Campaign Finance

Important questions to ask which can vary depending on jurisdiction and level of governance:
- What requirements are there for reporting contributions and expenses?
- What is the campaign period?
- Are there periods when records must be retained before they can be destroyed?
- Are there contribution and expense limits?
- What are the finance filing deadlines?
- Are there any other restrictions or barriers to financing the campaign (publicly funded elections)


Always be mindful of the rule of finite resources and to maximize your return on investment for your resources.

Campaign resources; whether people, money or time, are always under pressure and in demand from all aspects of a campaign. Managing these resources as standalone or in combination for fundraising is vital. The trick is to select the best possible combination of all three resources. You want to make the best use of resources to get the largest impact and donations. Time spent using your candidate or volunteers going door to door is time not spent calling potential donors. It is important to budget all three resources (people, time, money) wisely, effectively and efficiently to get the biggest return.


Budgeting:
There is a cost for everything you do in a campaign, if not financial than timely. Once you have defined your detailed communications plan there will be variable costs: printed materials for door to door pamphlets, mailings and e-mail blasts, signs, web-hosting, event hosting, canvassing transportation, merchandise, etc. and you can begin to define your communications costs.  Add on your fixed costs: rent, staff, phones, utilities, computers, cameras, office furnishings, etc. Your budget should be realistic and not a wish list. You may want to prepare more than one; a high, medium and low budget to take into consideration the scenario where fundraising does not go as well as planned or exceeds expectations.

As many have said “Cash is King” and cash flow determines if you can stay in the game. As you spend money you should also think about how to bring more in as part of the budgeting process. After organizing and costing each task and their monetary requirements create a timeline in a calendar to determine when money will be required. This way you can set your fundraising requirements month by month, week by week or day by day.

Keeping a campaign inventory is essential, especially if this is not your first campaign. Some jurisdictions will count previous campaign inventory as a budgeted expense however others may allow them as 0 dollar items. When in doubt always consult the local election guidelines.

Fundraising:
Again “Cash is King” and cash flow determines if you are in the race. The best fundraiser in any campaign is the candidate, but the candidate also goes by the rule of infinite resources, therefore use their time wisely. Try to always have the candidate present for large donation requests and at meet and greet functions.

Campaigns should target donors in the same way they target voters, determine your best chance. Keep in mind that unlike voters who can only vote once or have to live in the constituency, they can give as many times as they want (some jurisdiction may have contribution limits for a particular office). If you are not an incumbent with a previously established donor base start collecting names of potential contributors from the following:
- Family
- Personal friends
- Professional colleagues
- Volunteers
- Local Businesses
- Community leaders
- Groups or organizations that could benefit or have interests in the jurisdiction
- Neighbourhood organizations
- Business groups/organizations/social networks
- Unions
- People who share your ideological view
- People who want to see another candidate defeated

Remember if they can’t give money they may be able to give time, resources or materials.

It is important to determine how best to approach a potential donor, should it be a senior member of the campaign team, a volunteer call centre operator or the candidate directly. It is important to remember/stress that it is not begging but asking the donor for an investment in the future.

There are many different ways to ask, direct mail, over the phone, face to face, at parties or events
etc.Each has best practices to be followed to get maximum results (a more in-depth review in will appear later on the blog).

Remember to ask at every opportunity!

Compliance:
The issue of compliance varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and is different at each level of government. When in doubt always consult the local election laws, having an accountant or lawyer on hand to determine if a particular expense or donation is eligible can be extremely helpful, as any rule breaking will not only reflect poorly on the campaign and the candidates judgement but could also have disastrous legal ramifications such as jail time, fines, removal from office and being barred from running again. The following are some fundamental questions to ask yourself when considering campaign compliance:

- Are there accounting requirements for the campaign?
- Is there a reporting system for contributions?
- Is there a method to report ineligible contributions?
- Are fundraising events happening outside of a campaign period? Are these contributions eligible in the jurisdiction?
- Are your records in an easy to understand and presentable form to submit to an auditors scrutiny?

For a free copy of a budget excel spreadsheet click here

Big Data and Voter Registries – Election Officials

From analyzing the migratory track of the Canada Goose and its effects on the number of bird/plane interactions to the predictive modeling and profiling of consumer purchasing behavior.The use of big data has become prevalent in today’s society. Tracking voters intentions is no different. 

There has been a large increase in the number of data mining/farming firms establishing themselves in the use of big data in the electioneering fields: 270 Strategies Inc., NGP VAN, Goddard Gunster Inc., Elections Impact Group and Campaign Communications Group just to name a few. The application of big data in the election process extends over both the area of campaigning and election administration of voter list management and poll GIS.

Today we are looking at the application of big data in the maintenance and creation of voter registries. We know from statistics, that there is on average over 20% movement in the general population each year. There are numerous methods that jurisdictions use to maintain their voters list. Some jurisdictions require voters to register themselves. Others maintain their own list with the use of data from sources such as vital statistics (birth, death and marriage certificates), DMV records, tax records, postal NCOA (National change of address program), returned mail, assessment records, personal property records, property tax records, correctional institutions, health institutions, new citizenship records, Foreign Affairs(citizens residing outside the country), armed forces,  and the list goes on.  There has even been a sharing of information between multiple levels of jurisdictions, from federal to province/state to municipal levels.

There are numerous companies that have developed software for the management of these lists over different platforms including: SEO, SCYTL, Datafix, KVM*, Dominion Voting and many more. Each with its own strengths and weaknesses.

Summary of countries that maintain a voter registry and some of the methods used to compile the registers **

Links to national population records	Albania, Belgium, Botswana, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, Mexico, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Poland, Seychelles, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine
Links to police records of residence	Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Slovakia, Switzerland
Links to applications for government services	Australia, Canada, Cape Verde, Chile, Japan, Panama, Seychelles, Slovakia
Registration by voters at registration offices	Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cape Verde, Chile, Costa Rica, Croatia, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Ireland, Lesotho, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Mexico, Moldova, Mozambique, Namibia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Portugal, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Door-to-door registration campaign	Albania, Australia, Barbados, Belarus, Costa Rica, India, Ireland, Mexico, Pakistan, Panama, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Seychelles, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom
Registration by mail	Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Germany, Ireland, United Kingdom;
Mobile election registrar	Australia, Mozambique, Namibia, Panama, Uganda
Internet registration	Australia, Canada, Denmark

One of the largest issues facing data professionals in the maintenance and use of outside lists to update registries is the non-standardization of data sets across numerous files. Each contributing organization has its own record layout standards based on each organization requirements.  To complicate this job there is a continuous updating of municipal GIS systems to keep up with street name changes for 911 services, new residential development and redefining of polling district due to population movement/increases.

There are a number of tools, both open source and third party licensed options for dealing with standardizing the maintenance of your RDBMS for any platform, whether the platform is Oracle, SQL, DB2, NoSQL or any other. One free service is “Google Refine” that provides an easy way to clean up messy data. Another open source solution you may want to review, that is part of the “big data” craze, is “Hadoop “or “SQOOP” and their third party suppliers, Hive, Flume, Haze etc. If you are not comfortable with or find the open source solutions difficult to use then there are commercial versions of Hadoop including Cloudera with a more user-friendly feel.

With the advances and ever-changing tools available for big data, IT managers have access to data manipulation and analytic tools on their desktop that was only available to larger organizations. What new tools will be available next?

**Source: The Election Process Information Collection, a joint project of the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, United Nations Development Programme, and International Foundation for Election Systems (www.epicproject.org).

Minimum voting age - the debate

Over the last number of months my 17 year old daughter has expressed how much she is looking forward to exercising her franchise* in her first election (she will be 18). As an elections professional it gives me great pride that she is a civic minded individual and has a keen sense of the world around her. I know that at her age she is not alone in her world view and local knowledge/understanding, and is probably just as much, if not more, qualified to make judgements on our political leaders than some older voters.  But at what age would she have been ready to make such a decision?  Our government, and parents, allowed her at the age of 16 to take control of car. If she so desired, and we allowed her, she could have received a hunting permit (with proper instruction and licencing) at the age of 14.

When many modern democracies first established the right to vote the generally accepted minimum voting age was set to 21 or higher.

 In the 1970’s there was a push to drop the voting page to 18 as this was the age at which one could be drafted into war and consume alcohol, why not vote!? And many did.  There were also regions/groups that thought a reduction to the age of 16 is appropriate as they would be affected by decisions of 18 year olds.

In July of 2007 Austria became the first member of the European Union, and the first developed world democracy to adopt the voting age of 16 for most purposes.

On July 26^th, 2007 a New Zealand MP introduced a bill (Civics Education and Voting Age Bill) that was to reduce the voting age to 16 and make civics education part of the compulsory curriculum in schools. (Later dropped as thought it was the wrong timing)

In 2009 a member of the Danish Parliament went as far as to submit an initiative to give children the right to vote from birth with the parents casting their vote until the child had the capacity to decide how to vote – Demeny Voting

In 2013 the city of Takoma Park USA became the first in the US to drop the voting age to 16 for municipal elections and referendums.

Another notable change in voting age was September 2014 when the age for voting in the Scottish Independence referendum was dropped from 18 to 16.

• There is only one known maximum voting age, the Holy See (Vatican) where the Cardinals must be under the age of 80 to elect a Pope.

Arguments for lowering the voting age:

• It will encourage greater civic participation
• Habit of voting becomes well ingrained - as those that vote at a younger age tend to continue to vote as they get older
• Ensure the concerns and issues of  youth are addressed
• Young people are interested in politics – just look at social media!
• We need to involve people of all ages and backgrounds
• Today’s teenagers have more experience of the world than we did, they work and contribute to the economy

Arguments against lowering the voting age:

• One needs more experience of the world
• More likely to be influenced by a parent/teacher and therefore not believed to be independent
• Less informed judgement
• Idealism turns into reality as we age/experience and learn

As pointed out by others, these are the same arguments used in the past against giving women and the working class the right to vote!  “Not intelligent or mature enough”.

A summary look at voting ages by number of constituencies

Voting age table:

Minimum Voting Age	Number of countries/constituencies
16	13
17	7
18	204
19	1
20	2
21	10

*Using the term “exercising one’s franchise” draws more than one similarity to the actual act of physical exercise- the younger you start the more you are likely to continue. There is too much apathy to voting and obesity in our world.

The arguments for and against mandatory voting.

Does mandatory voting provide the answer to voter apathy? Why are we not voting? What can we do to increase citizen engagement?

The affirmative side of mandatory voting argues that if we force voters to show up at the polls, they can still cast a spoiled/void or blank ballot, and would be more likely to spend the time to become knowledgeable on the issues. However, the no side argues that it is undemocratic to force people to vote and is an infringement of liberties. Some believe that the best way to increase participation is by understanding the reasons why we are not showing up at the polls and how to address the symptoms: for example, disengaged voters turned off by political scandals, partisan politics, lack of civility etc. Would mandatory voting help in this respect? Would mandatory voting created a more representative version of government if more poor, young, disenfranchised or marginalized sectors of society are forced to vote? Is democracy better served by mandatory voting?

Jurisdictions with mandatory voting rules do allow for exceptions, mobility
issues, travel, medical etc. There are other forced responsibilities that we
except and deal with every day in civil society; taxation, education and Jury
duty – is voting any different?


A sample review of voter turnout in recent elections follows:

 2012/2008 US Presidential Elections 57.5 %
 2008 Canadian Federal Election 58.8% (by comparison the 1958 election
 just under 80%)
 2011 Canadian Federal Election 61.1 %
 2013 Australia General election 95% (Mandatory voting law- enforced)
 2010 Rwanda 89.2%
 2012 Turkmenistan 87.0%
 2012 Venezuela 78.9%
 2012 Dominican Republic 70.2% (Mandatory – not enforced)
                     ...


Reasons for mandatory voting:

• Parliament reflects more accurately the will of the electorate.
• Candidates can concentrate their campaigning energies on issues rather than
 encouraging voters to attend the poll.
• The voter isn't actually compelled to vote for anyone because voting is by
 secret ballot.
• Citizens fulfil their democratic responsibility.
• Citizens want to become more informed: citizen learning.
• Decisions made by democratically elected governments are more legitimate when
 higher proportions of the population participate (IDEA).



Reasons against mandatory voting:
• Some suggest that it is undemocratic to force people to vote and is an
 infringement of liberty.
• The uninformed and  disinterest are forced to the polls.
• It may increase the number of spoiled, blank and donkey votes (votes for a random candidate by people who feel that they are required to vote by law).
• It increases the number of safe, single-member electorates - political parties
 then concentrate on the more marginal electorates.
• Enforcement time and costs to determine whether those who failed to vote have
 valid and sufficient reasons.
• If a person doesn’t like any candidate, policy leader or party why force them?
• Infringement on religious beliefs –  for example, Jehovah’s Witnesses
• Freedom of choice

Counties in which compulsory voting is enforced (11)

Country	Year introduced	Demographic	Measures	Notes
Argentina	1912	Compulsory between 18 and 70 years old		May opt out in primaries- conditions  apply
Australia	1924	Compulsory for federal and state for ages 18 and above	Possible fines	2010 Tasmanian election 6000 people fined $26.00 with about 2000 paying the fine
Brazil		Compulsory for literate citizens from 18 -70 years old		Non-compulsory for 16-17 or over 70 or illiterate citizens
Cyprus	1960
Liechtenstein
Luxemburg		Voluntary for those over 70
Nauru	1965
Peru	1933	Compulsory for 18 -70. Voluntary for those over 70
Singapore		Compulsory for those older than 21
Uruguay	1934			Not in practice until 1970
Schaffhausen canton in Switzerland	Introduced in whole in 1904 but abolished in all other cantons in 1974

Countries in which voting is compulsory but not enforced

Country	Year introduced	Demographic	Measures	Notes
Belgium		Compulsory  18 +
Bolivia	1952
Costa Rica
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Dominican Republic		Compulsory 18+		Military and National Police cannot vote
Egypt				Military and National Police cannot vote
France				Senate only
Gabon
Greece
Guatemala
Honduras
Indian state of Gujarat	2014	For local civic elections
Lebanon		Men only
Libya				Technically compulsory
Mexico
Panama
Paraguay		Compulsory form 18 to 75
Thailand
Turkey

Country	Year introduced	Demographic	Measures	Notes
Belgium		Compulsory  18 +
Bolivia	1952
Costa Rica
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Dominican Republic		Compulsory 18+		Military and National Police cannot vote
Egypt				Military and National Police cannot vote
France				Senate only
Gabon
Greece
Guatemala
Honduras
Indian state of Gujarat	2014	For local civic elections
Lebanon		Men only
Libya				Technically compulsory
Mexico
Panama
Paraguay		Compulsory form 18 to 75
Thailand
Turkey