On December 19, 2011 by Henry Hill
Originally written as a post-election column for London Spin.
Henry Hill, Chief Reporter
One of the most embarrassing things about last year’s election was the risible turnout. Howlett won the Chairmanship with 113 votes – which admittedly towered over the 60-something Cox received.
On top of the overall turnout being poor, the ballot generated considerable ill-feeling, with many people who wanted to vote not receiving ballot papers.
So the executive determined to make a change and this year we shifted to online voting. Without having to fuss over paper ballots, surely everything would be smoother and many more people would be able to vote?
It sort of worked. Turnout was certainly well up on last year (figures courtesy of Tory Bear) – in the case of the national chairman position they more than tripled. The other positions also received more votes each than the Chairman’s race last time.
Yet turnout in the low to mid-hundreds is still disappointing given Conservative Future’s theoretically huge membership.
Moreover, most of the supposedly fantastic increase in turnout stems from the fact that we’re measuring from last election, which was a massive slump that skews the figures. Taking the information that Patrick Sullivan supplied
London Spin and adding in the year Sullivan left out, a new graph shows that online voting has only added 80-odd votes to the winning total for national chairman since Rock was elected.
Of course, without having the figures to hand for people who voted for losing candidates it is impossible to build a complete picture. But it is clear that the shift to internet voting has not had the big impact on voting numbers we were promised.
This indicates the main problem that needs to be dealt with after the election: voter registration. The fact that so many members didn’t receive ballot papers is frankly bizarre. The rumours that non-CFers received ballots are also troubling.
This bureaucratic embarrassment needs to be solved before the next election. The question is, how? Individual voter registration ensures that everyone who registers votes, but it would probably lead to only the keenest and most nationally-aware CFers bothering which is something we’d rather avoid.
Of course it isn’t all the civil service’s fault – the politicians must foot their share of the blame. For all the virtues of travelling the country meeting members, no candidate is going to meet everyone. Thus a well-managed air war – a video, social media, and other forms of e-campaigning – are vital for keeping members you can’t personally reach in the loop.
One of this year’s candidates told me that he thought a campaign video would be a bit over the top for a CF election. But when you’re aiming to lead an organisation of some 18,000 people spread all over the country*, you need to provide an easy way for them to connect with you. They’re not very hard to do – see Cox’s from last year.
Next year’s candidates need to recognise this and afford the online, national battle the respect it deserves. Voting was moved online because almost anybody, anywhere in the country, can easily use their computer to engage with the election. If we keep all the campaigns offline, what’s the point?
*Except, unpardonably, Scotland.
Henry Hill
Henry Hill is a journalism student and writer. He was voted the top student blogger on the right, and 7th best Tory blogger in the UK, at the 2011 TP Blog Awards and received the Adam Smith Institute’s Young Writer on Liberty award that same year.
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Originally written as a post-election column for London Spin.
Henry Hill, Chief Reporter
One of the most embarrassing things about last year’s election was the risible turnout. Howlett won the Chairmanship with 113 votes – which admittedly towered over the 60-something Cox received.
On top of the overall turnout being poor, the ballot generated considerable ill-feeling, with many people who wanted to vote not receiving ballot papers.
So the executive determined to make a change and this year we shifted to online voting. Without having to fuss over paper ballots, surely everything would be smoother and many more people would be able to vote?
It sort of worked. Turnout was certainly well up on last year (figures courtesy of Tory Bear) – in the case of the national chairman position they more than tripled. The other positions also received more votes each than the Chairman’s race last time.
Yet turnout in the low to mid-hundreds is still disappointing given Conservative Future’s theoretically huge membership.
Of course, without having the figures to hand for people who voted for losing candidates it is impossible to build a complete picture. But it is clear that the shift to internet voting has not had the big impact on voting numbers we were promised.
This indicates the main problem that needs to be dealt with after the election: voter registration. The fact that so many members didn’t receive ballot papers is frankly bizarre. The rumours that non-CFers received ballots are also troubling.
This bureaucratic embarrassment needs to be solved before the next election. The question is, how? Individual voter registration ensures that everyone who registers votes, but it would probably lead to only the keenest and most nationally-aware CFers bothering which is something we’d rather avoid.
Of course it isn’t all the civil service’s fault – the politicians must foot their share of the blame. For all the virtues of travelling the country meeting members, no candidate is going to meet everyone. Thus a well-managed air war – a video, social media, and other forms of e-campaigning – are vital for keeping members you can’t personally reach in the loop.
One of this year’s candidates told me that he thought a campaign video would be a bit over the top for a CF election. But when you’re aiming to lead an organisation of some 18,000 people spread all over the country*, you need to provide an easy way for them to connect with you. They’re not very hard to do – see Cox’s from last year.
Next year’s candidates need to recognise this and afford the online, national battle the respect it deserves. Voting was moved online because almost anybody, anywhere in the country, can easily use their computer to engage with the election. If we keep all the campaigns offline, what’s the point?
*Except, unpardonably, Scotland.
Henry Hill is a journalism student and writer. He was voted the top student blogger on the right, and 7th best Tory blogger in the UK, at the 2011 TP Blog Awards and received the Adam Smith Institute’s Young Writer on Liberty award that same year.