The storms seem to be abating and spring is in the air. Here at the ALDC office, we’ve chosen two things to do right now in order to stand the best chance in May.
1: CONTACT, CONTACT, CONTACT
You need to call on all of your supporters as often as possible to maximise their turnout. Use the opportunity to ask for a bit of help with:
Postal Votes – see the enclosed postcard. Poster sites – see below. Delivery and help – getting others to deliver the leaflets gives you the time to talk to voters. Endorsements – a vox pop for your leaflets or a hyper-local “blue letter” are powerful tools for reaching people who aren’t convinced by “politicians”. Membership – always ask anyone who shows any sign of support.
2: BUILD A WINNING ENVIRONMENT
The media are already trying to write off our chances on May 22nd. Voters need to believe we can win to vote for us – it’s a lesson that has been learnt over many years. A good poster campaign can give you a very visible boost to your credibility as strong campaigners, show people who the real contest is between in the ward, and means people can see that their friends and neighbours are voting for us. The new electoral registers were published on Monday 17th Feb.
Key Dates and information:
The new electoral registers were published on Monday 17th Feb.
The process for getting them onto Connect is already in progress with the first batch already uploaded into Connect on Wednesday 27th. Check which batch you are in. Many target wards in England will be in the first batch. If you are not in the list for tranche one below and you’re in England you should be in tranche two.
Electronic new register data is being collected regionally. Connect are then processing the data in batches. They should become available again to users again on:
Wednesday 26th February – First tranche of English registers
LDHQ will be doing another update at the same time next week (5th March) for those not in the list below. Scottish and Welsh registers are not published until March 10th.
Adur
Amber Valley
Barnet
Birmingham
Blaby
Blackburn with Darwen
Blackpool
Bolton
Bradford
Brent
Bristol, City of
Bromsgrove
Burnley
Bury
Cannock Chase
Carlisle
Charnwood
Cheltenham
Cheshire West and Chester
Chichester
Chorley
City of London
Copeland
Cornwall
Crawley
Daventry
Derby
Doncaster
East Lindsey
Eden
Exeter
Fylde
Gedling
Gloucester
Halton
Hammersmith and Fulham
Haringey
Harrogate
Hertsmere
Huntingdonshire
Hyndburn
Ipswich
Islington
Kensington and Chelsea
Kingston upon Hull, City of
Lancaster
Lewes
Liverpool
Malvern Hills
Manchester
Mansfield
Merton
New Forest
Newark and Sherwood
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle-under-Lyme
North East Derbyshire
North Lincolnshire
Northumberland
Norwich
Oldham
Oxford
Pendle
Preston
Redcar and Cleveland
Redditch
Rochdale
Rossendale
Salford
Sefton
South Cambridgeshire
South Gloucestershire
South Lakeland
South Oxfordshire
South Ribble
South Somerset
St Edmundsbury
St. Helens
Stevenage
Stockport
Stratford-on-Avon
Suffolk Coastal
Tameside
Tendring
Trafford
Tunbridge Wells
Uttlesford
Vale of White Horse
Wandsworth
Warrington
West Berkshire
West Dorset
West Lancashire
Wigan
Wiltshire
Winchester
Wirral
Woking
Worthing
Wychavon
Wycombe
Wyre
Wednesday commencing 5th March – Second tranche of English registers
Wednesday commencing 19th March everything else including Scotland and Wales
The good news is that the only down time on these is midnight to 5am on the day they are sent to VAN in the US to do the merging.
So if you haven’t entered old date by about 10pm ish on Tuesday you will have a devil of a time inputting them later as all the polling numbers etc will change. Whilst VAN IDs will remain the same, if someone has canvass sheets with no barcodes it will become really fiddly to deal with. Also if there are people with name changes that the data matching catches up to later there will be a window where data could be lost. This applies to Minivan as well, so make sure all data is synced.
Also please bin old canvass cards on Sunday night and do fresh ones once you are sure that you’re on the new register.
For more advice on what to do with the new register information see our earlier post