who have made the great leap forward into the metric system). The entire UK, which has 650 MPs, is only 50,350 square miles (130,410 sq. km.). London is 659 square miles (1,707 sq. km.) and has 74 MPs, so you can see how much easier this works in the UK than it would in rural America.
Now, during the election campaign itself, you continue to canvass, along with your supporters, but you visit only those in your camp (to "fire up the base") or the undecideds. Calling on a supporter of the other parties is largely a waste of time, except if there is a case for tactical voting. During these quick visits, the idea is to be seen and to make sure everyone knows when polling day is (almost always a Thursday) and what hours the polling stations are open (7 am to 10 pm for general and European eletions, 8 am to 10 pm if it's local elections only).
Meanwhile, back at Headquarters, the party will have a copy of the list you’ve assembled along with phone numbers and a copy of the Electoral Register, which is a public document. Here’s where it gets amazing.
There is a lovely term for the final hours of the campaign that begins an hour or so before the polls open, "The Knock-Up." "Knock up" in British means to go knock on someone’s door (and yes, the first time you ask a girl out and she says, "Yes, come knock me up Friday," one’s ambitions for the evening soar -- only to remain painfully unrealized). At around 5:30 or 6:00 am, the activists turn up at HQ for the last leafleting, and the idea is the cover the constituency by 7 am when most people are awake and the polls have opened. The leaflet merely reminds them that it’s polling day (just because you care passionately about doesn’t mean the voters even know it’s happening). Head back to HQ, get some breakfast, and hang around until 8:30 or 9:00, when it’s acceptable to knock on doors until 11 or so, by which time most people are gone until late afternoon.
While that is going on, voters are going into the polling stations and casting their ballots. As they leave, a bunch of activists wearing a rosette or other party identifier from each party ask for their polling number. Every voter gets a polling card with a unique number on it. Most people take theirs to the polling station but they don’t have to. The upshot is that most of the voters tell the parties their number. Each of the "tellers" writes the number down, and after half an hour or so sends the list of numbers back to HQ (which shows how long I have been at the game – now it’s mostly mobile phones and tweets). At HQ, a worker will cross off those numbers. This allows the party to see which of its voters have voted, and who might need reminding. One strange thing about the teller system – some voters only want "their" party to know they’ve voted, but it wastes time for everyone. I have actually had Conservatives and Labourites give me the polling number of a voter; the expectation is that I’d do the same. And since all the tellers are there for the same purpose (gathering information), cooperation allows all the parties to be more efficient.
So, around 5 pm, more knocking up begins. At HQ, you are handed a list of voters who haven’t turned up to vote yet and their addresses. You interrupt their dinner at your peril, but often, you can catch someone just as they are walking into their home or walking their dog. After 8, presume dinner over and make a pain in the neck of yourself. By 8, you will have a core of voters that haven’t voted yet, and you bug them to death. Also, a shrewd HQ boss will ask if anyone in the HQ has yet to vote. Anyone in that position is immediately relieved of whatever duties they have and they go vote.
By 10, when the polls close, you know not only what turn out looks like, but you can also point to just how many of your supporters voted. Heck, you even know where they live, and if you looked through the tear-off sheets (because some parties put a time on them) you could estimate to within a couple of hours when they voted. Win or lose, your party will hang onto all that canvassing information for next time. And if you’ve done it right, you are the new MP for the constituency – You Have Taken Umbridge (I regret the shaggy dog element that has crept into this diary).
For more information about this insane process of our British cousins, visit this site
http://www.howtowinelections.co.uk
RANDOM STUFF:
Funniest thing I’ve seen in ages, is a tweet the BBC’s website posted from someone by the handle of Carlmaxim, "Every time David Cameron looks like he might win, the volcano gets angry."
OK, enough. The voting starts Thursday May 6 at 7 am British Summer Time and ends at 10 pm BST. The first results are likely to come in from Houghton and Sunderland South (there is a race among a few constituencies to finish the count first, and this place has won four times running when it was known with different boundaries as just Sunderland South). Others that tend to report very early are Sunderland Central, Rutherglen and Hamilton West in Scotland, Wrexham in north Wales and Belfast West, Northern Ireland. These are more-or-less safe Labour seats (Sunderland Central is the most competitive with a 12.8% swing to the Tories needed to take the seat -- that is huge). The exception is the Belfast West seat, which is Gerry Adams' constituency for Sinn Fein. None of these indicates any trend useful in forecasting the final result.
Most of the results will come in some time between 2-4 am BST May 7. For those in the New World, polls close at 5pm Eastern, 4 Central, 3 Mountain and 2 Pacific. Houghton and Sunderland South should report 45 minutes or so later. The real excitement should start around 9 EDT, 8 CDT, 7 MDT, and 6 PDT. I may blog live during US prime time, but I will certainly have some stuff on Friday.