After five years of trialling new methods of voting, providing a choice of convenient voting methods is increasingly seen as the key to increasing democratic participation. For the next general election, the reality is that much greater numbers will want to vote by post, even though many may still prefer to go to a traditional polling station. For a host of reasons, many voters find postal voting more convenient.
Already the take-up of postal votes has doubled since 2001, with between eight and ten percent of voters opting for a postal vote in 2004. We also know that Labour supporters with a postal vote are four times more likely to vote than supporters voting at polling stations.
Parliamentary candidates and campaign teams now have a key role in encouraging their supporters to take up the postal voting option as a proven method of improving turnout. As our campaigning and level of contact with voters intensifies, we should encourage as many Labour supporters as possible to vote by post by offering an application form whenever we contact them.
Our approach to building up levels of postal voting should be targeted at those identified as likely to vote Labour. There are several ways to do this:
• Ask all party members to sign up to vote by post and to encourage Labour supporters within their family to sign up, too.
• In all your mailings to Labour supporters, enclose a postal vote application form and encourage supporters to use it.
• Include a question in telephone scripts for voter identification to ask identified supporters whether they want to vote by post. Follow this up by dropping off a postal vote application form.Action is also needed to ensure Labour supporters use their postal votes. With a significant level of postal votes, campaigns will have to reflect the earlier timing of voting by post. Have a ‘Get Out the Vote’ plan for postal votes and:
• Plan your timetable to make sure that postal voters receive all your campaign literature before they receive their ballot papers.
• Don’t assume voters know how to use postal votes. Send a letter with guidance on filling in the ballot paper to each Labour supporter voting by post, timed to arrive on the same day as the ballot papers.
• On polling day, check that all supporters voting by post have actually voted. If not, they can take their ballot papers to any polling station in the constituency until the poll closes.