The two days leading up to election day are a hugely important time for less politically-obsessive voters. The parties know that a lot of people are only starting to seriously think how to vote today and tomorrow, and TheyWorkForYou saw its biggest spike ever the day before the election, way back in 2005.
This means it’s a super-important time to get trustworthy, non-partisan information in front of as many people as possible. And you can help by doing the following simple things:
1. Go to your constituency page on the TheyWorkForYou Election Quiz and take a good look at the answers. Is there anything surprising in the answers? Has anyone failed to respond who really shouldn’t? Is there anything funny in the responses? Make a couple of notes about what you think are the most interesting findings.
2. If you know the name of your local papers or radio stations, try to Google for the email or phone number of the news desk. If you don’t know the names, try sticking the name of your nearest town into a media database like this, to get a phone number or email address.
3. If possible, you should start your pitch by phoning rather than emailing. If you get a phone number for a news desk, give them a bell and say that you’re a volunteer from “The country’s largest non-partisan election information project”, and ask for the email of a specific person who might be interested in a story about what local candidates are saying.
4. Once you have an email address of a specific journalist, compose a locally specific email for them, along the following lines:
“Hi X,
I’m a resident of Z constituency, and this election I’ve been one of 6000 volunteers helping to build an unprecedented project to get candidates across the country to go on the record, in conjunction with the website TheyWorkForYou.com. It’s a strictly non-partisan project, aimed at giving voters a really clear, spin-free view of what their candidates stand for. I’d really appreciate it if you could give it some coverage before election day.
In my constituency, N candidates have completed our survey. From this we can see some quite interesting things, namely:
* Candidate A thinks…
* Candidate B thinks…
Would you be so kind as to print a story encouraging people to check our their candidates via TheyWorkForYou.com, and mentioning some of the highlights I’ve included?
all the best,
Your name, email, phone”
5. An hour after you send the email through, give the journalist a call back to see if they need any more help.
6. If you do this, please leave us a comment on this post so we know who’s had a go!
Thank you for helping spread some non-partisan information this election time, and enjoy the election…
I emailed two of my local papers I dont think they will play ball they never have in the past.
Ours says too few of the local candidates in all the constituencies around here have taken the time to fill them in – in spite of me and others hassling so much. Very frustrating.
I emailed my MP re questionnaire, she responded
“I get many questionnaires like this and I prefer not to answer such as they do not give a true picture of my beliefs, these are clearly stated on my personal web site”
She is correct as questions are slanted and obscure true beliefs as they as so general
Good Luck Tomorrow to the U.K.!!!!