These are the figures for money raised and spent by each candidate in 2017 Saanich Council by-election. Also included is how much was donated by unions, businesses and the candidate themselves.
All amounts rounded to the nearest dollar, candidates are in order of how they finished in the election.
Candidate raised spent union business personal
Damian Kowalewich $1,626 $1,626 $0 $0 $1,126
Nathan Daisley $3,073 $2,743 $0 $0 $1,516
Adam Flint $1,915 $1,915 $0 $500 $715
Mark Brennan $0 $200 $0 $0 $0 (1)
Angela Hanes $600 $597 $0 $0 $600
Jodi Zwicker $780 $780 $0 $0 $780
1) His form shows he spent $200 but raised no money, I assume the $200 is from himself
Showing posts with label X - How to Get Elected. Show all posts
Showing posts with label X - How to Get Elected. Show all posts
Friday, February 23, 2018
Monday, November 17, 2014
Electoral Math - or why our municipal electoral system sucks
A friend asked to explain what I mean when I talk about the bad electoral math of our electoral system. So this is for Jack.
The top 4, 6 or 8 candidates in the election are elected depending on the size of the council. This sounds simple enough and it would be if we only had a single vote but we do not, we get multiple votes. You are allowed to vote up to the number of councilors there are to be elected. You do not need to vote all your votes but most people do. This is where the problem comes.
This is a quick simplistic break down of a fictional election
Let us assume we are elected 8 councilors to the council of Fort Camosun BC and there are 16 candidates of which 6 are currently on council. There are 10,000 voters casting an average of 6 votes each for a total of 60,000 votes cast. There are informal right wing and left wing slates.
Aaron - current councilor - right wing
Beth - current councilor - left wing
Carl - current councilor
Diane - current councilor - right wing
Earl - current councilor - left wing
Flora - current councilor - left wing
Gerald - right wing
Hilda - right wing
Imogen - left wing
Jack
Kurt
Lizzy
Mike
Nellie
Peter
Olivia
The right wing and left wing slates each get 2000 of their supporters to vote for their slate, they both have four candidates on their slates so each of their candidates get 2000 votes and those 4000 people (2000 for each slate) cast a further 8000 votes which is an average of 800 votes for each other candidate.
2500 people like five of the current council (randomly five, not the same five) this is worth 2,000 votes for each incumbent. 2500 votes are remaining or 250 votes for each of the other 10 candidates.
Jack through Olivia all equally bring 500 voters to the election. That is 3500 people accounting for 21,000 votes but only 3500 votes have a home. There are 17,500 votes from these supporters looking for a new home. Most of these votes will go to people they recognize the most, the incumbents. Let us assign roughly 2/3s to the incumbents because they are the best known names, that is 2000 to each one of them. The remaining 5500 are split equally among the other ten candidates
So where are at
Aaron 6,000
Beth 6,000
Diane 6,000
Earl 6,000
Flora 6,000
Carl 4,800
Gerald 2800
Hilda 2800
Imogen 2800
Jack 2100
Kurt 2100
Lizzy 2100
Mike 2100
Nellie 2100
Peter 2100
Olivia 2100
All the incumbents are elected and the two new councilors come from the slates with one slate candidate just losing.
The new candidates bring in the largest group of "extra" votes looking for a home and this benefits the best known names the most. A typical new candidate's supporters will give 1/2 vote to an incumbent for each vote the new candidate gets. The perverse reality is that often in our elections the harder work of new candidates benefits those they are trying to unseat.
Each slate only has 2000 supporters each but they keep much of their vote internal and that helps them stay near the top.
A lot of people that come to vote and are not tied to anyone's campaign will tend to vote for the names they know, the incumbents.
In real life the numbers are not this neat but you can make some realistic assumptions about how people will behave in an election when they are trying to fill their ballot with enough names.
So how can Jack win? Ideally appeal to both the left and right slates. If 2/3s of each slate's supporters like him he gains an extra 2,667 votes and at the same time takes away 500 votes from each candidate not on a slate. Jack goes from 2100 to 4,767 while the other new candidates all drop to 1600. He even passes current non-partisan incumbent Carl who is now at 4300 votes.
Jack could create a new non partisan slate with five other new candidates and hope this will keep enough votes among the newbies to deny the incumbents their normal benefit.
Jack could also become the best known name out there, ideally be a former MP, win an Oscar, spend enough money to make his name a household name, or anything else that makes his name stand out over all the others. This is really only possible if you are already rich or famous which Jack is not.
Keep in mind this is all very much simplified.
Does this help?
The top 4, 6 or 8 candidates in the election are elected depending on the size of the council. This sounds simple enough and it would be if we only had a single vote but we do not, we get multiple votes. You are allowed to vote up to the number of councilors there are to be elected. You do not need to vote all your votes but most people do. This is where the problem comes.
This is a quick simplistic break down of a fictional election
Let us assume we are elected 8 councilors to the council of Fort Camosun BC and there are 16 candidates of which 6 are currently on council. There are 10,000 voters casting an average of 6 votes each for a total of 60,000 votes cast. There are informal right wing and left wing slates.
Aaron - current councilor - right wing
Beth - current councilor - left wing
Carl - current councilor
Diane - current councilor - right wing
Earl - current councilor - left wing
Flora - current councilor - left wing
Gerald - right wing
Hilda - right wing
Imogen - left wing
Jack
Kurt
Lizzy
Mike
Nellie
Peter
Olivia
The right wing and left wing slates each get 2000 of their supporters to vote for their slate, they both have four candidates on their slates so each of their candidates get 2000 votes and those 4000 people (2000 for each slate) cast a further 8000 votes which is an average of 800 votes for each other candidate.
2500 people like five of the current council (randomly five, not the same five) this is worth 2,000 votes for each incumbent. 2500 votes are remaining or 250 votes for each of the other 10 candidates.
Jack through Olivia all equally bring 500 voters to the election. That is 3500 people accounting for 21,000 votes but only 3500 votes have a home. There are 17,500 votes from these supporters looking for a new home. Most of these votes will go to people they recognize the most, the incumbents. Let us assign roughly 2/3s to the incumbents because they are the best known names, that is 2000 to each one of them. The remaining 5500 are split equally among the other ten candidates
So where are at
Aaron 6,000
Beth 6,000
Diane 6,000
Earl 6,000
Flora 6,000
Carl 4,800
Gerald 2800
Hilda 2800
Imogen 2800
Jack 2100
Kurt 2100
Lizzy 2100
Mike 2100
Nellie 2100
Peter 2100
Olivia 2100
All the incumbents are elected and the two new councilors come from the slates with one slate candidate just losing.
The new candidates bring in the largest group of "extra" votes looking for a home and this benefits the best known names the most. A typical new candidate's supporters will give 1/2 vote to an incumbent for each vote the new candidate gets. The perverse reality is that often in our elections the harder work of new candidates benefits those they are trying to unseat.
Each slate only has 2000 supporters each but they keep much of their vote internal and that helps them stay near the top.
A lot of people that come to vote and are not tied to anyone's campaign will tend to vote for the names they know, the incumbents.
In real life the numbers are not this neat but you can make some realistic assumptions about how people will behave in an election when they are trying to fill their ballot with enough names.
So how can Jack win? Ideally appeal to both the left and right slates. If 2/3s of each slate's supporters like him he gains an extra 2,667 votes and at the same time takes away 500 votes from each candidate not on a slate. Jack goes from 2100 to 4,767 while the other new candidates all drop to 1600. He even passes current non-partisan incumbent Carl who is now at 4300 votes.
Jack could create a new non partisan slate with five other new candidates and hope this will keep enough votes among the newbies to deny the incumbents their normal benefit.
Jack could also become the best known name out there, ideally be a former MP, win an Oscar, spend enough money to make his name a household name, or anything else that makes his name stand out over all the others. This is really only possible if you are already rich or famous which Jack is not.
Keep in mind this is all very much simplified.
Does this help?
Monday, September 29, 2014
Friday, March 23, 2012
What do you need to get elected?
I was asked today on CFAX by Adam Stirling how much it would take for someone new to get elected to a council in this region. A few people asked me this on facebook and twitter as well, so here is my take on how much money you need to get elected.
I count anyone that volunteers as being the same as a $100 donation. Some people are worth a lot more and if you want you can count volunteer hours at $10 per hour if you really want to.
If you do not have the money, you can win simply by having enough people volunteer. A team of 400 volunteers should be enough to be able to win in the city of Victoria. You will still need some money, conversely, you can not win without having any volunteers if there is a competitive race.
If we look back to the November 2010 by-election in the City of Victoria, Barry Hobbis out spent Marianne Alto, but she made for it with volunteers.
- Saanich - $40,000 and 50 volunteers
- Victoria - $30,000 and 50 volunteers
- Langford - $30,000 and 50 volunteers
- Colwood and Sooke - $15,000 and 20 volunteers
- Central Saanich, Oak Bay, Sidney and Esquimalt - $10,000 and 30 volunteers
- View Royal and North Saanich - I have no idea because I am not certain how you could best use your money to reach people. Both of them are too big to know enough people personally and neither one has a good focal point to meet people.
- Metchosin and Highlands - money is not the issue, personal contact with enough people is what matters.
I count anyone that volunteers as being the same as a $100 donation. Some people are worth a lot more and if you want you can count volunteer hours at $10 per hour if you really want to.
If you do not have the money, you can win simply by having enough people volunteer. A team of 400 volunteers should be enough to be able to win in the city of Victoria. You will still need some money, conversely, you can not win without having any volunteers if there is a competitive race.
If we look back to the November 2010 by-election in the City of Victoria, Barry Hobbis out spent Marianne Alto, but she made for it with volunteers.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
The reality of the money it takes to get elected
The headline in the TC today is "New councillors' campaigns in city surpass $26,000: Concerns raised over political spending levels".
No one should be surprised that Lisa Helps, Shellie Gudgeon and Ben Isitt were the big spenders in the fall elections. The 2011 election is one of the few times in a very long time that a number of incumbents were defeated and for this to happen the new candidates needed something to place them ahead of the incumbents.
There are three different ways to get the support to get elected: notoriety, money and volunteers.
Back in the late spring and early summer of 2011 I was seriously considering running for council but I decided against it because I set $20,000 as the bottom line of committed money I had on hand before July 1st. My ideal goal was to know I had $30,000 available. I got commitments of only around $10,000 to $15,000 before my deadline. Given the fact I could not find a good campaign manager and did not have the money, I chose not to run.
Here is the list of the money spent by candidates and how they finished in the election:
There is a correlation between effort spend to get elected and results. All the incumbents had the benefit of media coverage which has always put them miles ahead of challengers. The only way a new person can overcome this is through more effort during the campaign and that means money or volunteers.
The ones that stand out because how they finished is not in sync with their spending are Geoff Young, Pam Madoff and Philippe Lucas. Geoff Young I think really benefited from his position on the bridge and how much coverage he got for that. Both Geoff and Pam benefit from being the two longest serving councillors in Victoria history. Philippe was elected in 2008 as a Green with the party name on the ballot, in 2011 he ran as an independent and did not have a lot of volunteers.
I use a rule of thumb that an active volunteer is worth about $100 in donations. 100 volunteers is worth $10,000 in donations. The candidates I saw out there with a lot of volunteers were Lisa Helps, Ben Isitt, Marianne Alto, and Rose Henry.
Two of the defeated incumbents were only on their first term, they did not have as a long a media track record as the others on council. In the case of Lynn Hunter, even though she was former MP from 1988 to 1993, she was not a very visible or vocal councillor in the media. You have to be in your 40s or older to remember as MP. If I were to judge the value of incumbency, I think is worth roughly $4000 for your first term, $2000 for your second and then $1000 per term after that to a maximum of $12,000 in value.
One thing I find interesting in this list of money spent and the votes the candidates received, I can not find any strong co-relation between being endorsed by the Victoria Labour Council or not. Alto, Helps, Hunter, Isitt, Lucas, Luton and Madoff were endorsed and even though five incumbents were endorsed, three of them were defeated.
No one should be surprised that Lisa Helps, Shellie Gudgeon and Ben Isitt were the big spenders in the fall elections. The 2011 election is one of the few times in a very long time that a number of incumbents were defeated and for this to happen the new candidates needed something to place them ahead of the incumbents.
There are three different ways to get the support to get elected: notoriety, money and volunteers.
Back in the late spring and early summer of 2011 I was seriously considering running for council but I decided against it because I set $20,000 as the bottom line of committed money I had on hand before July 1st. My ideal goal was to know I had $30,000 available. I got commitments of only around $10,000 to $15,000 before my deadline. Given the fact I could not find a good campaign manager and did not have the money, I chose not to run.
Here is the list of the money spent by candidates and how they finished in the election:
- Shellie Gudgeon $28,028.36 7th 6904 votes
- Lisa Helps $26,819.36 3rd 8523
- Ben Isitt $15,579.65 4th 8419
- Charlayne Thorton-Joe $10,776.52 2nd 8803
- Marianne Alto $10,358.00 5th 7493
- Philippe Lucas $9,674.37 11th 5719
- Chris Coleman $9,239.00 8th 6793
- Geoff Young $9,107.10 1st 8940
- John Luton $6,463.40 9th 6343
- Lynn Hunter $4,598.51 10th 6101
- Pam Madoff $4,335.00 6th 7321
- Suhki Lalli $2,564.00 13th 3993
- Rose Henry $546.46 12th 4866
- Aaron Hall $511.29 15th 2777
- John C Turner $317.94 16th 2014
- Sean Murray $195.69 19th 727
- Jon Valentine $35.00 20th 682
- Saul Anderson $0.00 18th 1055
- Linda McGrew incomplete 14th 3923
- Robin Kimpton not filed 17th 1519
There is a correlation between effort spend to get elected and results. All the incumbents had the benefit of media coverage which has always put them miles ahead of challengers. The only way a new person can overcome this is through more effort during the campaign and that means money or volunteers.
The ones that stand out because how they finished is not in sync with their spending are Geoff Young, Pam Madoff and Philippe Lucas. Geoff Young I think really benefited from his position on the bridge and how much coverage he got for that. Both Geoff and Pam benefit from being the two longest serving councillors in Victoria history. Philippe was elected in 2008 as a Green with the party name on the ballot, in 2011 he ran as an independent and did not have a lot of volunteers.
I use a rule of thumb that an active volunteer is worth about $100 in donations. 100 volunteers is worth $10,000 in donations. The candidates I saw out there with a lot of volunteers were Lisa Helps, Ben Isitt, Marianne Alto, and Rose Henry.
Two of the defeated incumbents were only on their first term, they did not have as a long a media track record as the others on council. In the case of Lynn Hunter, even though she was former MP from 1988 to 1993, she was not a very visible or vocal councillor in the media. You have to be in your 40s or older to remember as MP. If I were to judge the value of incumbency, I think is worth roughly $4000 for your first term, $2000 for your second and then $1000 per term after that to a maximum of $12,000 in value.
One thing I find interesting in this list of money spent and the votes the candidates received, I can not find any strong co-relation between being endorsed by the Victoria Labour Council or not. Alto, Helps, Hunter, Isitt, Lucas, Luton and Madoff were endorsed and even though five incumbents were endorsed, three of them were defeated.
Monday, November 21, 2011
2011 North Saanich Election Results
Mayor
Alice Finall elected by acclamation
Council
This is a shockingly close election, only 228 votes between first and last place. There were only 12 votes between 6th and 7th
Past Election Results
2010 by 2008 2005 2002 1999 1996
Alice Finall elected by acclamation
Council
- Craig Mearns 2042 (inc) - elected in 2010 by-election
- Elsie McMurphy 1990
- Conny McBride 1983
- Dunstan Browne 1975 (inc) - elected in 2010 by-electon
- Celia Stock 1957
- Ted Daly 1926
- Jack Thornburgh 1914
- Allan Collier 1896
- Ted Izard 1814
This is a shockingly close election, only 228 votes between first and last place. There were only 12 votes between 6th and 7th
Past Election Results
2010 by 2008 2005 2002 1999 1996
Friday, October 28, 2011
Elections Signs on Halloween
This is a quick post to all the candidates out there that are running.
It is very important you take down all your signs on October 31st. I have been involved in campaigning for close on 30 years and the single worst night for sign destruction is Halloween. I expect more or less all the signs on public spaces to be trashed on that night. I expect close to half of them on private property to be trashed.
The bigger coroplast signs will be spray painted, knocked down, split in two, simply disappear, or set alight. The smaller signs will be ripped and their metal frames will be bent enough so that you can not use them.
The bigger the sign, the bigger the chance it will be destroyed or defaced.
I would suggest that all the candidates with signs up seriously consider taking them all down Monday afternoon. Even if you are willing to endure the expense of the signs being destroyed, you are still the person responsible for tracking down and disposing of the wrecked signs. If you do not take them down on October 31st, your campaign will spend more time on November 1st cleaning up than the take down would have taken. If you do not clean up, you will lose votes for the mess the signs make.
I have had to clean up partially burned coroplast signs, it is a mess and a waste or your time.
Personally I would take down all the signs this afternoon and put them back up Tuesday morning. Tonight and Saturday night are going to see a lot of Halloween parties and this means that a lot of signs will get trashed this weekend as well as on October 31st.
After the election, I will happily pick up all of your metal frames for your lawn signs, my son Ben is doing a bunch of fundraisers to be able to go to a Jamboree in Scotland next summber and a scrap metal drive is one of them.
It is very important you take down all your signs on October 31st. I have been involved in campaigning for close on 30 years and the single worst night for sign destruction is Halloween. I expect more or less all the signs on public spaces to be trashed on that night. I expect close to half of them on private property to be trashed.
The bigger coroplast signs will be spray painted, knocked down, split in two, simply disappear, or set alight. The smaller signs will be ripped and their metal frames will be bent enough so that you can not use them.
The bigger the sign, the bigger the chance it will be destroyed or defaced.
I would suggest that all the candidates with signs up seriously consider taking them all down Monday afternoon. Even if you are willing to endure the expense of the signs being destroyed, you are still the person responsible for tracking down and disposing of the wrecked signs. If you do not take them down on October 31st, your campaign will spend more time on November 1st cleaning up than the take down would have taken. If you do not clean up, you will lose votes for the mess the signs make.
I have had to clean up partially burned coroplast signs, it is a mess and a waste or your time.
Personally I would take down all the signs this afternoon and put them back up Tuesday morning. Tonight and Saturday night are going to see a lot of Halloween parties and this means that a lot of signs will get trashed this weekend as well as on October 31st.
After the election, I will happily pick up all of your metal frames for your lawn signs, my son Ben is doing a bunch of fundraisers to be able to go to a Jamboree in Scotland next summber and a scrap metal drive is one of them.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Social Media, Citizen Engagement and Municipal Politics
There is forum at the Victoria Social Media Club tonight discussing the topic of social media municipal politics. I am one of the panelists because of my use of some sort ofsocial media for political campaigning in since 1999 - I can talk at length why I have come to hate Facebook.
I have become a skeptic about how useful social media is as a political campaigning tool. This is mainly because when you reach and communicate with 100 to 300 people via social media you feel like you are talking to a lot of people but in reality you are reaching almost none of your possible voters. The two way communication of social media masks the very low numbers of people you reach. In the City Victoria you need to reach 65,000 voters which is impossible via social media.
I am going to look at the 30 of the 31 candidates and one slate that Dan Pollock has managed to find Twitter feeds for and see how they are all doing. Barb Desjardins was acclaimed as mayor in Esquimalt so her feed is not a campaign tool and I am not including it.
The stats are all from this morning as I write this: I missed out two people earlier that I was already following in twitter, so this is 32 candidates and one slate.
I have become a skeptic about how useful social media is as a political campaigning tool. This is mainly because when you reach and communicate with 100 to 300 people via social media you feel like you are talking to a lot of people but in reality you are reaching almost none of your possible voters. The two way communication of social media masks the very low numbers of people you reach. In the City Victoria you need to reach 65,000 voters which is impossible via social media.
I am going to look at the 30 of the 31 candidates and one slate that Dan Pollock has managed to find Twitter feeds for and see how they are all doing. Barb Desjardins was acclaimed as mayor in Esquimalt so her feed is not a campaign tool and I am not including it.
- Dean Fortin - Victoria Mayor - 1367 followers - 250 tweets - only following 14 people
- Frank Leonard - Saanich Mayor - 966 followers - 865 tweets
- Aaron Hall - Victoria Council - 957 followers - 5875 tweets - the only really serious social media user among all the candidates running this time, he will also be on the panel with me this evening.
- Shauna Salsman - Sooke Council - 634 followers - 333 tweets - this account seems to be from her campaign as the Green candidate for Esquimalt Juan de Fuca in May.
- Jesse McClinton - Saanich Council - 486 followers - 1052 tweets
- Lillian Szpak - Langford Council - 417 followers - 369 tweets - I think this account is from when she ran to MP in Esquimalt Juan de Fuca this year
- Marianne Alto - Victoria Council - 393 followers - 115 tweets
- Lisa Helps - Victoria Council - 318 followers - 439 tweets
- Dean Murdock - Saanich Council - 308 followers - 305 tweets
- Phillipe Lucas - Victoria Council - 296 followers - 176 tweets
- Carl Jensen - Central Saanich Council - 288 followers - 244 tweets
- David Bratzer - SD#61 Board - 271 followers - 180 tweets
- Tim Morrison - Esquimalt Council - 184 followers - 54 tweets
- Rob Wickson - Saanich Council - 176 followers - 110 tweets
- Ben Isitt - Victoria Council - 172 followers - 28 tweets
- James McNulty - Central Saanich Council - 108 followers - 10 tweets
- Dave Hodgins - Esquimalt Council - 102 followers - 956 tweets - this is not a new account
- Adam Olsen - Central Saanich Council - 94 followers - 274 tweets
- Shellie Gudgeon - Victoria Council - 85 followers - 56 tweets
- Dave Bennett - Sooke Mayor - 75 followers - 52 tweets
- Grant McLachlan - Langford Council - 61 followers - 62 tweets
- Vicki Sanders - Saanich Council - 51 followers - 84 tweets
- Paul Brown - Victoria Mayor - 45 followers - 106 tweets
- Larry Cross - Sidney Mayor - 44 followers - 10 tweets
- Steve Filipovic - Victoria Mayor - 41 followers - 115 tweets
- Shari Lukens - Colwood Council - 41 followers - 57 tweets
- Tara Ney - Oak Bay Council - 39 followers - 10 tweets
- Kyara Kahakauwila - Metchosin Council - 32 followers - 12 tweets
- Open Victoria - slate for Victoria Council - 26 followers - 11 tweets - I am one of the people that tweets for this account
- Linda McGrew - Victoria Council - 23 followers - 18 tweets
- Brian Tucknott - Colwood Mayor - 16 followers - 21 tweets
- Michelle Kirby - Oak Bay Council - 13 followers - 1 tweet - very new account
- Andrew Britton - View Royal Mayor - 8 followers - 8 tweets - no account pic
For comparison, my twitter account has 1058 followers and 4499 tweets.
As you can see, almost half have fewer than 100 followers.
There is only one serious user of social media on the list - Aaron Hall. Two major local mayors top the list have been using twitter in office, but neither one often and one only as a broadcast method.
If you are trying to reach 65,000 voters in the City of Victoria, having 650 followers is only 1% of the voter base, and that assumes all the followers are from the City of Victoria. In comparison in afternoon in the Cook Street village you can shake 100 to 200 hands in person of which you can be fairly certain almost all of them can vote in the City of Victoria.
In my opinion the top six twitter users from the list:
- Aaron Hall
- Frank Leonard
- Dean Fortin
- Jesse McClinton
- Lisa Helps
- Dean Murdock
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Social Media, Citizen Engagement and Municipal Politics
This is the title of a panel being organized by the Victoria Social Media Club for Monday October 17th.
Location: David Strong building C126
Time: 6:45 pm
I will be one of the people on the panel from my role in blogging about local politics in these parts and my role with the Paul Brown and Open Victoria campaigns.
What will I be saying? Here are some first thoughts from myself.
In 2011 the expectation is that candidates will have websites, Facebook accounts, Twitter, YouTube and more, but does it really work well?
I like social media for certain purposes in campaigning, but I see the limitations of it. In the case of the City of Victoria we are trying to reach 65,000 potential voters, I do not think that with a typical social media campaign you will reach more than 1000. Facebook, Twitter and all the rest are small audiences that can feel like a lot of activity taking place and people hearing the message, but in the end your reach is not that dramatic.
Facebook is making it harder and harder to use it for any sort of political campaigning or organizing. Twitter is still very much a minority of the public and even then it is hard to keep up with the conversation.
In 2009 I saw how well the Yes to BC STV campaign did online. We vastly out preformed the No side but in the end I think we are only reaching tens of thousands, not the hundreds of thousands we needed.
There is a role for social media, but it should never be a substitute for meeting people in person.
Location: David Strong building C126
Time: 6:45 pm
I will be one of the people on the panel from my role in blogging about local politics in these parts and my role with the Paul Brown and Open Victoria campaigns.
What will I be saying? Here are some first thoughts from myself.
In 2011 the expectation is that candidates will have websites, Facebook accounts, Twitter, YouTube and more, but does it really work well?
I like social media for certain purposes in campaigning, but I see the limitations of it. In the case of the City of Victoria we are trying to reach 65,000 potential voters, I do not think that with a typical social media campaign you will reach more than 1000. Facebook, Twitter and all the rest are small audiences that can feel like a lot of activity taking place and people hearing the message, but in the end your reach is not that dramatic.
Facebook is making it harder and harder to use it for any sort of political campaigning or organizing. Twitter is still very much a minority of the public and even then it is hard to keep up with the conversation.
In 2009 I saw how well the Yes to BC STV campaign did online. We vastly out preformed the No side but in the end I think we are only reaching tens of thousands, not the hundreds of thousands we needed.
There is a role for social media, but it should never be a substitute for meeting people in person.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
My offer to anyone running in the municipal elections
I like to see people take part in the democratic process in anyway they would like. The process of democracy is more important to me than any political view points people may hold. So, here is my offers to all you candidates and potential candidates out there:
- I am more than happy to post any press release you issue on this blog - email it to me
- I am happy to sit down with you over coffee or lunch and hear about why you are running and post my thoughts here
- I am also happy to talk with anyone wanting to know more what it takes to run for office and what works well and what is not likely to work well to get elected.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Dean Murdock Fundraiser
Saanich Councilor Dean Murdock is out to the gate with a July 13th fundraiser for his re-election campaign.
Here are the details:
I can not go because I am not in town. That said, I am unlikely to go because I still think Dean is really angling to be an MLA and it concerns me that he supports the LRT idea even though the recommendation report that came out is fundamental flawed and written by a company with a conflict of interest.
My main reason in posting this is to make all of you out there that are thinking about running for council that you need to get your act gear now. I know some other sitting councilors and mayors around this region have been holding small discrete fundraisers already.
If you are not an incumbent and you are running in Saanich or Victoria, you need to raise $30,000 to have any realistic chance of winning a council seat. Incumbents need a lot less money to be able to be win re-election.
Here are the details:
I'm pleased to invite you to a summer fundraiser for my fall municipal election campaign!
Let's celebrate the summer! Come and enjoy a summer evening of drinks, appetizers, prizes, and great conversation.
Wednesday, July 13
6 - 8pm
University Club
University of Victoria
Tickets - $50 or $30 for students
For tickets or information - 250.508.4137, deanmurdock2011@gmail.com
I can not go because I am not in town. That said, I am unlikely to go because I still think Dean is really angling to be an MLA and it concerns me that he supports the LRT idea even though the recommendation report that came out is fundamental flawed and written by a company with a conflict of interest.
My main reason in posting this is to make all of you out there that are thinking about running for council that you need to get your act gear now. I know some other sitting councilors and mayors around this region have been holding small discrete fundraisers already.
If you are not an incumbent and you are running in Saanich or Victoria, you need to raise $30,000 to have any realistic chance of winning a council seat. Incumbents need a lot less money to be able to be win re-election.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
We need organized slates running for councils in this region
As long as we have no slate names on ballots there will continue to be a huge advantage for sitting incumbents in local elections. The time has come for people to get serious about having slates and ideally slates that go across municipal boundaries.
If you are in the loop, you know which people on your local council are allies and where they sit on the political spectrum, but most people are not that connected. Because of the low amount of ongoing media coverage of the councils in this region, the public really does not know what the council is doing where they live, let alone the council where they work or play. A large number of people will not go and vote in the municipal elections because they have no idea who the candidates are and what they stand for.
With the use of slates, if Bob Smith of the Civic Fruits is someone I like and back, I then know who is allies are in the race and may therefore vote for them. Without a slate I would go in vote Bob Smith and then vote for the names I recognize, almost all of those will be sitting councilors. Bob may have managed to get me to vote for him, but at the same time I am likely to have given 5/8ths of a vote on average to each of the sitting incumbents. Bob is effectively giving more than half a vote to each sitting incumbent when he goes out and campaigns.
I can hear say "but Bernard, people do not have to vote all 8 of their votes." (8 is the number of councilors in my municipality) The reality is that the large majority of people do not like to plump their ballot, which is to only vote one or couple of your votes. It is very beneficial to any candidate you really support. I know from personal experience people do not want to do this, they think it is some how unfair or not right. I ran twice for council elsewhere and suffered each time because people would not plump their ballot. This means candidates are always campaigning for others in local elections. The choice they have is to make clear who they would like to vote for or simply accept the public will vote for the incumbents.
Beyond a level playing field, slates would also boost voter turnout. Voter turnout in the last election has a close co-relation with population. Victoria, Saanich, and most of the Westshore were under 27%. Metchosin and North Saanich were over 50%. In Vancouver where there are clear slates, voter turnout has ranged from 31% to 52% over the last 30 years. Other large lower mainland municipalities have tended to do better than that Saanich and Victoria.
The use of a slate allows for a way to have the media cover the election more effectively. Right now with so many races in the region and everyone running as their own person, there is physically no way for the media to give them any real coverage. The TC and CFAX, the core of our regional media, end up only offering a small amount of coverage to the races. This lack of coverage is the major reason why during the 2008 elections this website got a lot of traffic.
A slate name that crosses municipal boundaries sends a signal of a common approach to regional issues which I think is very important within the CRD. I really doubt this will happen.
If you are running for council in Victoria, Saanich or Langford, you will actively harm your campaign if you do not get a slate name on the ballot. There is no earthly reason for a non-incumbent to run as an independent in those three municipalities unless your goal is to lose. I think that slates would be beneficial for people running in the rest of the municipalities other than Metchosin and Highlands, certainly it would do no harm to a candidate in somewhere like Oak Bay to organize a slate.
Also, is you have a slate, you need to run a full slate. Each spot you do not contest is one vote that will go to a sitting incumbent. You need the full slate to reduce the leakage of votes to the sitting councilors.
Creating a slate is easy, all it takes is to get 50 eligible electors in a municipality to join an organization before the middle of August this year. You can create a new one very easily and it does not have to be registered society, the people just have to agree they are members and you have to have a president or such.
If you are in the loop, you know which people on your local council are allies and where they sit on the political spectrum, but most people are not that connected. Because of the low amount of ongoing media coverage of the councils in this region, the public really does not know what the council is doing where they live, let alone the council where they work or play. A large number of people will not go and vote in the municipal elections because they have no idea who the candidates are and what they stand for.
With the use of slates, if Bob Smith of the Civic Fruits is someone I like and back, I then know who is allies are in the race and may therefore vote for them. Without a slate I would go in vote Bob Smith and then vote for the names I recognize, almost all of those will be sitting councilors. Bob may have managed to get me to vote for him, but at the same time I am likely to have given 5/8ths of a vote on average to each of the sitting incumbents. Bob is effectively giving more than half a vote to each sitting incumbent when he goes out and campaigns.
I can hear say "but Bernard, people do not have to vote all 8 of their votes." (8 is the number of councilors in my municipality) The reality is that the large majority of people do not like to plump their ballot, which is to only vote one or couple of your votes. It is very beneficial to any candidate you really support. I know from personal experience people do not want to do this, they think it is some how unfair or not right. I ran twice for council elsewhere and suffered each time because people would not plump their ballot. This means candidates are always campaigning for others in local elections. The choice they have is to make clear who they would like to vote for or simply accept the public will vote for the incumbents.
Beyond a level playing field, slates would also boost voter turnout. Voter turnout in the last election has a close co-relation with population. Victoria, Saanich, and most of the Westshore were under 27%. Metchosin and North Saanich were over 50%. In Vancouver where there are clear slates, voter turnout has ranged from 31% to 52% over the last 30 years. Other large lower mainland municipalities have tended to do better than that Saanich and Victoria.
The use of a slate allows for a way to have the media cover the election more effectively. Right now with so many races in the region and everyone running as their own person, there is physically no way for the media to give them any real coverage. The TC and CFAX, the core of our regional media, end up only offering a small amount of coverage to the races. This lack of coverage is the major reason why during the 2008 elections this website got a lot of traffic.
A slate name that crosses municipal boundaries sends a signal of a common approach to regional issues which I think is very important within the CRD. I really doubt this will happen.
If you are running for council in Victoria, Saanich or Langford, you will actively harm your campaign if you do not get a slate name on the ballot. There is no earthly reason for a non-incumbent to run as an independent in those three municipalities unless your goal is to lose. I think that slates would be beneficial for people running in the rest of the municipalities other than Metchosin and Highlands, certainly it would do no harm to a candidate in somewhere like Oak Bay to organize a slate.
Also, is you have a slate, you need to run a full slate. Each spot you do not contest is one vote that will go to a sitting incumbent. You need the full slate to reduce the leakage of votes to the sitting councilors.
Creating a slate is easy, all it takes is to get 50 eligible electors in a municipality to join an organization before the middle of August this year. You can create a new one very easily and it does not have to be registered society, the people just have to agree they are members and you have to have a president or such.
Monday, March 07, 2011
Running for Council
The November elections for councils in this region is just over nine months away. If you have any interest in getting elected to a council you need to get serious now with your planning. Here are some suggestions to help potential candidates:
If you are running in Saanich or Victoria here are some things to keep in mind:
If you are running in Oak Bay, Colwood, Esquimalt or Sidney
If you are running in North Saanich, Central Saanich or Langford
If you are running in Metchosin or Highlands
If you are running in Sooke
If you are running in View Royal
If you are running for the School Boards
If you are running in Saanich or Victoria here are some things to keep in mind:
- Beating the incumbents is very, very hard to do. The incumbents will not formally say if they are running or not till well into the fall. Best to assume they are all running and you have a huge hill to climb. You need to make the decision to be in the race before July 1st to have any realistic hope.
- You need to get your name out there in the public realm now, people need to know who you are long before election day. How can you do this? Call into CFAX, there are a lot of issues out there that they cover everyday. Write letters to the editor for the TC, Victoria or Saanich News, and Monday Magazine. Do not forget monthly magazines like Douglas and Focus. Offer an op-ed piece to the TC - 700 words on an issue that matters in this region. Take part in online groups like Vibrant Victoria. If people do not know your name by labour day, you really have no chance to get elected.
- You need to start finding your team. You need to be comfortable going to your friends and family and telling them point blank you will need their help and you will need a lot of help from them. You need someone to fundraise for you, you need someone to manage your campaign, you need someone to find volunteers.
- You need to raise money, a lot more than you think. You really need to have someone that can find money for you, that can organize fundraising events. If you honestly want a chance to get elected to Victoria or Saanich councils you need the money to have ads on CFAX and other radio stations. You need to be able to have at least 1000 signs. You need 50,000 or so decent brochures. You realistically need a minimum of $15,000 in the bank before labour day. You should not be surprised if you need to spend $30,000. You need to be running campaign fundraisers all summer, no holiday time for you this year.
- You need to have your campaign manager in place before July 1st and they have to available 24/7 from then till election day. You will not win if you do not have a campaign manager.
- You have to be able to fill the streets and airwaves with your name the day your nomination is submitted. 1000 signs out there and ads on the radio stations.
- You will not have enough volunteers to run a voter ID campaign unless you create a slate and share resources.
If you are running in Oak Bay, Colwood, Esquimalt or Sidney
- You have few easy ways to access the people in your community other than one on one. All three are small enough that a decent voter ID and election day campaign is what can help you win.
- Getting your name out at local meetings and in the local Black News Group paper is important.
- You do have to have your team and your system in place before labour day.
- You will need a couple of thousand dollars to have signs and brochures.
- You need to be able to contact about 300 to 400 voters per day for the month before the election and know if they are voting for you or not.
- You need a lot of people on election day to be able to ensure your supporters voted. You should have 20 or more people on election day.
If you are running in North Saanich, Central Saanich or Langford
- These municipalities all currently see very strong divides in the community. Either you are on one side or the other if you want to get elected. Even then, if you are on the wrong side you will lose no matter what you do.
- Honestly, the only tactic that will work in these three to counter the incumbents is to create a formal slate and run a strong group for all the positions and mayor.
If you are running in Metchosin or Highlands
- You should know your chances on your own, and there is little I can tell you that will help you. These two municipalities are unique and it is all about knowing your neighbours.
- Sooke is far enough away from the core of the region that it has a different political nature. It is much more like a local election in a small stand alone town. The thing that matters in this sort of election is personally meeting as many people as possible. You need to hang out at the coffee shops and bars to meet the public.
- I have run twice for council in this sort of town and I know exactly what my weakness was, I was simply too new to town and not enough people knew me personally. I came fifth the second time, there are four council positions in Lillooet. I outspent my competition, I did better than three of the incumbents, but I could not do as well as several long time locals that were running for the first time. One of them was my neighbour I talked into running.
If you are running in View Royal
- The election in View Royal have not been heavily contested in the past. It is also a very, very hard municipality to campaign in because there is no real core and no place the people gather. You also have no local media to work with. That said, View Royal has had elections that were acclamations in the past.
- View Royal turn out was very low last time around, barely more people voted in View Royal than in Highlands even though it has four times as many people. View Royal has a turn out more like Saanich than like Sooke or Sidney. This means a lot more people you talk to will not be voting.
- You need to go door to door and you will need signs, some big ones (8'x4') for the top ten corners is crucial
If you are running for the School Boards
- All I can ask is why? They have few real powers, they are really only a rubber stamp for the district superintendent, and they have become a platform for people to fight with the province.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
2011 Municipal Elections
(added on November 19th 2011 - on the right hand side of the page you will see links to pages with all the information you are seeking on the candidates running)
Anyone interested in getting elected to a local council in this region needs to start now building a team and plan how to get elected.
Non-incumbents need to be active long before the incumbents officially announce they are running for election. If you wait till when the sitting councilors announce it is like having to run a marathon when the sitting councilors are running a 10K.
If you want to get elected in Victoria or Saanich and need to defeat an incumbent, you should be aiming to have a campaign manager, a volunteer manager and a fundraiser in place before April 1st. You also want to have $30,000 to $40,000 in the bank before labour day and a list of 200 volunteers.
For signs to have an impact in an election, you need about 1000 on private lawns. This many signs will cost $4000 and will need to be ordered long before the election.
You also need to personally shake a lot of hands, a huge number of hands. It may seem daunting to try and meet 10,000, but it makes a difference and is one of the few tools at your disposal to make a difference.
Running for council in this region is a harder task than running to be MLA or MP. Even vacant seats on councils are hard to win and will tend to be won by the best know name on the ballot.
Barry Hobbis rare one of the most professional campaigns I have seen for council, but he lost. He needed more volunteers and more money. Mat Wright deserves a lot of credit for running a strong campaign, but still they fell short, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. In politics no one cares about anyone other than the person that won.
Anyone interested in getting elected to a local council in this region needs to start now building a team and plan how to get elected.
Non-incumbents need to be active long before the incumbents officially announce they are running for election. If you wait till when the sitting councilors announce it is like having to run a marathon when the sitting councilors are running a 10K.
If you want to get elected in Victoria or Saanich and need to defeat an incumbent, you should be aiming to have a campaign manager, a volunteer manager and a fundraiser in place before April 1st. You also want to have $30,000 to $40,000 in the bank before labour day and a list of 200 volunteers.
For signs to have an impact in an election, you need about 1000 on private lawns. This many signs will cost $4000 and will need to be ordered long before the election.
You also need to personally shake a lot of hands, a huge number of hands. It may seem daunting to try and meet 10,000, but it makes a difference and is one of the few tools at your disposal to make a difference.
Running for council in this region is a harder task than running to be MLA or MP. Even vacant seats on councils are hard to win and will tend to be won by the best know name on the ballot.
Barry Hobbis rare one of the most professional campaigns I have seen for council, but he lost. He needed more volunteers and more money. Mat Wright deserves a lot of credit for running a strong campaign, but still they fell short, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. In politics no one cares about anyone other than the person that won.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Campaigning
Last night I went to the Barry Hobbis fundraising event at the Bard and Banker. I am very pleased to see that Barry and his team are taking the election seriously. There were about 40-45 people there that had paid $50 each for free food and booze. I hate to be critical of the event, but I am going to be because I want to see everyone run a better campaign when running for council.
In 2008 Barry ran for council as a one man band and did generially OK compared to the other people that lost, but he was way outside of the money. This time around Barry is the first one of the mark and is running a real campaign. Still with a long lead since he announced, his campaign on the ground has not been in evidence. I would have recommended he and team had been out door knocking since July and really no later than Labour day. He had a team and he had a time lead but he allowed this to be lost. I would have also hosted the fundraising event in July, not now.
At the event there was not any moment in which Barry gathered the people there together and addressed them. There was no one there making sure everyone there was committing to helping with the campaign. There was no one there asking for $500 to $1000 donations. Given the look of the crowd, there were some people there that could give that much.
As an aside, the crowd was old, as a 45 year old I felt like I was the youth movement there. This is not Barry's fault, it is simply a reality of politics these days, the people that come out are older and older each and every year.
If anyone tells you "You need to run for council a few times for your name to be known and before you can elected", you are listening to someone giving you bad advice. Yes, people need to know your name, but almost no one in this City remembers even a handful of the names of the people that ran and lost in 2008, let alone 2005. Name recognition matters but you do not get that from running for council. You should be able to do that in your election campaign.
A candidate should expect to effectively have no life other than meeting with the public for the month in the lead up to the election. This hard for someone with a 9-5 job, but if you have one of those odds are you will not be able to sit on council in any case. A candidate should be shaking hands for close to 12 hours a day 7 days a week during the campaign.
In 2008 way too many ran for council in this region with no team and spent their own money on the election. A lot of people were elected despite these huge errors. Here are some things anyone running for council needs to be thinking about.
1) You need to have a campaign manager - you have to have to someone that organizes where you are campaigning, organizing fundraising events, delegating tasks to volunteers, planning print materials, working with the media. Basically the campaign manager does everything expect shake hands. The idea is that this one person makes sure the candidate does not waste time doing other than meeting people.
2) If you are spending your own money, then you are not getting donations. If you are not getting donations this is a good indication of how strong your support is. Running for Victoria City Council you should be expect to be able to raise $50 from 200 people or $20 from 500. If you can not do this you really have to ask yourself why you expect people will vote for you. If you support is so weak that people will not give you money, you are wasting your time.
Ideally you need someone to ask for money for you. You need someone that can contact all your friends and relatives and ask them for money for your campaign. This person has to be someone that will not accept no as an answer and pushes early to raise a lot of money.
3) Volunteer manager - if you have a campaign manager and someone to raise money, next you need someone to organize people willing to support your campaign by volunteering. This is a big job because once you are over 15-20 supporters, it takes someone fulltime to contact people and knowing what jobs people are doing and when they are being done. The volunteer manager also looks for more volunteers.
In an election you should be aiming to have one volunteer per 300 voters as a minimum. I know that is very hard to reach and almost no one running for council can get organized well enough and early enough to do this. If can get to this level, you can run an election day campaign to get out the vote. In a municipal campaign in Victoria this is worth several thousand votes, possibly as much as 5000 votes. In a provincial or federal election it is worth much less. The reason for this difference is because a lot more people might or might not vote in a municipal election and are typically not as certain in their voting decision. You can get a lot of people to vote that would not have voted. An E-Day campaign takes a lot of work and a lot of volunteers and has to be something you plan for from the start of the campaign.
4) The partner of the candidate has a special role, they are there to take care of all of the personal needs of the candidate, they are the ones that drive them to where they are going, makes sure they have breakfast ready when they get up, that all the cooking, cleaning and housework is done. They are the ones that make sure the candidate can campaign for 12 hours a day and not burn out. They are also the person the candidate can vent at and complain to about what is going on.
The partner of a candidate should not under any circumstance be the campaign manager or some senior role in the campaign.
5) Build a team - it is amazing how few election campaigns build a real team. A strong team builds energy and enthuses everyone to do more, to make that extra push to get the votes needed.
6) Canadians are polite liars. People ask for a leaflet or brochure so that they can get you to leave them alone, the odds that they are going to actually read it is very, very low. Many people will imply in a round about way that they will support you in the election, you have to take this with a grain of salt because most people do not want to be rude and tell you they are not voting for you.
You can get elected to local council by doing none of the things I have listed but it means that the election comes down to who has a better known name than anything else. In 2008 Lynn Hunter was elected to City Council because she was well known to the public from having been an MP, not because she campaigned well and she is only one of many examples from around the region and did no better or no worse than the vast majority of people running.
If you have a strong campaign that is well organized you can win in any election to council against long time incumbents. You will know you have had a good campaign if you as the candidate have shaken more hands than people that vote in the election.
In 2008 Barry ran for council as a one man band and did generially OK compared to the other people that lost, but he was way outside of the money. This time around Barry is the first one of the mark and is running a real campaign. Still with a long lead since he announced, his campaign on the ground has not been in evidence. I would have recommended he and team had been out door knocking since July and really no later than Labour day. He had a team and he had a time lead but he allowed this to be lost. I would have also hosted the fundraising event in July, not now.
At the event there was not any moment in which Barry gathered the people there together and addressed them. There was no one there making sure everyone there was committing to helping with the campaign. There was no one there asking for $500 to $1000 donations. Given the look of the crowd, there were some people there that could give that much.
As an aside, the crowd was old, as a 45 year old I felt like I was the youth movement there. This is not Barry's fault, it is simply a reality of politics these days, the people that come out are older and older each and every year.
If anyone tells you "You need to run for council a few times for your name to be known and before you can elected", you are listening to someone giving you bad advice. Yes, people need to know your name, but almost no one in this City remembers even a handful of the names of the people that ran and lost in 2008, let alone 2005. Name recognition matters but you do not get that from running for council. You should be able to do that in your election campaign.
A candidate should expect to effectively have no life other than meeting with the public for the month in the lead up to the election. This hard for someone with a 9-5 job, but if you have one of those odds are you will not be able to sit on council in any case. A candidate should be shaking hands for close to 12 hours a day 7 days a week during the campaign.
In 2008 way too many ran for council in this region with no team and spent their own money on the election. A lot of people were elected despite these huge errors. Here are some things anyone running for council needs to be thinking about.
1) You need to have a campaign manager - you have to have to someone that organizes where you are campaigning, organizing fundraising events, delegating tasks to volunteers, planning print materials, working with the media. Basically the campaign manager does everything expect shake hands. The idea is that this one person makes sure the candidate does not waste time doing other than meeting people.
2) If you are spending your own money, then you are not getting donations. If you are not getting donations this is a good indication of how strong your support is. Running for Victoria City Council you should be expect to be able to raise $50 from 200 people or $20 from 500. If you can not do this you really have to ask yourself why you expect people will vote for you. If you support is so weak that people will not give you money, you are wasting your time.
Ideally you need someone to ask for money for you. You need someone that can contact all your friends and relatives and ask them for money for your campaign. This person has to be someone that will not accept no as an answer and pushes early to raise a lot of money.
3) Volunteer manager - if you have a campaign manager and someone to raise money, next you need someone to organize people willing to support your campaign by volunteering. This is a big job because once you are over 15-20 supporters, it takes someone fulltime to contact people and knowing what jobs people are doing and when they are being done. The volunteer manager also looks for more volunteers.
In an election you should be aiming to have one volunteer per 300 voters as a minimum. I know that is very hard to reach and almost no one running for council can get organized well enough and early enough to do this. If can get to this level, you can run an election day campaign to get out the vote. In a municipal campaign in Victoria this is worth several thousand votes, possibly as much as 5000 votes. In a provincial or federal election it is worth much less. The reason for this difference is because a lot more people might or might not vote in a municipal election and are typically not as certain in their voting decision. You can get a lot of people to vote that would not have voted. An E-Day campaign takes a lot of work and a lot of volunteers and has to be something you plan for from the start of the campaign.
4) The partner of the candidate has a special role, they are there to take care of all of the personal needs of the candidate, they are the ones that drive them to where they are going, makes sure they have breakfast ready when they get up, that all the cooking, cleaning and housework is done. They are the ones that make sure the candidate can campaign for 12 hours a day and not burn out. They are also the person the candidate can vent at and complain to about what is going on.
The partner of a candidate should not under any circumstance be the campaign manager or some senior role in the campaign.
5) Build a team - it is amazing how few election campaigns build a real team. A strong team builds energy and enthuses everyone to do more, to make that extra push to get the votes needed.
6) Canadians are polite liars. People ask for a leaflet or brochure so that they can get you to leave them alone, the odds that they are going to actually read it is very, very low. Many people will imply in a round about way that they will support you in the election, you have to take this with a grain of salt because most people do not want to be rude and tell you they are not voting for you.
You can get elected to local council by doing none of the things I have listed but it means that the election comes down to who has a better known name than anything else. In 2008 Lynn Hunter was elected to City Council because she was well known to the public from having been an MP, not because she campaigned well and she is only one of many examples from around the region and did no better or no worse than the vast majority of people running.
If you have a strong campaign that is well organized you can win in any election to council against long time incumbents. You will know you have had a good campaign if you as the candidate have shaken more hands than people that vote in the election.
Monday, February 09, 2009
New rules for running for Victoria City council
I am glad to see that the council has chosen to make it a bit harder for people to get onto the ballot. The small deposit would not be a hardship for anyone seriously running for office since you have to raise about $5000 to $10 000 to have reasonable chance of getting elected.
The number of signatures is too low in my opinion. The signature number should be in the range of 500 to 1000. If you are serious about running for election and winning, you need a team of people working with you and a higher number of signatures is completely realistic.
The new rules may be enough to make the number of candidates in the City of Victoria closer to a more realistic number for people to have a chance to make a well informed decision. Having in excess of 30 candidates means even the most diligent people have little chance of actually being able to learn about all the people running.
Having people on the ballot that have no intention of trying to get elected does no one any favours. Putting a barrier to getting on the ballot that requires some work is completely reasonable. If you can not overcome this first test of getting elected, then you have lost the election.
Personally I would like to see the city move to an election by STV. Raise the number of councilors to ten and group them in two five member STV ridings or wards. The current system of vote for up to eight and the top finishers win is the worst electoral system out there. It makes it hard for new people to get elected and favours incumbents unless it has political parties like in Vancouver. Once you have parties, you end up typically throughing out almost everyone from one election to the next.
To do this, the provincial government would have to change the law for local governments to allow them to control their own electoral process.
The number of signatures is too low in my opinion. The signature number should be in the range of 500 to 1000. If you are serious about running for election and winning, you need a team of people working with you and a higher number of signatures is completely realistic.
The new rules may be enough to make the number of candidates in the City of Victoria closer to a more realistic number for people to have a chance to make a well informed decision. Having in excess of 30 candidates means even the most diligent people have little chance of actually being able to learn about all the people running.
Having people on the ballot that have no intention of trying to get elected does no one any favours. Putting a barrier to getting on the ballot that requires some work is completely reasonable. If you can not overcome this first test of getting elected, then you have lost the election.
Personally I would like to see the city move to an election by STV. Raise the number of councilors to ten and group them in two five member STV ridings or wards. The current system of vote for up to eight and the top finishers win is the worst electoral system out there. It makes it hard for new people to get elected and favours incumbents unless it has political parties like in Vancouver. Once you have parties, you end up typically throughing out almost everyone from one election to the next.
To do this, the provincial government would have to change the law for local governments to allow them to control their own electoral process.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Getting Elected - What You Need To Do
I was asked in a comment to post on what I would do to get elected. I will give my thoughts on what it takes to get elected to a mid sized local government such as Victoria or Saanich.
What I am writing applies to people that are not incumbents. You can read here how well incumbents did in 2008 in the Greater Victoria area.
You need a team.
No one can manage to run in an election and have any chance of getting elected unless you have a team behind you. You need at least 30 to 50 people willing to help you get elected, more people than that would be better. 200 is a reasonable number to try and aim for as a team of supporters.
First person you need on your team is a campaign manager. This person needs to be in place long before the election and needs to be in full control of the campaign. You have to find someone you trust to surrender control of the campaign to. The campaign manager will get the leaflets designed and printed, will look after the schedule, will seek media, will manage the money, will keep you from burning out. This is not something to debate, you should never run your campaign because your job is to meet people and get elected. Someone else has to take on everything else and you have to defer to them.
The second person you need is a fundraiser. You need someone long before the election that is willing to call all your friends and family and get money from them for your campaign. This person has to focus on getting you the money to run a real campaign and have it in the bank by labour day.
The third person you need is a volunteer coordinator. If you have a team of more than 30 people, someone has to keep them in order and keep them doing useful tasks.
The fourth person you need is a media person. This person will write for you, they will put out press releases, letter to the editor and more. They will also coordinate your online presence.
Name Recognition
If no one knows who you are, there is no chance of getting elected. If someone is serious about trying to get elected in 2011, they need to start now and get their name out into the public realm.
Name recognition has to be more than just people knowing your name, they have to have some idea of who you are and what you are about. You need to promote yourself constantly.
You have to figure out how to stand out in the crowd. You have to be noticed. Media stunts are always good. Have a group of people sit down over beers and come up with one new and innovative thing your campaign can do each week.
Get prominent people to endorse you. Their name will give you standing among people that know them. Make sure you let people know who is endorsing you. Even better is if you can get them to introduce you to their network of friends.
Money
You need enough money to have a presence in the campaign, but you also need to have that money in place before the election starts.
Having signs up early and on lawns is important. Signs cost money and take time to be made.
You need to get 100 000 to 200 000 leaflets/brochures made. You need them ready early and you need to get them out to people. There are over 60 000 voters in Victoria and each person needs to get your brochure. Many people need to see several things from you before they remember you.
Advertising in the media - early in the campaign it makes a big difference, later it is lost with everyone else. A full page ad in the TC in mid October will make people take notice and push you to the top of the list of potential winning candidates.
Minimum of $10 000 is what you need, $20 000 would be better.
Personal Contact
You need to meet as many people as possible and you need to make sure they remember you. If you can get 8000 to 9000 people remember you, you have a strong chance of getting elected.
You have about 30 seconds to make an impression, be certain of what you say in that time. You need to have a clear and comfortable short message you can say in that time - this is not the time to ad lib. You may need to have four of five different ones depending on who you are meeting.
You can personally meet about 300 to 400 people a day. In a month you can reach your goal of 9000 people. It is a brutal process to meet that many people, but if you can do it, you can win.
Always campaign with several other people and have them intervene and talk to anyone wanting to talk more than a minute. In an election you do not have time to sit and talk with each person out there for fifteen minutes.
Answering questionnaires is not meeting people, it is tool used by many candidates to get away from the grind of shaking hands and meeting people.
All candidates meetings are not useful if you have a huge list of people running. Taking an evening to go to a venue where you speak for at most a few minutes to a crowd of people that has mainly made up their mind is not an effective use of your time. In three hours you can shake as many hands in a location like the Cook Street village as the whole audience at an all candidates meeting.
Voting Strategies
One of the downfalls of running in the local elections is that a person that votes for you also tends to vote for a lot of your competitors. If you do nothing about this, every vote you bring in will give the sitting incumbents about half a vote. In Victoria in the last election the average person voted for six council candidates. Each vote you get is five for the competition. You become the author of your own defeat. There are two ways to deal with this.
First strategy is to ask people to only vote for you and no one else. This is called plumping and is very important in making sure you gain ground in the election. You have to make sure your core supporters only mark you on the ballot. Getting 500 ballots without sharing your vote is vital to gaining ground on the others. People will not like this and think it is an unfair tactic - I know this from elections in ran in 1999 and 2002 when I was the top loser each time. I asked people to only vote for me and met resistance from my closest friends.
The second strategy is a much better and that is to run as a slate. If you are running with three to seven other people, you know that a large portion of your extra votes are going to your allies. At the same time their extra votes are coming towards you. You are managing the extra votes to you and your allies benefit. A slate with the name on the ballot will do best of all with this. To get a slate name on the ballot, the group has to be together and have 50 supporters by the start of August.
Find This Book
If you can, find Tony Gargrave's "How to Win an Election: The Complete Practical Guide to Organizinf and Winning any Election Campaign"
Tony was a CCF/NDP MLA for about 20 years. The book is not recent, but the advice is all still completely relevant. I lent out my copy some years ago to someone and have no idea where it is.
Your campaign manager should read this book and understand it.
Plan Early
Trying to get elected is not something you can decide to do at the last minute. It takes time to put a campaign together, to find the volunteers and to raise the money. If you are thinking about running in 2011, you need have your campaign in place and ready by the end of the spring in 2011. You need to start floating the idea past people long before then.
Ordering election materials and signs over the summer means it is ready on day one and odds are you can get a better price.
Test Yourself
You need to know if you can campaign, it is not easy for most of us to do and you need to know if you can do it. Here are some tests:
Final Comments
I have run for local office three times and lost three times. I know I do not like to do the shaking of hands thing. I am an introvert by nature and I have a thin skin, two reasons I am unlikely to ever run for office again.
The public does not like to disappoint candidates so will often say they support you or will fudge their words so you think they are supporting you when in fact they are not going to. You have to accept that people are being less than truthful with you.
I have been a campaign manager four times and I enjoyed it a lot more than being the candidate. Consider being the campaign manager for someone you like and want to support, it takes a lot of time during an election but you get to have a strong personal impact on the election and council.
Even if you do everything I said above, your odds of getting elected are not great. Losing really sucks, it feels like a public snubbing. I ran twice in a small town and it was much more personal when I lost because I knew everyone.
What I am writing applies to people that are not incumbents. You can read here how well incumbents did in 2008 in the Greater Victoria area.
You need a team.
No one can manage to run in an election and have any chance of getting elected unless you have a team behind you. You need at least 30 to 50 people willing to help you get elected, more people than that would be better. 200 is a reasonable number to try and aim for as a team of supporters.
First person you need on your team is a campaign manager. This person needs to be in place long before the election and needs to be in full control of the campaign. You have to find someone you trust to surrender control of the campaign to. The campaign manager will get the leaflets designed and printed, will look after the schedule, will seek media, will manage the money, will keep you from burning out. This is not something to debate, you should never run your campaign because your job is to meet people and get elected. Someone else has to take on everything else and you have to defer to them.
The second person you need is a fundraiser. You need someone long before the election that is willing to call all your friends and family and get money from them for your campaign. This person has to focus on getting you the money to run a real campaign and have it in the bank by labour day.
The third person you need is a volunteer coordinator. If you have a team of more than 30 people, someone has to keep them in order and keep them doing useful tasks.
The fourth person you need is a media person. This person will write for you, they will put out press releases, letter to the editor and more. They will also coordinate your online presence.
Name Recognition
If no one knows who you are, there is no chance of getting elected. If someone is serious about trying to get elected in 2011, they need to start now and get their name out into the public realm.
Name recognition has to be more than just people knowing your name, they have to have some idea of who you are and what you are about. You need to promote yourself constantly.
You have to figure out how to stand out in the crowd. You have to be noticed. Media stunts are always good. Have a group of people sit down over beers and come up with one new and innovative thing your campaign can do each week.
Get prominent people to endorse you. Their name will give you standing among people that know them. Make sure you let people know who is endorsing you. Even better is if you can get them to introduce you to their network of friends.
Money
You need enough money to have a presence in the campaign, but you also need to have that money in place before the election starts.
Having signs up early and on lawns is important. Signs cost money and take time to be made.
You need to get 100 000 to 200 000 leaflets/brochures made. You need them ready early and you need to get them out to people. There are over 60 000 voters in Victoria and each person needs to get your brochure. Many people need to see several things from you before they remember you.
Advertising in the media - early in the campaign it makes a big difference, later it is lost with everyone else. A full page ad in the TC in mid October will make people take notice and push you to the top of the list of potential winning candidates.
Minimum of $10 000 is what you need, $20 000 would be better.
Personal Contact
You need to meet as many people as possible and you need to make sure they remember you. If you can get 8000 to 9000 people remember you, you have a strong chance of getting elected.
You have about 30 seconds to make an impression, be certain of what you say in that time. You need to have a clear and comfortable short message you can say in that time - this is not the time to ad lib. You may need to have four of five different ones depending on who you are meeting.
You can personally meet about 300 to 400 people a day. In a month you can reach your goal of 9000 people. It is a brutal process to meet that many people, but if you can do it, you can win.
Always campaign with several other people and have them intervene and talk to anyone wanting to talk more than a minute. In an election you do not have time to sit and talk with each person out there for fifteen minutes.
Answering questionnaires is not meeting people, it is tool used by many candidates to get away from the grind of shaking hands and meeting people.
All candidates meetings are not useful if you have a huge list of people running. Taking an evening to go to a venue where you speak for at most a few minutes to a crowd of people that has mainly made up their mind is not an effective use of your time. In three hours you can shake as many hands in a location like the Cook Street village as the whole audience at an all candidates meeting.
Voting Strategies
One of the downfalls of running in the local elections is that a person that votes for you also tends to vote for a lot of your competitors. If you do nothing about this, every vote you bring in will give the sitting incumbents about half a vote. In Victoria in the last election the average person voted for six council candidates. Each vote you get is five for the competition. You become the author of your own defeat. There are two ways to deal with this.
First strategy is to ask people to only vote for you and no one else. This is called plumping and is very important in making sure you gain ground in the election. You have to make sure your core supporters only mark you on the ballot. Getting 500 ballots without sharing your vote is vital to gaining ground on the others. People will not like this and think it is an unfair tactic - I know this from elections in ran in 1999 and 2002 when I was the top loser each time. I asked people to only vote for me and met resistance from my closest friends.
The second strategy is a much better and that is to run as a slate. If you are running with three to seven other people, you know that a large portion of your extra votes are going to your allies. At the same time their extra votes are coming towards you. You are managing the extra votes to you and your allies benefit. A slate with the name on the ballot will do best of all with this. To get a slate name on the ballot, the group has to be together and have 50 supporters by the start of August.
Find This Book
If you can, find Tony Gargrave's "How to Win an Election: The Complete Practical Guide to Organizinf and Winning any Election Campaign"
Tony was a CCF/NDP MLA for about 20 years. The book is not recent, but the advice is all still completely relevant. I lent out my copy some years ago to someone and have no idea where it is.
Your campaign manager should read this book and understand it.
Plan Early
Trying to get elected is not something you can decide to do at the last minute. It takes time to put a campaign together, to find the volunteers and to raise the money. If you are thinking about running in 2011, you need have your campaign in place and ready by the end of the spring in 2011. You need to start floating the idea past people long before then.
Ordering election materials and signs over the summer means it is ready on day one and odds are you can get a better price.
Test Yourself
You need to know if you can campaign, it is not easy for most of us to do and you need to know if you can do it. Here are some tests:
- Next time your are sick, go out for a 2 hour walk and pleasantly greet everyone you meet. No election stops for your illness and once you are council you are not expected to take sick days.
- Find a venue with a lot of people milling about and spend an hour shaking people's hands and introducing yourself. You can say you are thinking of running for council and would like their thoughts on the city or something else. The test is to see if you can really go up to strangers and introduce yourself.
- Make a list of ten friends and family and then call them and ask if they would be willing to donate $100 to you if you run for council. If you can not ask, you are going to have a lot of trouble raising the money you need. If you can not ask for $100 with a straight face, you will have trouble raising money. If you ask and they say no, you are not going to have the support you need to get elected.
- Find a councilor and shadow them for a week and see what is involved with being on council. It is much more than the council meetings. If the work load is too much for you or the type of work is not something you like you know it is not something you should do.
Final Comments
I have run for local office three times and lost three times. I know I do not like to do the shaking of hands thing. I am an introvert by nature and I have a thin skin, two reasons I am unlikely to ever run for office again.
The public does not like to disappoint candidates so will often say they support you or will fudge their words so you think they are supporting you when in fact they are not going to. You have to accept that people are being less than truthful with you.
I have been a campaign manager four times and I enjoyed it a lot more than being the candidate. Consider being the campaign manager for someone you like and want to support, it takes a lot of time during an election but you get to have a strong personal impact on the election and council.
Even if you do everything I said above, your odds of getting elected are not great. Losing really sucks, it feels like a public snubbing. I ran twice in a small town and it was much more personal when I lost because I knew everyone.
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