Harold Davenport doesn’t have to stuff envelopes or lick stamps anymore.
Those were routine activities when he started volunteering on political campaigns in the late 1960s. Outside of mailing letters the Canada Post way and knocking on doors, there was only one way for politicians to communicate directly with voters.
“The phone call was it,” recalls Davenport.
“Faxes weren’t invented. Telexes were very popular but they were rarely used. It was like Jurassic Park.”
These days, Davenport serves as Preston Manning’s campaign manager in Calgary Southwest. Davenport helps spread the Canadian Alliance founder’s message via cell phone or a new laptop from his car or, if necessary, a farmer’s field. No plug-ins required.
Davenport and other Manning supporters based at his 7500 Macleod Trail campaign headquarters and elsewhere also press the flesh — so to speak — with voters via standard computer terminals, fax machines and automatic-dial telephone systems that can deliver 30,000 voice messages per day.
Technology, says Davenport, comprises 20-25 per cent of Manning’s $65,000 campaign budget.
Manning’s Web site — www.prestonmanning.ca — allows voters to send him messages; register to volunteer; place lawn signs in their yards; pledge donations, receive an e-newsletter; and even help write a TV commercial by finishing the sentence “Getting tax relief questions out of a ‘tax and spend Liberal government is like . . .’ ”
Davenport, an aeronautical engineer, says technology is relieving the drudgery work of the average campaign worker in what he calls this “high-touch, high-tech” campaign.
But that’s not all it’s doing.
Ron Wood, a Manning confidante, says: “With increased access to all the technology, not just TV news 24 hours a day . . . with the Internet and all that, you have the potential for a much more lively and much more informed, electorate.”
In other words, suggests Wood, chalk one up for democracy.
Meanwhile, the Web War has begun.
Candidates of all stripes either have their own sites or they’re linked to their parties’ network platforms.
Barry Rust, the Liberal candidate running against Manning in Calgary Southwest, says having a Web site won’t guarantee more votes — but it’s still a must.
“People are looking for it,” says Rust, a tax consultant and bookseller who was in the process of setting up his site last week. Rust says not having a Web site and related technology “makes it look like you’re not in the game and you’re not serious about it. Once you pass these tests, (voters) will look at whether you’re qualified to stand as a Member of Parliament.”
But, if it hasn’t already, the Web is in danger of becoming a public-relations fluff vehicle. The Canadian Alliance site features a picture of leader Stockwell Day playing soccer. Day also got good mileage out of a photo of him leaning out of his chartered plane wearing a radio headset, which was published in newspapers across the country.
“It’s a nice little photo op . . . but, quite frankly, I think people are looking more closely at the policies and trying to figure out how they’ll vote,” says Frank Bruseker, the Liberal candidate in Calgary West, after an afternoon of door-knocking on a cold, windy Saturday.
Bruseker, a former provincial MLA, isn’t convinced that using technology will make a difference vote-wise. He says his biggest technology-related benefit is a database that helps him track voters — and ensure they get to the polls.
“It could come down to something as simple as: Are we going to have a blizzard on November 27?” says Bruseker.
Voter turnout across the country has reached an all-time low. Bruseker notes that two out of every three eligible residents in his riding of 80,000 did not vote in 1997. Eventually, technology could prompt Elections Canada to set up an online or telephone voting system. Both the Liberals and the Alliance used automated telephone voting systems to decide their provincial and national leadership races, respectively; but voters complained about technical glitches and alleged vote-fixing.
“(An automated telephone system) can be a good way to get people to vote,” says Bruseker.
“(But) before you do that, you have to make sure the technology is going to work. I would be skeptical about voting over the Internet until I was absolutely convinced it could be a virtual foolproof system.”
Davenport says it’s only a matter of time — “which isn’t going to be that long” — before voting is done through technology instead of by marking an “X” with a pencil.
But he’s at a loss to explain why technological advancements in the past decade have not improved voter turnout. “I wish I could.”
