Reflections on voting together
What a year.
2015 was the year we rallied together to defeat the Harper Conservatives. You came together at a critical moment to reach thousands of voters on the phones, at the doorsteps, and in their mailboxes, making sure that voting together created change on October 19th. You recognized it was time for change, and you did something about it.
2015 was also the year the Leadnow community ran our largest-ever campaign. We learned more than we could’ve ever imagined about large-scale integrated online campaigning and face-to-face organizing - lessons that will help us push for meaningful change under a new government.
That’s why I’m writing to you today.
Today, we’re releasing a detailed report back about the Vote Together campaign - what we did and why, what happened, what we learned, and what’s next.
Since the election, many of you have called and written to us to share your reflections. Many of you have attended in-person debriefs and filled out online surveys to tell us about your experience with the campaign.Thank you for so generously helping us learn from a first-time effort and an ambitious strategy.
We’ve combined your reflections with an internal evaluation and analysis, and are so excited to share what we’ve learned. You can read the full report and download the PDF on our website. You’ll find a fun report back video there too!
Here are some of the highlights:
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We mobilized and engaged hundreds of thousands of peoplethrough phone banking, door-to-door canvassing, donating for riding-level polling, online at votetogether.ca, and through the media.
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In our targeted ridings, voter turnout was 5-10 percent higher than the national average and in a number of ridings, the margin of victory was smaller than the number of people who pledged their votes.
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On average, more than 9 out of 10 vote pledge signers followed through with voting for the Leadnow recommended candidate in their riding.
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The Conservatives were defeated in 25 out of 29 targeted ridings.We helped defeat ex-Finance Minister Joe Oliver, and helped elect our new Minister of Democratic Institutions, Minister of Natural Resources, and Minister of Veterans Affairs.
We have learned a lot in the process, and we want to share those lessons with you.
But we also want to be clear that it was never our goal to learn how to run an even more sophisticated strategic voting campaign. Instead, our goal is to help the Leadnow community do its part to end strategic voting forever. Through Vote Together, we have learned so much that can help us engage people in a campaign for a new voting system.[1]
As a community committed to deep, meaningful change, our job has just begun. Take some time to dive into the full report back and to celebrate the campaign. We have a lot to be proud of, and a lot to be grateful for.
