Canvassing

For the benefit of those who don't know the term, canvassing means knocking on doors and finding out which way electors intend to vote. (We don't phone people up since a significant proportion of the electorate is registered with the TPS and it would be illegal to call them.) This has two main purposes. One is to provide an opinion poll, allowing us to find out which wards are likely to have a close result. The other is to identify our supporters. In a ward where the result is likely to be close, we send reminders to our supporters near to and on polling day. (This possibly needs a little rethinking given that postal votes are more readily available now. There's no point in reminding someone who already voted!) We can also give out party posters and recruit deliverers among previously unknown supporters.

I haven't canvassed before and the ward coordinator has not been available in the evenings to show me the ropes so I didn't start canvassing until about a week ago. However, a colleague who used to be active in the Lib Dems (to the extent of being a councillor) showed me how to do it, and I've now canvassed a few hundred houses on my own. Here's the script I'm using:

1. I ring the doorbell or knock on the door as appropriate. There are a lot of broken doorbells out there so I listen when ringing and knock as well if I don't hear anything. Occasionally I meet someone at the front of the house instead.
2. I count to 20. If I don't see or hear anyone coming, I leave a canvassing slip and walk away. The canvassing slip basically says we called and please can you vote for us. However, if someone answers the door:
3. "Good [afternoon/evening]. I'm calling on behalf of Cambridge Liberal Democrats."
   I try to hand over the canvassing slip. They may already be telling me they're not interested, though. If the door stays open:
4. "Is this the [surname] household?" or "Would you be [full name]?"
   One woman was very concerned that I knew her name. I get the names from a "canvas card" which combines a copy of the electoral register for the streets that I'm canvassing with a record of who actually voted in recent years. The reason I ask is to check whether the registered voters have moved. If the old occupants are still on the electoral register, the new ones aren't registered to vote so they shouldn't be counted. Also it's important to know not just how people say they are intending to vote this year, but whether people have changed from last year, so we don't want one person to be counted as another. There are no titles on the electoral roll so I don't attempt to guess them. The Conservatives pissed-off a lot of people recently by sending out letters with titles on which they had just guessed. Also if I'm not sure how to pronounce the surname (Akharware? Fawehinmi?) then I apologise for any mispronunciation.
5. Finally: "I wonder if we can count on your support in the coming local election?"
   What I mean is, do you intend to vote for us or for another party? It isn't simply a yes or no question; when I go away I'm supposed to be able to put the elector into one of the following 11 categories:
   • Lib Dem, Con, Lab, Grn: elector will vote for Liberal Democrat/Conservative/Labour/Green party
   • Prb: elector will probably vote for us
   • Und Con: elector is undecided between Conservatives and us
   • Und Lab: elector is undecided between Labour and us
   • Ant W/S: elector is against us and won't say anything more
   • N/V: elector will not be voting
   • M/D: elector has moved
   • Out: elector is out or unavailable

   You may notice there is no simple "undecided" above. "Undecided" doesn't give us any useful information so canvassers are supposed to work out which other party is in the running, which I try to do with a follow-up question of "have you ruled any of the other main parties out?" A few people say they're all under consideration, which seems unlikely but possible. If I get that or if I don't feel able to get another question in then I end up relying on stereotypes to guess which they'll go for. This is probably not a good thing, but I've got to pick one.

   Some people say they'll definitely/probably vote for us but don't seem quite sincere about it, so again I have to guess what category they really belong in.

6. If there's more than one elector in the household, and if I'm not being given the brush-off, I try to ask after the others. More guess-work: do I refer to them as a parent/child/SO/housemate, and would it be too familiar to use just the first name of the other person? If there are two people with the same surname and apparently opposite gender then I think I'm safe in saying wife/husband, otherwise I make a guess and pause before the word to show that I'm being tentative. If I can't find out then the other person is marked "out".
7. I don't want to hang around once I've got the information, but some people want to discuss things for an age. We do solicit "views" on the canvassing card but I don't know all the details of our policies or about every "council" decision (where the council in question might well be the county council, not the city council that is being elected this year). If someone has a specific complaint or question then I can write that down, pass it on and get a response later. One man told me he wouldn't vote because politician were all awful and then proceeded to complain, in such a strong accent I couldn't understand half of what he was saying, about every way he'd been hard-done-by by successive councils over the last 30-odd years. Yes, but what if anything is it doing wrong now? I made a warning note on the canvas card.

As usual, "out" is winning. Given that the turn-out for a local election is usually only about 30%, this seems kind of appropriate.

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Published by Ben Hutchings, Cambridge Liberal Democrats, 4 Glisson Road, Cambridge.
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