Introduction
These are exciting times.
A new party, with policies and principles not seen in your area for many years, if ever.
A ward which is unexplored territory for our party.
You have the opportunity to build an organisation that the other parties fear.
The other parties are often fighting each other in thousands of other areas, dispersing their financial strength and reducing the number of people that they can bring to bear on the ward that you are contesting.
Our policy of running only a few candidates means that our forces are concentrated.
One important advantage that we have is that we are not tied into “the way we always do things”. If you think an idea will work, try it!
Another advantage you have is that your campaign is relatively well funded in relation to the campaigns of your opponents.
And, we have the best policies!
Once people have embraced socialism and Transform, we have them for decades if not for life.
The Legal Position
In election law, and often in practice, the Candidate chooses the Agent.
The new Agent has to start from scratch.
If the Candidate has had difficulty in identifying a prospective Agent, and possibly has had some refusals, the new Agent is starting from scratch and has lost weeks, sometimes months, of preparation and fundraising time.
That is why in the Transform Party each Region has an elected Organiser who has the responsibility to build and to maintain an effective electoral operation in the Region.
The intention is that the organisation is permanent and the candidates just slot in for as long as they are candidates.
The Constituency Organiser will normally be the Agent.
The new National Committee is making great strides on many fronts, but it cannot magic an effective nationwide election organisation instantly. The Regions must appoint Regional Organisers and get them active.
The Regional Organiser is part of the Regional Committee and links with the Election Lead.
The Regional Organiser may appoint Constituency Organisers who in turn may appoint ward organisers.
The Candidate is legally responsible for everything in his/her campaign. In theory a Candidate can be their own Agent. A sensible Candidate appoints an Agent to share the organisational load.
If the candidate is working possibly 18 hours a day making personal appearances at bus stations, railway stations, factory gates, school gates, morning teas, lunches, dealing with constituency issues and constituents’ problems, canvassing, possibly leafleting, making speeches, visiting schools and care homes, standing at street stalls, more school gates, and taking part in hustings, someone else has to see to the organisational and financial side. That person is the Agent.
The Agent has authority to make all decisions as Agent of the Candidate.
The Candidate has to have as Agent someone whom they trust politically, personally, and financially. No formal qualifications are needed.
Not all Agents are the same. Some lead from the front, and some are very good at delegating.
While the relationship between each Candidate and Agent is different, and the relationship will evolve, the general division of labour is that the Candidate is the public face of the campaign.
The Candidate is the physical representative of the Transform Party.
The Agent manages the money, which may involve sending out begging letters or charming people over the telephone. The Agent runs the campaign.
Transform currently operates elections on grants from the National Committee but an Agent who can raise extra cash is much admired. The Agent may encourage members to organise dances, dinners, lunches, and other activities to raise money.
No money may be spent without the authority of the Agent.
After the election the Agent has to complete a return of election expenses, annexing vouchers (receipts) for every expenditure. A sensible agent keeps a running tally and maintains projections, to make sure that the permitted spending is not exceeded.
No publicity may be undertaken without the authority of the Agent.
No political activity or political promises or statements take place without the authority of the Agent.
The Agent has to keep the campaign legal and not defame anyone. The easiest way is not to mention one’s opponents or anyone else.
Sometimes the Agent has to rebuke the Candidate or argue. If either of them is weak willed, something that should be said is dodged.
There are criminal penalties for dishonesty.
Honest mistake is usually not a problem unless one has a track record of such mistakes.
If you are in trouble, contact the Elections Lead ASAP.
Your Responsibilities as Agent
Remember that you are not just fighting this election. You are also preparing for future elections.
Collect and record information that will be useful, like where are the polling stations and which streets vote at them. Prepare maps for each polling district showing the polling station and your leafletting routes (saves reinventing the wheel every year).
Note housing and voters and dogs to avoid.
Research local religious and other groups, lunch clubs, and anyone else who may be willing to host the candidate at a meeting.
You are responsible for running the election within the law. Do not defame anyone.
You may not use taxis on election day, even if they are not charging.
Make sure your team follow your instructions.
Do not exceed your expenses limit. The expenses limit is a calculation based on the number of electors and whether your voters are “urban” or “rural”.
All leaflets, posters, advertisements etc are authorised by you beforehand.
All expenditures are authorised by you beforehand.
You decide everything. In consultation with the candidate, if there is time.
After the election you complete the expenses form, so you must keep all receipts for all expenditures. If someone has bought a return ticket, photocopy the ticket as the receipt. Expenses begin as soon as you announce the candidacy or as soon as you lodge the nomination, whichever is the sooner.
Our current Election Lead, Charles James, was in an election in a marginal constituency where over 600 people took part. If each of these people could make financial and organisational decisions, without reference to the Agent, there would have been chaos. If you can imagine 600 politically committed volunteers all operating without the Agent watching, and sometimes without any supervision at all, you will understand why some Agents get grouchy.
With Transform, many of us are both desperately politically committed and utterly inexperienced, and none of us are used to working together as a team. In future years we will have an experienced cadre of people used to working together. We are unlikely to have 600 people in any one constituency for a year at least.
Charles is usually available for a conversation. Phone 7540 197681 or email charles.james@transformparty.org.uk . Charles campaigned for the Labour Party for more than 50 years, so Charles has seen most disasters.
Nomination
You must get your candidate nominated. The forms are downloaded from the Council web site. You must obey the instructions to the letter.
Get your candidate nominated ASAP (as soon as possible).
If you are stupid enough to leave the nomination to the last moment, and then there is a glitch, your candidate will not be able to contest the election. The people in the elections section of the local council are friendly, but they cannot bend the rules for you. A secondary reason for early nominations is that you deter other candidates and parties who are thinking about standing.
The Candidate has to sign a document accepting nomination. (Provided by the Council)
You should lodge a letter from the Transform Party authorising your candidate to use the Transform Party name and logo. (Provided by the Transform Party)
The candidate should sign a form confirming to the council that you are the candidate’s appointed agent. (Provided by the Council)
Vocabulary
The Electoral Roll is technically the Electoral Register. The electoral register is maintained by the Electoral Registration Officer and a supporting team.
When you go to vote at a polling station, the other people who live near you vote there also. You all live in the same polling district. All your ballot papers go into a ballot box marked with an identifying number such as “OA52”.
A ward is divided into a number of polling districts. A Parliamentary Constituency is made up of a number of wards.
On election day, the polling station is run by a presiding officer, assisted by polling clerks. The polling clerks use the Polling Station Register, a list of those entitled to vote at this polling station.
The presiding officer works to the Assistant Returning Officer. A council election result is announced by the Assistant Returning Officer.
In a Parliamentary election the local mayor or some other bigwig makes the announcement. They are the Returning Officer, but in practice all the work was done by a number of Assistant Returning Officers.
The Electoral Register
The Electoral Register for a ward or a constituency is a huge document maintained on the council’s computer. It consists of the Polling Station Registers for every polling station in the constituency or in the local authority ward. Depending on the council concerned, the postal votes may be on one huge spreadsheet or on spreadsheets for the individual wards.
The Polling Station Register is marked with the Polling District Number, which is also the number marked on the ballot box. An example might be “OA52”. OA relates to which polling station, and 52 relates to which ballot box / register, even if there is only one ballot box at that polling place.
The register states the polling place/ polling station and the date of the election for which the register relates. It also states which ward the polling district is part of.
All the streets in the polling district are listed in alphabetical order. If there are a lot of people, one register might be streets A-L and the next register streets M-Z.
All the voters in a register are listed, with each having a voter number.
Each list begins at 1.
House numbers and flat numbers and post codes are given. Normally the list starts at house number 1 and works from there along the odd numbers then the voters living at the even numbers.
At the end of the register is a collection of people without addresses who no longer live in the ward – often living abroad, and people who have reason to be anonymous but who are still entitled to vote.
A political party like the Transform Party is entitled to one copy of the electoral register for free.
There are symbols printed by some names, which relate to postal votes or proxy votes or to restricted eligibility to vote. Absent voters are lightly crossed off because they were sent a ballot paper before election day and should not be given another ballot paper. But they may hand in the ballot they were sent.
People who are 18 or who are nearly 18 appear on the electoral register with their dates of birth entered. This is because the electoral register is maintained all year round and not with any election day in mind.
The list for a street is split into sections for blocks of flats, and postcodes. The number of voters and the number of households is sometimes listed.
Analysis of the electoral register will show you streets and blocks of flats where people did not bother to register to vote. If they are in poor areas, they are probably poor people. If you have the capacity, visit them on a voter registration drive.
You will also be able to detect hostels for students and nurses or old people – ripe for Transform’s message.
When you find a block of 90 flats where only 10 people registered to vote – what does that tell you?
When you find a building where only Flat 14 is registered to vote…?
THE MARKED REGISTER
When you are issued with a ballot paper, the polling clerk makes a line or other mark on the polling station register to show that you were issued with a ballot paper.
The Transform Party may purchase a copy of this marked register even if we did not stand in the election.
The marked register we buy is usually a photocopy of the original marked register. Depending on the local authority it may be purchased as photocopies or as scans.
The postal votes are almost always on an electronic list.
The postal vote marked register is always an electronic list, indicating whether the people with postal votes (“absent voters”) did or did not vote.
Analysis of the marked register will show streets and blocks of flats where virtually no-one voted. This suggests pools of discontented people where you could campaign.
Even more powerful is the postal votes marked register. These are people who were interested enough in politics, to register to vote, who did a bit more to obtain a postal vote – and then they did not vote. They are really discontented!
Priorities
Concentrating Our Forces
You rarely have the resources to do everything that you wish to do. This is “normal”.
You have priorities around time. For example, if you wish to put out a leaflet that encourages registering for postal votes you must do that in the first leaflet you put out, so everyone gets it before the deadline for registering postal votes in this election. If an area is likely to be good for us, and you intend a second canvass and a third canvass to canvass everyone, then you must get your first canvass done early.
And you need to leaflet even earlier, before your first canvass.
GOTV (Get Out The Vote) activity is in the last 48 hours before the election and on election morning.
The count is either the night of the election or the day after. Your council will tell you.
You have priorities around place. You wish to leaflet Council Tax Band A and Band B homes repeatedly.
The posh areas get the election address, and that is all. If you can’t do the posh areas, don’t fret. A & B are much more important
Each ward is divided into polling districts. Choose one or two “best” polling districts and concentrate on them. Working on good and excellent streets close together is much more productive than driving 20 minutes to one good street and then driving 15 minutes to another good street.
You have priorities around people.
You want Carol to work the Orchard estate repeatedly, so Carol gets known there as the face of Transform and can begin to build relationships in those streets.
You want Max to work the Wellington Street flats for the same reasons.
You will take Carol and Max away for other tasks, but if anything is going to be done in their patches you want Carol and Max to be among the people doing it.
You have priorities around money.
Money is usually tight. Although in theory we can pay for leaflet delivery (£16 an hour), or Royal Mail postage, these are expensive. Paying out for travel fares and even lunches for deliverers is better value.
If we have identified our core areas (Bands A and B), perhaps neglect other areas until another election.
You have priorities over the message.
Our leaflets must galvanise our potential supporters.
Something like Covid can be relevant. Comparing life expectancy or live births in your ward versus a posh ward can galvanise people. Deterioration in the local NHS or schools or roads and footpaths can galvanise people.
Leafletting Leaflets are cheap, often less than a penny each. They should be printed on recycled paper, because of our green commitment. Transform HQ will give or sell you excellent leaflets.
If the leaflets are intended to go through letterboxes, A5 is best. They are easier to put through letterboxes. Also, many people will not read anything larger than A5.
For students, school gates, and commuters, A4 may be appropriate.
Prioritise! Flats, terraces, and semis with short driveways are more likely to respond, and are easier to leaflet. One street receiving 8 leaflets is much better than 8 streets each receiving one leaflet.
Petitions will normally be national Transform petitions. Local petitions may be appropriate. Their main purpose is gaining GDPR consents, contacts, and publicity. They can be taken door to door if we do not yet have the bodies for canvassing.
Canvassing
We may not be canvassing in these elections if we do not have enough bodies. See Annexe 1 Canvassing. If you do canvass, take one polling district and do second and third canvasses. At this stage in our development, that is more useful than first canvassing areas we think will be poor.
Social Media
Do not libel anyone. Local social media is a higher priority than national. Use the GDPR consents and contact details gathered from the petitions and conversations.
School Gate, Commuter etc meetings
Anywhere voters are waiting is a good place to take your leaflets and petition and have conversations.
School Gate meetings will identify people who will leaflet their block of flats for Transform, or gain entry for Transform leafletters.
House meetings are where a friendly person invites 6-10 friends to meet you in their home.
Evidence is that meeting the candidate or meeting a person working for the candidate increases the likelihood of actually voting.
Recording Information
Most parties collect information during a campaign.
How to record it?
One is the Election Report where you write down for those following you what went right and what went wrong, with suggestions for the future. Record who took part, and what they did. You have to keep daily records of activity as otherwise you will lose information.
Who leafletted? Where?
Who let us into flats? Contact details?
Who canvassed? Where? What time and what day (so the second canvass will be a different time at a different day).
Attendance lists.
Who entered information? What?
Who took posters? Addresses?
Who hosted house meetings, or other opportunities to meet the candidate?
Who put up posters?
If you had committee rooms, who provided them?
Who gave money?
Who helped take down posters and generally helped clean up?
All this information is useful for thank you letters now, and a ready-made list of helpers for next time.
Try to make sure that the “thank you” letters are hand written. People keep these letters for decades.
The detail of who promised support, or who is opposed, or who would prefer election literature in Welsh rather than in English, or who has a postal vote is recorded against their name on the electoral roll. Along with comments like “lost son in Iraq”, NHS, OAP, child/ren, “letterboxes at rear”.
The usual codes are:
A Against
D Dangerous dog
DK don’t know
WS wont say
L for Labour
LD for Lib Dem
C for Conservative
P for Plaid Cymru
SNP
G for Green
T for Transform
DNC Do not contact. Do not assume hostile, but for reasons that seem good to them they do not wish to be contacted.
JW Jehovah’s Witness – a religious group who do not vote.
Until our new election electronic system is ready, you will have to obtain a paper copy of the electoral roll, and mark it up.
The colour codings are Orange for Transform, Red for Labour, Blue for Con, Yellow for LD, Green for Green Party, and Brown for nationalist. Improvise if you have to.
THIS INFORMATION IS CONFIDENTIAL You can be prosecuted for not keeping it confidential.
CAMPAIGN POLICY – HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL (to make sure everyone reads this)
Our target vote either votes Labour, sometimes votes Labour, normally does not vote, or has previously supported other parties.
To change the voting practices of a lifetime they must be detached from Labour and attached to Transform. A good way to do this is to take important issues and contrast the policies of the party. Side swipes at Tory, LD, etc are fine.
One wonderful leaflet is not enough. We need eight leaflets between now and the General Election.
Annexe 1 Canvassing
Canvassing
There is an immense amount of confusion about canvassing, also known as voter identification. There are four basic forms of canvassing.
CANVASSING 1. The listening canvass is where one goes to find out what voters want and think. You are not trying to persuade anyone, but simply to find out what your electors think.
By its nature, this is open ended and each interview is lengthy. You may have “prompt” questions that you ask after the person has unloaded onto you. The listening canvass often yields surprising results, because we socialists tend mainly to talk to one another.
Analysing the results of the listening canvass is very hard work. Some argue that the exercise is a waste of time – but it does get our faces on the street.
CANVASSING 2. The voter identification canvass is seeking to establish which electors are likely Transform voters. It also identifies which electors should be avoided in the run up to an election because they are never going to vote Transform. This process becomes quite sophisticated because we need to know whether the person is essentially UKIP or Green or Liberal or Tory or in some areas Nationalist. If they tell us how they voted last time we can detect trends away or towards Transform, Tory, etcetera. We can establish their hot button issues. We also identify access issues and dangerous dogs. We can note elderly people or people for whom schools or the NHS or pensions are likely to be hot button issues. At election time people who might move to us can be sent tailored leaflets.
Voter ID work enables us to gain entry to old peoples homes and other residential locations that otherwise we have no reason to enter.
If we have a candidate or a councillor they should prioritise these sites because otherwise it may be difficult to gain entry. It allows our leading person to meet people whom otherwise they would never see.
Canvassing is not about persuading. Canvassing is about identifying our support.
There may be comrades who think that canvassing involves visiting people at home and arguing with them until they say they will vote Transform. Should you identify such comrades, counsel them firmly.
“A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still”.
CANVASSING 3. Postal vote canvassing is where we go to our list of Transform voters and we ask them to sign up for postal votes. Experience has shown that the percentage of postal voters who vote is always much higher than the percentage of ordinary voters who vote in the same election. It also means that there are fewer people to “knock out” on Election Day.
Labour lost control of Bradford Council one year. If Labour could have increased the Labour vote by one half of one per cent in four wards, Labour would have held Bradford. You see now the importance of postal votes in increasing Transform turnout!
It is against the law for an election worker to be in possession of a completed postal vote form, no matter how good your motives.
CANVASSING 4. The Voter Registration canvass is as it sounds an attempt to register voters. Most local authorities try to do a good job but some are slack or understaffed. In areas of multiple occupation and high population turnover voter registration canvasses need doing every year.
TRAINING AND SUPPORT
Many canvassers are more comfortable going out in a group for mutual support.
New canvassers should always be “buddied” by more experienced comrades until they say they do not need support. Then observe them for say twenty minutes. A large team is unwieldy but the team generates huge enthusiasm and covers a large area.
Some people prefer having the canvass cards or sheets for a large area and canvassing the same group of streets year after year.
The kids shout ahead of you,
“It’s the Transform man.”
Over a few years this regular canvassing links you into that locality.
You are doing what the councillor or candidate does not have time to do, which is to visit every voter individually.
You cease to be a stranger.
People begin to trust you.
You develop information sources. You begin to build a Transform community.
You will meet good socialists while canvassing. Always carry with you information about Transform Party membership and postal votes. Will they want a poster or posters at election time? Do they wish to know about Transform events locally? Would they be willing to leaflet their street or a nearby street?
The first time that Transform canvasses an area we know nothing of the people living there.
As our information builds, we strike from our canvassing list the houses that are a waste of time.
They may be people who for religious reasons do not vote.
They may display posters for other parties. They may tell us that they are hard Tories.
The aim of canvassing is to gain information. We should not waste time on known opponents.
You will be surprised that often we do not go to the best areas first. One would think that gathering the low hanging fruit would be logical.
We sometimes go to areas that are more likely to generate new party members, are strategic in that they are along bus routes (for posters), or which we should canvass first so as not to be disheartened as the election approaches. We canvass our good areas as we get closer to the election.
One very successful operator I know starts canvassing in the best area and works towards the less good areas. Some patches in her ward are rarely canvassed. Her view is that any Transform voters in the posh houses do not need “knocking” – they will vote anyway. We should concentrate on the areas that need voter identification.
If there is capacity to canvass the “outs”, called “a second canvass”, try to do that at a different time of day or a different day in the week to the first canvass. This is why canvassing sheets have space for you to enter information about what day and what time you canvassed.
Telephone canvassing has plusses and minuses. You can get through a lot of people in a shorter time because you are not walking house to house. Over one weekend Charles voter identified 315 people by telephone. Charles was warm and dry and drinking tea while comrades were braving the weather.
You lose the body language and the eye contact.
People are happier to say “No” when you are not physically in front of them. For our less good areas, and for rural areas, telephone canvassing may well be preferable.
Entering the information onto the computer is best done by two or three competent comrades who may well do this as their major job for the party. They will sometimes flag anomalies and trends. If large numbers of “Don’t Know” are now Transform, or vice versa, this is important information. If voters are trending between UKIP and the Tories this is also useful information.
You need a good analyst to use the information already on the system to identify who should be canvassed. Perhaps the 600 Transform promises in the ward who did not vote at the last local election? Canvass them for postal votes as a priority.
If we know from our records that someone has not voted on the last eight occasions, should we canvass them? One view is “No” because they still will not vote. Canvassing them is a waste of time.
Our view in Transform is that many people have not voted because there were no good candidates. They might vote Transform.
Ask!
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