Download - DeRabbie-Thesis-January 1997
THE USE OF NEW ELECTRONIC TECHNOLOGY BY CANADIAN PARTIES
by
Douglas A. DeRabbie
Department of P o l i t i c a i Science
Submitted in partial fulfihnent of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
Faculty of Graduate Studies The University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario December 1996
Douglas A. DeRabbie 1997
National Library Biblioth&que nationale du Canada
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ABSTRACT
The thesis explores how the use of new electxonic
technology has changed party furid-raising methods and the
conduct of party election carnpaigns ta determine whether
Canadian political parties are experiencing a transformation.
The thesis looks at how parties use computers to conduct
research, polling, and conmunication. It then examines the
impact of that technology on the structure of the national
parties, particularly their riding associations. Finally, the
thes is reviews how success f ully Canadian parties have adap ted
to the new technology. Through the use of new electronic
technology, Canadian parties have found new ways to fulfil
traditional soles, as well as beginning to perform new ones.
Parties are strongly centralizing in the hands of the national
offices, and thus having a detrimental effect on local
parties. Canadian parties have had difficulty adapting to the
new technology for a number of reasons. Nevertheless, they
are entering a new party systera.
iii
This thesis is dedicated to rny mother fo r al1 her patience and support.
1 would l i k e to thank Professor S.J.R. Noel f o r his guidance and insight. 1 would also like to thank Doug Ferguson and Marg Stewart f o r providing
invaluable information.
TABLE
CERTIFICATE OF EXAMINATION . . ABSTRACT .................... ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............
.......... TABLE OF CONTENTS. LIST OF TABLES .............. LIST OF APPENDICES ..........
Page .. ii . iii ... v . . vi viii . ix
....................................... CHAPTERI-INTRODUCTION 1
1 . The Impact of the New T e c h n o l o g y on Party Furictions . . - 3 2 . The impact of the New Technology on Party Structure . . - 4 3 . The Impact of the New Technology on Parties and
.............................................. Politics 5 ........................................... 4.Methodology 6
........................... 5.TheSt~ctureoftheThesis 8 ............................................. Endnotes 11
CHAPTER 2-THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON PARTY FUNCTZONS ...... -13 1 . Individual Level Data Collection and-alysis ........ 1 4 2 . PublicOpinionPolling ............................... 19
..... 3 . Cornputer AssistedTelephone Interviewhg Systems 22 4 . PoliticalComuriication .............................. 25
....................... 5 . Direct Mail: List Production. -26 6 . DirectMail: Fund-Raising ........................... -27 7 - DirectMail: Targetbg ............................... 29 8 . Voter Communication: Electronic Mail and the
............................................. Intemet 3 5
............................................. Endnotes 42
CHAPTER 3-THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON PARTY ORGANIZATION .... 49
1 . The Impact of T e c h n o l o g y on L o c a l Party Fund-Raising -49 2 . The Impact of Technology on L o c a l Party Activity ..... 57 . ................. 3 Obstacles to Local Use of Technology 60
4 . The Impact of Technology on L o c a l Volunteers .. .. ..... 63 5 The Impact of Technology on L o c a l Party Organization . 69 6 . The Impact of Technology on Local Carnpaigns .......... 74
............................................. Endnotes 79
TheMarkethg Industryand Politics ........ The Influence 0fAmerica.n Parties .......... Borrowing F r o m O t h e r Canadian Parties ...... Adoptingthe New Technology ......-...... .... Obstacles to the Adoption of New Technology Budgetary C o n c e r n s .........................
................................... Endnotes
vii
LIST OF TABLES
Table Description Page 1 Number of Individual Contributions to Parties,,,.,.30
II Constituency Association Assets .................... 50 III Election Revenues and Expenses of Liberal
Candidates ......................................... 52
Revenues, Expenses and Reimbuxsement of Candidates, 1979, 1980, 1984, 1988 and 1993 General Elections .................................. 54
V Funds Currently Available to Constituency Associations, 1991 ................................. 55
VI The Diffusion of Political Innovation, , . . . . . . . . . . . .90
VI1 Election Expenses of Parties and Candidates ....... 1 0 7
viii
LIST OF APPENDICES
~ppendix
APPENDIX A
APPENDIX B
APPENDIX C
APPENDIX D
APPENDIX E
Page
London South 1990 Election Analysis ...... 1 1 9
............... Generai Canvass Entry Fo rm 120
Cornputer Campaign Fields ................. 121 Compusearch Report ....................... 122
........ L e t t e r f r o m Sue Barnes. Candidate 123
C f U P m R 1: INTRODUCTXO~
The use of new electronic technology has become an
increasingly important facet of Canadian electoral politics.
The purpose of this thesis is to explore how the use of that
technology has changed party fund-raising methods and the
conduct of party election campaigns. The main (but not
exclusive) focus is upon the federal Liberal Party, using the
London West Liberal Association as a riding level case study.
The main questions which will be examined are : does the use of
new technology constrain a party's ability to perform its
traditional roles, or does the new technology rather enable a
party to perform those roles more efficiently and more
effectively? Or does new technology create new roles?
John Meisel and Matthew Mendelsohn identify seven tasks
that have been assigned to Canadian political parties:
providing links between citizens and the state; setting the
policy agenda and formulating policy; recruitment of elites;
organization of government; st~cturing the vote and
elections; organizing public opinion; and aggregating
interests. They then proceed to argue that technological
change has led parties to experience a relative decline over
the past thirty years in their ability to fulfil these roles
in the Canadian political system. They cite, for instance,
the increased use of polling which has diminished the need for
local volunteers to relay their knowledge
to elected representatives. Moreover,
of public sentiments
they maintain, that
2
various forms of cornputer technology have reduced the two-way
f low of communication between parties and voters .' Despite the evidence of decline, Meisel and Mendelsohn
liken Canadian parties to chameleons which constantly survey
the political landscape, transforming themselves to react to
new circumstances in order to sustain their relevance as part
of the Canadian political process . They accordingly f eel that parties are becoming increasingly aware of the gap between
themselves and voters and are evolving in order to find new
ways to perform their traditional r o l e ~ . ~ In other words,
parties are transforming themselves in response ta changes in
the environment.' The argument of this thesis is that one of
their most important responses is the adoption of new
electronic technology for fund-raising and campaign purposes.
R . K . Carty has divided Canadian political history into
three party systems. ~eisel and Mendelsohn suggest that
although the third and most recent party system (1963 to the
present) was characterized by party decline, it may have been
a transitional stage to which parties are adapting themselves,
and a new "fourth" system is now emerging which is defined
above al1 by the parties0 use of the new campaign technology.
It would seem that the parties' main objective in this fourth
system is to reestablish links with voters through various
technological devices, such as direct mail, persona1 (as
opposed to mass) media. and public opinion polls .' This new
party system, Meisel and Mendelsohn speculate. may be
7 d
distinguished by "hyper-accountability", and in the long run
may serve to reaffirm the electoraters attachent to political
institutions by involving broad participation and off ering
more direct links between parties and voters.'
In order to detemine whether Canadian parties are
entering a fourth party system, the thesis will review
evidence so as to chart changes, if any, in party functions,
behaviour and organization.
THS -ACT OI THB HBW -LOGY ON PmTY m T I O N S
Cornputer applications such as polling, direct mail,
demographic analysis, and voter identification have
transformed the ways in which parties go after votes by
providing a cheaper, faster and more sophisticated means of
handling inf onnation. In doing so , the new electronic
technology brought about by the communications revolution may
also re-shape the ways in which voters interact with parties
by providing for meaningful two-way contact through new forms
of political expression.' Whereas television and talk radio
once weakened the ability of parties to offer constituents a
forum to express their views, the Internet helps to strengthen
the parties in their performance of this role. With the
potential for effective two-way co1[11~1unication through feedback
forms (questionnaires) and chat rooms (on-Une discussion
forums), the new technology may provide the means for
restoring the parties' central role as a link between
Parliament and voters. f f indeed parties have found a n e w
4
medium with computer technology through which they can more
ef fectively conmiunicate their message to voters, has this had
a reciprocal ef fect on p o l i t i c a l campaigning? More
importantly, has this change affected party structure?
T R s IMPACT O? TEB HEw ~ t O O Y OH PARTY S T R V C ~
Partly a response to the relative party decline of the
third system, a possible transformation of Canadian parties
would feature stronger central party organizations, as
reasoned by Meisel and ~endelsohn. Strong central party
organizations would theoretically mean a reduced role for
local riding associations and volunteers. A. Brian Tanguay and
Alain-G.Gagnon contend that use of the new communications
technology by the national offices, such as direct mail, has
made traditional party organizations less relevant to the
winning of elections . It is argued that, for the most part, local volunteers
no longer maintain a great deal of prominence within a party.
Instead, it i s the political professionals who have taken
preeminence w i t h i n party organizations. Since the early
198Os, polit ical candidates and parties have increasingly
depended on these professionals "to massage polling data,
generate direct mail material, group and classify voters on
the lists of electors, and identify priority polls for special
campaign attentionn.10 Accordingly, modern campaigning has
shifted the strategic role of the party from conception to
execution.ll Hence, has this shift in party orientation led
to the centralization of party organizations?
TRE =ACT OF THS NEW TSCl3NûtOOY Or0 PARTIES AM) POLXTICS
Rfter examining if parties have found new ways to
reestablish links between them and voters, with a
corresponding change in party structure, the question is
raised as to whether these changes have had a beneficial or
detrimental impact on Canadian parties and politics . With
computer technology cornes an increased capacity for electoral
exploitation and manipulation by parties than previously
possible.'* By setting different agendas for different voter
subgroups, has political marketing orientation made politics,
as suggested by Nicholas J. OyShaughnessy, more inconsistent
and opp~rtunistic?'~ Moreover, if parties prefer to use
technological wizardry ins tead of dialogue and compromise,
will the search for consensus and understanding be seriously
weakened?I4
Canadian parties have attempted to adapt to, and even
control, the newpoliticalrnarketing technologies(with varying
degrees of success) .15 Parties today must cope with rapidly
changing technologies. With each new election campaign,
another level of technical sophistication is added, of ten . -
going beyond the unders tanding and interes t of the party . -=
In light of this, have Canadian parties successfully kept pace
with recent developments in data processing, computer software
especially designed to implement political strategies, and
numerous other changes which appear on a daily basis?"
6
Technology is not just the hardware, nor is it j u s t the
set of arrangements which enable that technology to operate.
It is also the set of decisions about how that technology
ought to w~rk.'~ Hence, how have parties decided to use the
new technology? Are Canadian political parties using the new
technology to respond to changes and "lead" the public; or are
parties simply using it to more effectively "reflect" public
sentiments, and thus failing to understand the new technology?
M S T B O r n ~
This thesis examines the use of computer technology by
Canadian political parties, with a particular focus on the
federal Liberal Party. Cornputers were chosen as the form of
technology to focus on because they are involved in almost
every major aspect of election campaigns, such as individual
Ievel data collection, public opinion polling, and voter
communication. As well, cornputers are increasingly being used
by Canadian parties for both fund-raising and campaigning . üntil recently, it was difficult to find a political campaign
that effectively used persona1 computers. Now, however, al1
Canadian parties depend heavily on the capabilities of their
computer hardware and software.
The use of computers in the 1988 and 1993 federal
elections will be specifically examined, although sorne
historical background will also be reviewed, These two
elections were chosen because computer technology was
extensively used during both campaigns; and more importantly,
7
new uses of computer technology were introduced in these
elections.
The federal Liberal Party was chosen as the main focus
of the thesis for a number of reasons. First, as a major
party, it has the capability to raise the substantial funds
which are required for the use anci development of computer
technology. Second, the Liberal Party was chosen because it
is one of the traditional parties; hence, through it, it is
possible to chart the historical use of technology by a
Canadian party. Third, since the Liberal Party is large and
well-organized, Ft is also possible to explore the initial
impact of technology on party organization. Finally, the
Liberal party was chosen because it employs most applications
of cornputer technology.
The London West Liberal Association will be used as a
case study, looking at how it used technology during the 1993
federal election campaign. The thesis will discuss the
various techniques the party used, the problems they
encountered, why technology was used, and its affects on the
local campaign. The association will be used to illustrate
major points throughout the thesis.
The sources which are used include books, articles,
essays, publicly available information on the Internet and the
research studies done for the Royal Commission on Electoral
Reform and Party Financing (Lortie Commission) . Although the main focus is the Liberal Party, various officials, campaign
8
managers and office workers of the Progressive Consemative
Party, the NDP, and the Reforrn Party were interviewed. In
doing so, the use of computer technology by the Liberal Party
will be compared and contrasted with other Canadian parties
where relevant. Cornparisons with how American political
parties use computer technology are also made throughout the
thesis. The methodology of the thesis is an interview-based,
qualitative case study.
THE STRVCTmE OF TEE THESIS
Chapter Two examines the history of the use of computer
technology by Canadian political parties, particularly during
the 1988 and 1993 federal elections, and explores how
computers have been used in preparation for elections and
during elections. This chapter attempts to assess the efforts
of Canadian parties to f ind new wayç to reestablish links with
voters . Three main computer applications are investigated:
namely, research, polling, and communication. The f irs t
application to be surveyed in this chapter is research. How
computers aid in the collection, storage and analysis of data
on issues and on individual voters is profiled. Cornputers
have increased the efficiency with which parties perform t h i s
function. Yet, how has this increased efficiency impacted on
how parties r u n their canipaigns? Regarding polling, computer
assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) and predictive dialling
systems will be examined. How computers aid in tracking the
'political moodn in both individual ridings and the nation as
a whole will be explored. The third and final application is
the use of contemporary technology to communicate information
about candidates, party, and policy to the public, The use of
electronic mail and the relatively recent use of web sites on
the Internet by Canadian political parties are examined. In
addition, the use of direct mail will be surveyed, in terms of
both targeting and fund-raising. The thesis looks at how
parties use CD-ROMs, especially in setting up databanks of
past and potential contributors, and computerized methods of
mailing for fund-raising purposes, which will illustrate how
political marketing techniques were extended to the field of
party finance . Chaptes Three examines how computer technology is used
by the central organization of Canadian parties and by their
local riding associations. In looking at the former, how the
national office prepares for an upcodng election is given
significant attention, including the creation of direct mail
packages for their riding associations. The use of computer
technology by the riding associations focuses on local
polling, the tracking of the vote, and the collection of
individual data. The chapter then assesses which functions,
previously performed by local volunteers, have been taken over
by cornputers. In doing sa, the a b is to interpret how the
use of computer technology has changed the nature of Canadian
political parties, and especially of party organizations.
10
Chapter Four examines where t h e Liberal Party acquires
ideas on how t o use computer technology. Are they obta ined
f rom volunteers? From prof essionals? From other parties? From
other countries? Why do they choose certain technologies over
o the r s? T h i s chapter also discusses how political parties
have adapted to the new electronic technology. In doing s o ,
possible explanations of the differences between the Liberals
and o t h e r parties are explored.
The thesis concludes by reviewing the impact which the
use of technology has had on Canadian political parties, and
by trying to answer if parties have indeed entered a " fou r th"
party system. With the advent of new computer technology, the
personnel within the campaign organization of parties has
indeed changed. But, has the takeover by election technicians
weakened the grassroots party organizations? Have they become
weak and hollow as computers and other technology have taken
over their primary role of reaching voters with the party's
message? Or, have these new political techniques i n fact
strengthened p a r t y organizations and Ied t o a transformation
of Canadian political parties?
1. John Meisel and Matthew Mendelsohn, "Meteor? Phoenix? Chameleon? The Decline and Transformation of Party in Canadan,Partv Politics in Canada, 7th ed., ed.~ugh G. Thorburn, ( Scarborough: Prentice Hall Canada lac. , 19 9 6) ,
2. Meisel and Mendelsohn, pp.178-9.
3. Meisel and Mendelsohn, p.192.
5. Keith Melder, "The Birth of Modern Campaigning", The Road to Victorv, ed. Ron Faucheux, (Dubuque:Kendall/Kunt Publishing Co., 1995), p.569, and Meisel and Mendelsohn,
6. Thomas S. Axworthy, "Capital-Intensive Politicsw, Issues in Partv and Election Finance, ed. F.Leslie Seidle, volume 5 of the Research Studies, (Ottawa and Toronto:RCERPF/Dundum, 1991), p.199, and Ron Faucheux, " Campaigri Trends ' 9 6 " , [http://www.camelect,com/july/record.htm] , July 1996.
7. R.K. Carty, "Party Organization and Activity on the Ground", in Canadian Parties in Transition, 2nd ed., eds. A. Brian Tanguay and Alain-GoGagnon, (Scarborough: Nelson Canada, 1996) , p.75, and Axworthy, p. 199.
8. Meisel and Mendelsohn, p.192.
9. A. Brian Tanguay and Alain-G, Gagnon, "Introductionw, in Canadian Parties in Transition, 2nd ed., p . 5 .
10. John Laschinger and Geoffrey Stevens, Leaders and Lesser Mortals, (Toronto:Key Porter Books Ltd., 1992), p .23 .
11 . R.M. Lee, One Hundred Monkevs, (Toronto: Macfarlane Walter and Ross, 1989), p.135.
12. A.Brian Tanguay, "Canadian Party Ideologies in the Electronic Agen, Canadian Political Partv Svstems, ed. R.K. Carty, (Toronto:Broadview Press, 1992), p.479.
13. Nicholas J. OfShaughnessy, The Phenornenon of Political Marketinq, (fiondomThe Macmillan Press Ltd., 1990), pp.6-
14. Meisel and Mendelsohn, p.193.
15. Tanguay and Gagnon, p .6 .
16. Frank 1 . Luntz, Candidates, Consultants, and C - a i s n s , (Oxford: Basil Blackwell L t d . , 1988). p.14.
17. Melder, p.569.
18, John Street, Politics and Technolow, (London: Macmillan, 1992) , p.9 .
CHAPTBR 2 : THB IMPACT OF TgCfIWOtOOY ON PARTY WHCTIONS
The purpose of this chapter is to survey the use of
computer technology by Canadian political parties,
particularly the federal Liberal Party. It will focus on the
various techniques used by parties for f und-raising and during
the federal election campaigns of 1988 and 1993. Cornparisons
with American parties will be made where relevant. The
chapter will examine three specific applications of computer
technology: voter data collection and analysis, public opinion
polling, and communication. The thesis of this chapter is
that the use of technology by political parties illustrates
that they have found new ways to perforn traditional roles.
The new cornputer technology is composed of three
characteristics which distinguish it from previous election
technology : speed, reactivity, and interactivity . l Computers
have enhanced a party's ability to respond to voters, issues,
and attacks from other parties or candidates. They make
possible an aimost instant reaction to a question posed by a
voter or another candidate; and more importantly, a quick
party response t o shifts in public opinion. The enhanced
ability of parties to collect and store data on voters,
through computerization, has led to increased interaction
between the two groups. The computer may thus be the medium
that allows for the interactivity between voters and
politicians that television failed to provide.
INDIVIWAL LEVBG MTA COG&SCTXOW AND m Y S I S
The information candidates presently have about the
attitudes of their constituents has never been greater.
Obtained f rom either cons tituency-level polling data or
" individual-level" data, political information is used to
improve a Party's ability to analyze and understand voters.'
Although polling data rexnains important, parties are beginning
to recognize a need to know more details about individual
voters .' As a result, parties have been progressively pursuing
"data scooping activities", which means acquiring information
on a voter prior to contact.' They attempt to capture basic
persona1 data such as age, occupation, gender and lifestyle,
as illustrated by a Liberal Party campaign manual which
suggests various "campaign fieldsn (Le. headings} for the
computer in order to accommodate the new information (see
Appendix A). Moreover, by using contemporary software
packages, newly acquired information can easily be added to a
computer file for future reference.'
Parties are using computer technology to track ridings
so as to compile a highly accurate voter's list for the next
election. With Elections Canada supplying voter list data on
diskettes six days after enumeration is completed, a local
campaign is able ta extract and sort these lists to f i l 1 in
the missing names and addresses on its list of voters. In
doing so, the campaign can gain a head start on door-to-door
canvassing . The 1993 f ederal campaign was the f irst in which
15
the Liberal Party had a voter's list on cornputer disk. The
list contained the voterf s complete address, but lacked phone
nubers . The London West Liberal Association used a customized
software program, designed by local party volunteers, during
the 1993 f ederal election because the List provided on disk by
the national party w a s incomplete. The association's program
compiled a voter's list based on the lists from the previous
federal, provincial and municipal elections, as well as from
the 1992 referendum. Once completed, these lists were stored
according to poll number in a computer database. Telephone
numbers were then looked up and entered into the system for
each voter. When completed, these lists w e r e printed and used
for phone canvassing, in w h i c h interviewers could check off
how the respondents said they would vote, and if Liberal,
whether they wanted a sign or wished to volunteer. The
information obtained from the phone canvasç was then entered
into the systen. This process was similar for the general, or
door-to-door, canvass. The data that was collected and
inputted culminated in a list of identified party supporters
that was then used in home centres* on election day. These
lists, of course, contained the supporters' phone nwnbers, so
they could be contacted to ensure that they had voted (see
Appendix B) .
Home centres rnonitor who has voted and contact identified supporters who have yet to vote.
16
Transaction generated data provides parties with an even
more detailed portrait of a voter, especially when linked wi th
polling data.' Retailers, such as A&P grocers, offer
individual computerized " discountm cards to cus tomers willing
to s igr: a £0- providing personal information. C I J . Alexander states that, "in exchange for the right to track one* s
individual shopping habits, the person receives a
tsurveilla.ce ~ubsidy'".~ The compiled lists of names, along
with other important information, are then rented out tu other
businesses, and also to political parties. This process will
be discussed in greater detail later i n the chapter.
Once obtained, parties analyze and interpret this raw
data in ways t h a t are much more meaningful and revealing than
previously possible. Elections Canada, for example, is
becoming more and more "wiredn, and this has the potential to
provide signif icant advances in a party* s conduct of election
campaigns. It now provides election results in a machine
xeadable format, and this allows for greater ease of analysis
in preparation for future electoral event~.~
Using historical election data, polls in a riding can be
ranked according to the partyfs vote percentage in the
previous election. For the past three provincial elections,
the Ontario Liberal Party (OLP) has distributed cornputer
programs for p o l l analysis to the local riding associations.
These programs were capable of perf orming the necessary
calculations and producing a list of the polls in the riding
17
divided into strong, swing and weak polls ( s e e Appendix C ) . For the 1995 election, OLP developed a new program entitled
"VotePron. This DOS-based program was to be used to track
voter support during the campaign. Although difficult to
operate, it contained useful information such as an unof f icial
voter s list , some telephone numbers , and demographic
information. More importantly, a riding association could
extract the data f r o m this program and enter it into their own
custom database program, as did the London South Liberal
Association.
In addition to election analyses, survey research has
also been used by some parties and candidates to conduct
computerized media buying." In this instance, computers are
used to analyze the ratings of television shows not j u s t by
the nuniber of people who are watching, but also by the kind of
people who are watching.I2 This allows a party to both
eff ectively target their ads during times of optimum viewing,
as well as targeting particular ads to certain demographic
sectors of society. For example, Cornpusearch offers the 1995
Television Spending Index ( T S I ) . This is a media planning and
buying tool based on a linkage of Compusearch's PSYTE
segmentation system and Nielsen Marketing Research television
audience measurement services. Variations of this program are
also available for magazine, newspaper, cable and radio
applications. As can be seen, computers are changing the
nature of election campaigns by enabling parties and
18
candidates not only to analyze past election results, but also
to use new methods of analyçis and advertising placement.
The advent of the high-speed micro-computer, along with
the existence of more than 3,500 electronic databases, enables
parties to survey the f l o w of new ideas and social issues.
Cornputer technology eliminates the countless number of
volunteer hours needed to read hunùreds of thousands of
publications, coding and clipping articles of interest, and
then filing them in an easy-to-use reference systern." With
h-andreds of outlets pos ting thousands of pages of publicly
available information, parties will soon be able ta do most of
their issue research on the fnternet . L4 Additionally,
today's commercially available databases contain almost
everything being published. As a result, parties have the
ability to scrutinize several million articles in order to
determine the frequency with which an issue or subject has
been mentioned over a specif ic t h e period, and this quickly
generates a trend that can then be incorporated into a
campaign strategy. Moreover, a set of issues can be tracked
through a particular medium to monitor bow treatment and
patterns of coverage differ.15 This new form of issue or
trend analysis allows parties to conduct research comparable
to the speed with which issues emerge and change in today's
society. Traditional methods of analysis simply cannot keep
pace with a society where information rnoves at the speed of
light . '' With improved methods of collecting information on
19
issues, parties not only have the potential to make a more
infomed decision on a particular policy, but they also have
the ability to respond to television news reports and,
possibly, to better educate voters on issues.
PUBLIC O P ~ O W POtIinm
The second application to be reviewed is the use of
cornputer technology to conduct public opinion polling.
Polling in Canada began during the Second World War when
Ottawa conunissioned opinion surveys on the home front. The
first political polls were conducted by the Gallup
organization during the Ontario election of 1943. Yet, it
would take two decades before polling became a regulax feature
of political campaigning, although during the 1950s the
federal parties had done some limited partisan polling.17
Systematic national polling was first applied in
Canadian federal campaigns by the Liberal party in the early
1960d8 Impressed with t h e way that John F. Kennedy had
used polling during his run for the American presidency in
1960, Keith Davey, the Liberals national director at t h e tirne,
commissioned Kennedy's pollster, Louis Harris, to do surveys
during the 1962 and 1963 federal elections .19 The Liberals
also hired ~arris between elections to monitor public opinion,
and this was the first time t h a t a Canadian political party
had sys tematically checked public opinion. 'O By the Trudeau
era, polling was considered essential in Canadian political
life.21
20
The 1962 election was also the first in which polling
was used to match a candidate to a constituency, which today
is c~mmonplace.~~ In this, polling is used to determine in
which riding a candidate should run by comparing the strengths
of the candidate with the demographics of the riding.
Conducted by the national party, this type of poll analysis is
used in only exceptional cases, such as for a party leader
without a seat or a 'star8 candidate.
The Liberals s u ~ e y e d extensively during the 1970s, with
Martin Goldfarb contracted to do most of the Party's
business. 23 Goldf arb was the f irst Canadian pollster hired
to work on a continuing basis with a political party."
Since the early 1970s, both the Liberals and the Conservatives
have forged close links with particular polling f irms whose
main business is market re~earch.~' The Conservatives, under
Robert Stanfield, began an ongoing relationship with Robert
Teeter and the Decision Making Information group of Richard B.
Wirthlin. Canadian expertise has over the years been
developing, and political pollsters are now considered - -
indispensable partners in camgaign planning and strategies.-'
Canadian parties, however, are beginning to use new
technology to run sophis ticated " in-housen programs of their
own, which combine polling and canvassing. Optical scanning
technology, for instance, speeds up sorne of the more labour-
intensive and mundane aspects of political canvassing. A
system of bar-coded lists enables a phone bank supervisor to
obtain canvassing results by waving a l igh t pen attached to a
micro-cornputer. Specialized software and pr in ters then
produce phone and general canvass lists with voter
identification numbers translated into bar codes sirnilar to
those found on rnost co~ercial goods . Each response to the
survey questions is likewise coded. In a matter of hours,
data from a phone or general canvass can be collected and
processed optically; and faster processing means faster
turnaround on f ollow-up calls and mailings . After the
scanning is completed, the resulting file cari either be loaded
into a computer, transmitted to campaign headquarters, or sent
to the campaign's direct mail consultant. This process is
considered user-friendly, but it is not cost-ef fective for
srna11 campaigns to use.27 Aithough this technology was made
available to provincial ~iberal riding associations during the
1995 Ontario election, it was neither extensively nor
effectively used.
Despite interna1 applications, Canadian parties continue
to rely heavily upon professional pollsters to capture the
political mood.'' For the major political parties in Canada,
polling has become the basic antenna that guides the election
campaign. '' According to Khayyam Zev Paltiel:
Pollsters attempt to track and monitor the impact of the campaign through close and ongoing observation of key ridings and sub-constituencies, the object being to allow quick tactical adjustment based on perceived shifts in public opinion. Their findings prompt party strategists to modify preset campaign plans, including the itineraries and the content of their national leaders ' speeches. 'O
As noted above, polling has been a mainstay of Canadian
campaigns for over thirty yearç. However, the arriva1 of
advanced computer technologyhas enhanced and extended polling
techniques, as evidenced by candidate-feasibility studies,
riding analyses, issue assessment, and vote targeting."
Using cornputers programmed with census data, addresses, and
past voting patterns, pollsters prepare lists of specific
questions for telephone callers to ask voters on a particular
st~eet.'~ Cornputers have also greatly improved a pollster's
ability to measure the public's response ta a candidate and
his or her ideas and then to instantly calculate shif ts in
opinion. One such application allows a computer to collect
information f rom hand-held devices on which participants in
focus groups twist knobs or punch digital keypads to register
their feelings about a commercial, a speech, a debate or any
other component of a campaign. Borrowed from commercial
advertising, the main attraction of this system is its ability
to f ollow an audience ' s response ins tantaneously wi thout
having to wait until afterwards in order to question people
about what they liked and di~liked.'~
COmawmR AsszsTBn ~ P f f O ~ I w m R V I m (CATI) SYSTmas
Political pollsters now survey public opinion using a
systern originally designed by market research f irms . Known as Cornputer Assis ted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) sys t a s , these
sophisticated systems automate much of the activity before and
after an interview.34 For example, the CATI system either
23
stores telephone numbers internally or provides its own
numbers using a random digit telephone number generator."
Telephone polls are often done by a system called
random-digi t dialling where no directories are used, but
rathsr phone nurnbers are selected at random frorn known working
exchanges and area codes. 36 RDD sampling programs are built
into most carnpaign software packages, eliminating problems
such as unlisted and out-of-date numbers, as well as answering
machines. Since random-digit dia1 procedures are cornputer
generated, they rninimize staff t h e and effort , only requiring
the entry of preliminary information specific ta the local
area. After a few minutes of staff the, the programs
generate numbers and p r i n t thern in lists, on call sheets, or
store them electronically for integration with other survey
software. 37
Another aspect of the CATI system is its ability to
instantly decide how to handle each call. It notes completed
interviews and ineligible numbers, which are then retired from
the file, It detects busy signals and no-answers and calls
these back at programmed t h e intervals. It also makes note
of those who cannot start or finish an interview, and then
dials them back later to complete the q~estionnaire.'~ When
the cornputer finally identifies a human voice, the cal1 is
instantaneously routed to an available conununicator,
Once a voter answers the phone, the interviewer is
prompted by a display of textual material and questionnaire
24
items displayed on a video screen in the party's or firm's
office. Each possible response category for each question is
also displayed, together with a code number for each category,
as well as the complete history of the re~pondent.~~ In such
a fully automated polling center, the interviewer barely needs
to do anything other than stare at the screen and talk with
the respondent , thereby virtually eliminating paperwork. 'O
During the interview, CATI directs the flow of the
questionnaire, accomodating cornplex "if-then" routines that
make the order of questions contingent on the string of
previous an~wers.~' Checking for ineligible responses, it
also allows interviewers to back up and review earlier
questions. More importantly, its dialling and number-
management keep the calls moving along . " When the
respondent answers a question, the interviewer enters the
appropriate response code and then proceeds to the next
questionnaire item. As the CATI system assists the
interviewer, the information on each registrant is used to
constmct a database, thus adding to the knowledge-base about
each potential voter polled." Moreover, at any tine in a
survey, researchers can analyze the growing database, as well
as monitor trends and obtain early indications of public
views . 44 Using this kind of machinery, an interviewer is
able to reach more deeply into a list than ever bef ore, and do
so at a lower ~ost.~'
The New Democratic Party (NDP) campaign in the 1993
25
federal election used this type of cornputer system to provide
high level contact with voters. Chosen for its predictive
dialling capability rather than for comprehensive number
crunching, this new technique enhanced the partyts telephone
canvassing and f und-raising by means of automated dialling ,
electronic data entry of the responses, and computerized
telephone lists purchased from telephone ~ompanies.'~ It was
also able to provide detailed voting information £rom the
targeted ridings , and as the Partyt s campaign increasingly
focused on a few winnable seats, the utility of predictive
dialling g r e w correspondingly . " DMZ Direct Marketing Ltd.
also offers a predictive dialling system, which allows
campaigns to combine a highly targeted direct mail carnpaign
with a fully computerized phone bank system to reinforce the
campaign message.
POLITZCAL CO-CATIOH
The final application to be explored is how computers
f acilitate voter communication. Today, more than ever ,
political campaigns are conmiunication campaigns . 49 The
sophisticated use of modern technology has brought about
significant changes in political campaign communications,
enhancing the ability of parties to interact with voterda
As home computer use spreads, and as Internet comect ion
becomes more common, the nature of campaigns could be
fundamentally altered through computers by allowing voters to
interact with the candidate from their own homes. This rapid
26
and "personal" interaction might permit candidates the
possibility of repositioning their stance on certain issues,
and it might also encourage voters to modify their views
regarding the candidate.
DXRSCT B¶Ut:tIST PROOIlCTIO~
Since cornputers firs t made in-roads into political
campaigns during the mid-i980s, communications have become
increasingly targeted and personalized, as evidenced by the
growing use of direct mail by p o l i t i c a l parties.52 In order
to target potential voters more accurately, parties compile
lis ts that provide highly specialized information about
voters.53 These lists are assembled from a variety of
sources, such as previous donors, contacts lists, and marked
lists, such as those whose names w e r e generated by
canvassing. 54
Parties today increasingly rent lists £rom brokers when
their own list does not include names which would be relevant
to a particular mailing ." Even though the Liberals have a
custom designed database system, they also use a list broker
to contract out large direct mailings, particularly through
the Canadian Direct Marketing ~ssociation.'~ "List brokers"
analyze the party's data needs, research what is available,
and then arrange an agreement between buyer and seller."
Through InfoDirect, an affiliate of Be11 Canada, a party has
access to over ten million consumer and business listings
across Canada. These lists are nomally rented for a "one-
27
time use", and then only for a purpose arraaged contractually
with the Clients must then provide a copy of the
mailing piece or telephone script pr io r to the provision of
the Est. Moreover, InfoDirect reserves the right to refuse
the rental of its lists to any organization. 59
DIRECT M U L : m - R A I S -
A direct mail fund-raising effort by a political party
or candidate is a two-step process. During the "prospecting"
phase, personalized letters are sent to potential campaign
donors to solicit a contribution. The second step is the
renewal or *housen phase where direct mail appeals are sent to
proven donors.
Using gimmicks and personalization, parties produce
letters to thank recipients for previous donations and to
refer to a specific future electoral campaign. Compter
personalization has become useful not so much for its ability
to reproduce the donorfs name in the greeting and elsewhere
throughout the letter as it is for its capacity to make
specific references to the donorfs prior giving history, plus
a few relevant facts concerning his or her life? This
letter is usually closed with a carefully tailored " P . S * "
message for each type of registrant .62 This technique
requises an elaborate cornputer program and the highest quality
laser printer . 63
A major advancement in direct mail resulted f r o m the
arriva1 of the high speed laser printer, This type of printer
28
has become an essential component of a campaign, espec ia l ly
çince a party must follow up a phone cal1 hmediately with
persuasion mail.64 Combining both speed and quality, the
laser printer has the ability to do almost anything the
computer tells it to do, such as print in different fonts ,
pxint words sideways and upside dom, and print "handwritten"
notes. Interestingly, this kind of technology has actually
lowered and not increased the overal l cost of pxoducing a
direct mail campaign. 65
The PC Party first began its direct m a i l operation in
1975, followed by the NDP in 1978 .66 Although the Liberal
Party made its first effort in 1981, its first ' serious'
effort was not made uitil the 1984-1985 period. In the
Liberal Party, interna1 computer use in direct mail is
currently confined to list generation, project analysis, and
receipting. The party prefers to employ an outside agency to
conduct the prograd' The PCs first used directhail in the
1970s when, out of power, the party had difficulty raising
money from large con tribut or^.^' Taking advantage of the
incentives for individual contributions offered by the
election expense reforms of 1974, they employed the knowledge
of the U S . Republican Party's direct mail experts.69
The Republican Party, which has been using direct mail
for fund-raising since the l97Os, has generated a significant
portion of its revenue through this technique. In 1975, the
party had a list of only 24,000 names; but by 1984, its list
29
of proven donors had expanded to over 2 -1 million."
Canadian parties have also experieaced an increase in the
number of individual contributions. For example, the Liberal
Party received donations f r o m 13,373 individuals in 1975.. By
1991, this number had almost doubled to 26,396 (see Table 1) . Larry JI Sabato argues that direct mail broadens the committed
base of a party, since contributing money usually strengthens
the tie between a voter and any organization." Even though
the overall number of individual contributors to Canadian
parties has increased, this number wildly fluctuates f rom year
to year. (see Table 1) Consequently, it m a y be premature to
Say that direct mail fund-raising provides the means with
which to broaden the committed base of Canadian political
parties.
DIRECT M U & : TARGETIMG
The whole range of gimrnicks and computer personalization
devices developed over the years by direct mail fund-raisers
to elicit contributions are now used in targeted mailings to
attract voter support. 72 By allowing campaign organizations
to be highly selective in targeting audiences, direct mail
offers parties something that cannot be readily duplicated by
any other existing f o m of political advertising." These
computer generated letters are used to provide a partial
connection between the po tential voter and the candidate. '' For instance, letters for George Bush in 1980, when he was
running for vice-president of the United States, included
YEAR P.C. LIBERAL M)P
1974(5 months) 6 423 4 117 27 910
1975 10 341 13 373 58 889
1976 23 409 18 261 56 142
1977 20 339 2 1 063 60 169
1978 35 615 22 350 67 133
1979 34 952 13 025 63 655
1980 32 720 17 670 62 428
1981 48 125 24 735 56 545
1982 52 694 27 968 66 665
1983 99 264 33 649 65 624
1984 93 199 29 056 80 027
1985 75 117 28 545 97 364
1986 52 786 35 369 90 487
1987 39 320 28 972 87 927
1988 53 893 30 642 118 390
1989 40 191 19 970 89 290
1990 27 702 36 361 116 448
1991 27 391 26 396 94 080
Source:Table 8.2, volume 1, RCERPF, p. 521-
3 1
reprints of news articles with "personal" notes from Bush
laser printed in the top margini ." Tasgeting is based on the assumption that voters are
individuals with varying demographics, attitudes and
lifestyles and that these differences should be recognized in
any communications strategy, either during the pre-mit period
or the actual ~arnpaign.'~ During the 1984 federal election,
the PC Party experimented with direct mail as a means of
political commuaication. Esnploying the services of Mary Ellen
Miller, a Republican direct mail expert, they used the
geodemographic targeting" technique of locating vo ters in
" swing" ridings , who then received letters and telephone
solicitations ." P a r t of the P C s f success in the 1988 election cari be
attributed to their mastery of campaign technology, which
ranged f rom their clever application of polling results t o
their unders tanding of television to their s trong interna1
communications netwosk, as exemplif ied by Target ' 8 8.
Designed to reach as many undecided voters as possible, Target
' 88 featured a highly defined list of about 5000 voters in
each of the forty ridings cho~en.'~ To identify these
voters, Decima's riding-profile polls were consulted. The
idea was to identify four "lifestylen categories that
contained a high ratio of undecided voters. A list of al1
voters in the riding who f itted those lifestyle categories was
then obtained £rom InfoDirect. Another company at tached
addresses, phone numbers and postal codes to the names. This
process took only a couple of days to camplete. Next, a laser
printer generated a cus tomized "personal letter to each
undecided voter, mechanically signed by then-prime minister,
Brian ~uironey.~~ It asked each person on the list to mite
back with their views and concerns. The letter was followed
up with a phone cal1 asking about the voterr s concerns and
then by a second letter with a response, one of thirty-three
prepared beforehand, tailored to the person's specific
problems or opinions. Finally, a second phone cal1 was made
on election day to ensure that the person had in fact
voted."
Market profiles are quickly evolving into detailed
mosaics of individuals. Technological advances have made it
both cheaper and easier than ever to gather database
information. 82 The Claritas Corporation, founded in 1971,
has created forty separate "clusters", which contain al1 of
America's neighbourhoods that exhibit similar socio-economic
and demographic char acte ris tic^.^^ The Company develops an
action plan which locates the optimum, or lowest risk, small
geographic areas where the people live who are most likely to
respond to the message delivered in a positive mannes. 84 The
system created by Claritas, called Prizm, was first used in
Novernber of 1978 when the opponents of a proposed right-to-
work resolution in Missouri contracted the Company in order to
maximize the campaign' s resources . 95
Geodemographic targeting has
Canadian political parties, thanks to
Social Research Limited of Toronto
3 3
been widely used by
Compusearch Market and
Founded in 1974,
Compusearch crossbred Statistics Canada census data with the
national system of postal codes to produce a detailed database
on the way every Canadian household lives. Created in 1984,
"Lifestyles" was a database t h a t neatly divided the nation
into 70 kinds of neighbourhoods t h a t are easy t o identify. 36
PSYTE is Compusearch' s new c l u s t e r system based on the 1 9 9 1
Census. Six rnonths in the rnaking, it came out in October 1994
with 60 clusters. After a riding is 'clusteredf, computers
then decide which letter is most likely to appeal to a voter,
depending on the block where the citizen lives.''
Contracted by the Liberal caucus in 1993, Compusearch
designed a lifestyles report for a lirnited number of ridings.
The report contained specific information such as the number
of households in each 'lifestylef in the riding, the
percentage that each lifestyle composed in the riding, and the
benchmark percentage as compaxed to the overall average i n the
province (see Appendix D). The 'lifestyles codesf are based
on the assumption t h a t similar households tend to Iive
together or 'cluster'. This knowledge is then used to target
specific voters regarding issues t h a t they are most likely t o
be concerned about. Databases such as the one created by
Compusearch enable a party to more effectively use direct
mail.
34
The emerging technology of database marketing indicates
a trend toward more personalized and differentiated direct
mail appeals by Canadian parties and candidate^.'^ With this
new technology, parties are cultivating an increasingly
personalized bond between the voter and candidate." For
example, the Liberal candidate in London West, Susan Barnes,
used a geodemographically-generated letter in the final weeks
of the 1993 federal election. Using the lifestyle codes
obtained from Compusearch, letters were sent to those codes
where the Liberal vote was even or behind, specif ically voters
aged 25-44 with average to above average incornes and w i t h
young children. This demographic was reflected in the letter
sent to these voters, as it focused on job creation, health
care and the deficit - issues which the party knew £rom its polls would be of most interest to these particular voters.
The letter, of which between 1000 and 1500 wexe sent out, was
simple, addressed personally to the voter, actually signed by
Barnes, and hand-delivered (see Appendix E) . By providing a
more meaningful connection between the voter and the party,
cornputers enable parties and candidates to make more extensive
gel-out-the-vote and voter contact efforts.
Computerized direct mail allows parties to set dif ferent
agendas for different voter sub-groups, discovering groups to
elhinate, as well as groups on which to f o c u ~ . ~ ~ Saying
different things to different people is not a modern
technique, but targeting through computerization is easier to
3 5
do and harder to catch.g1 This practice may accordingly have
harmful implications for the political process . BY
encouraging voters to adopt a black and white v i e w of the
world, targeting may further accentuate differences between
voter groups .g2 Moreover, most people accept the agenda set
by targeted campaigns, which may lead to a rise in se l f i sh
expe~tation.~' Voters will expect parties to deliver on
promises made during a campaign because targeting demons trat es
to voters that parties are a w a r e of and understand their
concerns, and more importantly, c l a h to be able to resolve
them. This, of course, can easily backfire. Thus, parties
must be extremely cautious in how they use new electronic
technology to control the political agenda.
An unmistakable property of the new technologies is that
it enables parties and voters to send and receive information
much faster than previously p~ssible.~' With an Internet
connection, e-mail is easily exchanged, thereby providing a
sense of immediacy and convenience that other forms of
communication fail to o f f e ~ . ' ~ Nicholas Negroponte, founding
director of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Inst i tute of
Technology, believes that e-mail will be the dominant
interpersonal medium of the future. 96 If, as Negroponte
speculates, e-mail does become the major interpersonal medium
of communication, it will be important for Canadian parties to
fully understand this medium i f they w i s h to use it to
36
establish links between them and voters.
Of al1 the properties of the new communications
technology, the capacity for interaction between party and
voter sharply dis tinguishes the new technology , especially the
Internet, £rom the old." Through the Internet and
particularly the World Wide Web (WWW) , voters can typically
view speeches, biographies, positions on issues, press
releases, campaign schedules, and information on how to
support the candidate or make a donation. In addition to
communicating with voters through the Internet, parties and
candidates also solicit suggestions on a wide variety of
issues and topics. Voters are further able to talk back to a
candidatesf campai- or a political party through e - m a i l or
on-line polling." Both the Reform party and the NDP, for
example, have questioanaires that people can f il1 out on the
partiesf respective web sites.
The new electronic technology enables vote rs to acquire
m o r e information, to acquire new kinds of information, and
change how they access information. Voters today are able to
acquire more information electronically than can be conveyed
by other means, such as through newsclips or political
For instance, systems of expanded user control, particularly
the Intemet, allow voters to acquire more information about
how a political party proposes to deal with their particular
concerns . As Marshall McLuhan wrote three decades ago in
37
Understandina Media, a new communication system never simply
extends an old one, since new technology creates new
content. 'O1 Through the Internet, the public can create
entirely new kinds of information, and more importantly,
voters have the power to determine the type of information
which they receive.'02 With high-tech web sites, parties are
increasingly posting news-breaking political information for
voters to view.
The new electronic technology has greatly expanded the
ways in which voters gain access t o existing information.
Although this information has always been available, it was
usually beyond the reach of the average p e r ~ o n . ' ~ ~ With the
World Wide W e b , a person can browse the Internet without
having to learn a lot of comands, thus making the process of
accessing sites on the Internet extremely user-friendly."'
By of fering voters informative speeches which can be
downloaded at will on any topic they want, and the opportunity
to express their opinion, parties are opening up new
opportunities for voters to participate in campaigns without
leaving their homes, and at a t h e of their choosing. This
will require finding new ways to practice politics "at the
retail level around the clock. 'O5 ~merican parties have
begun to respond to this change, as evidenced by the 'Dole for
President web site, which greeted visitors with an on-line
guest book, volunteer and donation forms, and campaign
information. The Dole Campaign web site sets itself apart
38
f rom other campaign sites through its considerable
interactivity. Major new sections are planned to corne on-line
soon including a section f o r children that, it is claimed,
will serve as "both an information and educational t oo l " . 'O6
The Internet is becomBng increasingly popular as a
channel of communication for political parties and candidates.
For instance, rather than scheduling a press conference,
Republican presidential candidate L a m a r Alexander announced
his candidacy on-line on February 27,1995. Three months
later, he opened a campaign headquarters on the Web, which is
that part of the Internet where users can browse and download
tex t , sound, images and video. ' O 7
Previously, parties were best able to deliver their
messages to voters through television; but this is beginning
to change with the emergence of the Internet. Candidates are
using the power of this new two-way interaction to reach out
to voters, hoping to inform them, and more importantly, to
recruit them into t h e i r campaigns. The Internet thus affords
a possible return to true grass-roots organizing . 'O8
However, parties should remember that the Interner is not a
political "panacean, as it is unlikely that it will cornpletely
replace other means of voter contact.lo9 According to Adam
Sohn, Director of Technology for the 1996 Clinton/Gore
Campaign, W e want to get everybody involved and you can
canvass al1 you want and we're going to. But, this is another
way, it is a complimentary[sic] tool to reach out to hundreds
3 9
of thousands of voters. ''O
Canadian political parties have slowly begun to
recognize the possibilities which present themselves through
rnaintainiag a web site on the Internet. Through the federal
Liberal Partyf s web site, which went on-line February 22,
1996, voters can offer suggestions and comments, and they can
also access information concerning the party and its policies.
Although there is no opportunity at the present time f o r
voters to make policy suggestions through their web site, the
Liberal party hopes to eventually make their web site another
means of gathering policy input."'
The Liberal Party believes that its web site will take
some of the pressure off its communications team, especially
its information office, as the information most commonly asked
for is now available on-line. According to Natalie Rawlings,
the Web Master f o r LPC, the Liberal Party built a web site in
order to communicate its message more effectively to Canadians
and to solicit feedback f rom them. 11' Currently averaging
oves 2000 "hitsn (Le . attempts to gain access) a week, the
partyfs web site is apparently proving to be a worthwhile
inves trnent . A successful w e b site must be graphically appealing and
contextually engaging. but its most important function will be
to disseminate and collect information frorn its audience.lL3
The Reform Party was the first federal party to recognize the
importance of a highly interactive web site, going on-line
40
January 7, 1995. Reform is now attempting to put its
individual MPs on-line. As of April 9,1996, fourteen Reform
MPs had a web site, and this number has been steadily
increasing over the past two years. The Reform Party's web
site had approximately 400,000 hits in its f irst year on-line.
Currently, about l9,OOO people visit the site on a weekly
basis . lf4 This vast number of bits reflects the
interactivity of Reform's web site. For instance, in an
effort to get feedback from Canadians coast to coast, the
Ref orm Party asked Canadians to send in their thoughts on what
the priorities of the governent should be when Parliament
resumed on February 27,1996. The question posed by the party
was: "If you could mite one sentence into the Throne Speech,
what would it be?" . From the suggestions solicited by the
party, Reform produced a "People's Response to the Throne
Speechm, which was in fact read in the House of Cornons.
Additionally, the party posted some of the suggestions which
it received on its web site for people to read.
Canadian parties are beginning to realize the
possibilities of the Internet as a supplementary election
tool. The PC Party, for example, is currently developing a
strategy which will include an aggressive use of the Internet
during the next federal ele~tion."~ In this it is following
Reform, which was again the f irst Canadian party to use the
Internet as a campaign tool. Al1 six Reform candidates for
the March 25, 1996 Eederal by-elections had web sites. Some
4 1
of the sites - such as those of Deon Hancock, the candidate
for Humber-St . Barbe-Baie Verte, and John McGrath, the
candidate for Newfoundland-Labrador - were quite elaborate, containing volunteer and donation f orms , and information on
issues. Others simply had the name of the candidate, a
picture, a short biography of the candidate, and a contact
number . Although slow to appear on-line, some Liberal MPs are
rapidly realizing the potential which the Internet affords.
For example, the home page of Reg Alcock, the rnember for
Winnipeg South, is perhaps the rnost advanced of any lQ
currently on-line. It enables both constituents and others to
send feedback, to participate in a survey, and to obtain
government documents. In addition, people can see how
M r . Alcock has voted on legislation, thereby potentially
improving his accountability to his constituents.
In conclusion, this chapter bas examined the use of
cornputer technology by Canadian political parties. Through
the use of this new technology, parties are able to perforn
their traditional functions more efficiently. More
criticaïly, parties are begiming to carry out functions not
usually considered to be "traditional", in particular the
coordinating of political activity, the disseminating of
political information, the monitoring of political events , and
(albeit marginal at the present tinte) the education of voters.
By extensively affecting election campaigning, the new
42
technology is forcing Canadian political parties to invent
more modem means of performing traditional tasks.
15. Crave and Haliett, pp.69-70.
16. Crave and Haliett, p.70.
17. Ian Ward, " M e d i a Intrusion and the Changing Nature of the EstabLished Parties in Australia and Canadaw, Canadian Journal of Political Science, vo1.26, no.3 (Septeniber 1993), p.484.
18. Khayyam Zev Paltiel, "Political Marketing, Party Finance, and the Decline of Canadian Parties", Canadian Parties in ~ransition, 2nd ed., eds- A-Brian Tanguay and Alain-&Gagnon, Scarborough:Nelson Canada, 1996). p.412.
19. Ward, p . 484.
20- Jeffrey Simpson, "The Most fnfluential Private Citizen in Canadaw, Saturdav N i s h t , vo1.99, no.7 (July 1984), p.12.
21. Claire Hoy, Karqin of Error, (Toront0:Key P o r t e r Books, l989), p.30.
22. John Laschinger and Geoffrey Stevens, Leaders and Lesser Mortals, (Toronto:Key P o r t e r Books, 1992), p.62 .
23. David Taras, The Newsrnakers, (Scarborough:Nelson Canada, 1990), p-181.
24. Simpson, p.12.
25. Ward, p.484.
26. Paltiel, p.412.
27. Martin Davis, "Scanning the Horizon", Campaisns and Elections, (~arch/April 1989), p.26.
28. Paltiel, p.412.
29. David Taras, "Political Parties as Media Organizations: The Art of Getting Electedm, in Canadian Parties in Transition, 2nd ed., p-429.
30. Paltiel, p.412.
31. Paltiel, p.412.
32. Simpson, p.17.
33. Andrew Rosenthal, "Campaigning to Instant Responses", New York Times, (July 25, 1987), p . 9 .
Selnow, p .58 .
Getter and Titus,
Hoy, p.85,
Selnow, p-30.
Selnow, p.59.
Getter and Titus,
Armstrong, p.185.
Selnow, p .54 .
Selnow, p.60.
Getter and Titus,
Selnow, p.60.
Armstrong, p . 159.
p-85,
p.85.
p.85, and Selnow, p.60.
Alan Whitehorn, 'The NDP's Quest for Sumival", The Canadian General Election of 1993, eds. Alan Frizzell, Jon H-Parnmett and Anthony Westell, (0ttawa:Carleton University Press, N94), p.47, and Alexander, p.599.
Promotional material for DMZ Direct Marketing Ltd..
Selnow, p.4.
Judith S. Trent and Robert VJriedenberg, Political C a x n ~ a i m Communication, 3rd ed., (Westport: Praeger, l995), p.11.
Trent and Friedenberg, pp -63 -4.
Selnow, p-xiv.
Ji11 Smolowe, IlRead This!!!", Time, ~01.136, no.23 (November S6,l99O), p - 4 5 .
W.T. Stanbury, Monev in Politics, volume 1 of the Research Studies, (Ottawa and Toronto: RCERPF/Dundurn, lggl), pp.247-8.
Alexander, p.598.
56. Alexander, p-600.
57. A l e x a n d e r , p-597.
58. Selnow, p-82-
59. Promotional material for InfoDirect,
60. Armstrong, p.58.
61. Armstrong, p-96.
62. Getter and Titus, p.85.
63. Stanbury, p-247.
64. R e n Babcock, "Voter F i l e Maintenance", in The Road to Victorv, p 66.
65. Armstrong, pp . 82-3 66. Stanbury, p-272.
67. George Young, [[email protected]], "Liberal party and technologyn, Private e-mail message to Doug DeRabbie, 3 April 1996.
68. Taras, The Newsmakers, p.186.
69. Axworthy, p. 189,
70. Larry J-Sabato, The Partvfs Just Be-, (Glenview: Scott, Foresman and Co., 1988). p.77-
71. Ibid.
72. Armstrong, p.241f.
73. Trent and Friedenberg, p.272.
74. Frank Tobe, "New Techniques in Computerized Voter Contactn, in Canmaims and Elections, p.137.
75. Larry J. Sabato, "How Direct Mail Worksw, in C a m ~ a i a r i s and Elections, p . 9 3 .
76. Promotional material for DMZ Direct Marketing Ltd..
77. Axworthy, p.190.
78. R.M. Lee, One Hundred Monkevs, (Toronto:MacfarIane Walter and Ross, l989), p.260.
79. Lee, p.261, and Taras, The Newsmakers, p.186.
80, Lee, p.261.
81, Taras, The Newsmakers, pt186f-
82. Jared Mitchell, "Nowhere to H i d e " , Re~ort on Business Maqazine, vol . 6, no. 11 (May 1990) , p. 6 5 .
83. Jonathan Robbin, "Geodemographics:The New Magic", in Cam~aicms and Elections, p.106.
84. Robbin, p-107.
Robbin, pp. 111-112 . 86. Mitchell, p-67,
87. Axworthy, p.192.
89. A.Brian Tanguay, "Canadian Party Ideologies in the Electronic Agen, Canadian Political Partv Svstems, ed. R.H.Carty, (Toronto:Broadview Press, 1992), p.465f.
90. Frank Tobe, "Understanding Targeting", (Los Angeles: Below, Tobe and Associates, Inc., 1990), p.1.
91. Jef frey B. Abramson, F. Christopher Arterton and G a r y R. Orren, The Electronic Commonwealth, (New York: Basic Books, 1988) , p. 5 2 .
92. Armstrong, p-127.
93. Selnow, p.137-
94. Abramson, Arterton and Orren, p. 45
95. Cathy Lynch, "Internet brings the world to your doorstepw, Globe and Mail, (March 25 , 1996), p.SI.
96. Robert Fulford, "A faithful correspondent l eans the e- mail waltzn, Globe and Mail, (April 24,1996), p.Cl.
97. Abramson, Arterton, and Orren, p . 5 8 .
98. John Dickerson, "Campaigning in Cyberspacen, [http://www.org/newshour/bb/cyberspace/cyberspace~ll- 13.html], February 1996.
99, Dickerson, "Campaigning in Cyberspace" .
100. Abramson, Arterton and Orren, pp.97-8,
101. Marshall McLuhan, Understandina Media, (New York: McGraw-HiIl Book Co. , 1964) . p . v i i , and Fulf ord, p .Cl.
102. Abramson, Arterton, and Orren, p.46, and p.58f.
103. Abramson, Arterton, and Orren, p.34 .
104. Lynch, p S 1 .
105. Noble, "International Cyberspacingw.
106. The web site's URL is: www.dole96.com/dole96/main.html.
107. Dickerson, "Campaigning in Cyberspacen . 108. Ibid.
109. Mike McComeli, "Putting the Web to Work", [http: / /www. camelect .corn/ july/web ,to. work. h l ] , July 1996.
110- Jonathan Karl, "Campaign '96 goes into cyber-spacen, Cable News Network, Saturday, April 13, 1996.
111- Rawlings, "Technology use in LPCM.
112. Ibid.
113. McComeli, "Putting the Web to Work".
114 . Brad Farquhar, [ f arquhar@reforrn. cal , " Reform and technologyn, Private e-mail message to Doug DeRabbie, 4 March 1996.
115. Walter Robinson, [[email protected]], "Consemative party and technologym, Private e-mail message to Doug - - DeRabbie, 15 April 1996.
CHUTER 3 :TBB IMPACT Or TRcfesotOQY Or0 PARTY OR6ANfZATTON
This chapter examines the impact of the new electronic
technology on Canadian political parties, first, by
investigating the initial impact of its use on local party
activities such as fund-raising; second, by exploring how its
use has affected gxassroots volunteers; and third, by
examining its effects on election carnpaigns at the riding
level. The thesis of this chapter is that the new electronic
technology is strongly centralizing control of Canadian
parties in the hands of the national offices, thus furthering
the evolution of a "fourth" party system - a system driven and
shaped by electronic technology.
TES -ACT OF T R C ~ L O O Y OH LOCAL PARTY EWtlD-RATSING
Traditionally, local riding asçociations raised funds
through the personal contacts of members and special events
such as a dimer with a guest speaker. The arriva1 of new
technology, particularly computerized direct mail, has
transformed local party fund-raising efforts by altering how
riding associations approach local members and constituency
residents for donations. More importantly, direct mail
increases the number of people who can be approached by a
riding association during a fund-raising drive. Although
requiring a level of technology that most associations
currently lack (see Table II), by 1991 over half of Canadian
riding associations had direct mail programs in place largely
as a result of initiatives taken by the national parties to
TABLE II
CONSTITUENCY ASSOCIATION ASSETS (percentage owning asset)
Ggnk~ive Christian Conservative Liberal NDP Refonn Heritage
Computer 46 19 12 14 14
Photocopier 10 3 2 18 - Telephone/answering 14 10 15 39 - machine
Source: Table 3.8, Volume 23 RCERPF, p-45.
51
implernent direct mail programs.' Though still relatively
unsophisticated, these local direct mail programs have the
potential to increase the nuniber of donors contributing on a
consistent basis, as weli as to rnobilize interest within a
riding and increase an association's total rnember~hip.~
Joseph Wearing daims that through direct mail
technology, local fund-raising efforts have become more
effective, and this has led to better financed riding
associations. These associations cari aow match the funds
raised and spent by the national office.' Table III
illustrates that during the 1993 federal election, the 295
candidates for the Liberal Party raised $4,891,802 £rom
individual contributors and spent $12,23 0.2 12. ' More
inportantly, the table shows that the number of individual
contributors during an election, along with the total arnount
of individual contributions, has steadily increased in every
election since the 1984 general election. Thus, it would seem
that fund-raising efforts by local candidates have been
increasingly successful, and as a result, candidates no longer
need to depend as heavily on their partyfs central
organizations for funds.
In the 1984 election, there were only two members of
what Laschinger and Stevens have called the $100,000 Club -
candidates who raise $100,000 in donations in a single
election period. With inproved fund-raising techniques, the
club expanded to ten members in the 1988 election, and then to
TABLE 111
Election Revenues and Expenses of Liberal Candidates
Year Number of Total amount of Total Total Reimbursements individual individual contributions election contri butions contributions ex penses
Sowce: Chief Electoral Officer, 1988 and 1993, and Volume 1 RCERPF, pp.586-588, and p.592.
5 3
thirteen in the 1993 electi~n.~
In 1992, Laschinger and Stevens suggested that with
improved fund-raising, local candidates amassed personal
fortunes through the tax credit system of the EEA and the
partial reimbursement of election expenses af ter the 1984 and
1988 f ederal elections . Liberal Party candidates, for
instance, enjoyed a surplus of $13,995 on average after the
1988 election period.' According to W.T . Stanbury, over three-quarters of Conservative and Liberal candidates, and
almost sixty per cent of New Democratic candidates garnered a
financial surplus af ter the 1988 election (see Table IV) . a
Even though candidates may generate surpluses, there is
little evidence that riding associations receive these funds
af ter an election. Only twenty-four per cent of the riding
associations which responded to the RCERPF survey in 1991
claimed to have $10,000 or more available and only nine per
cent reported that they had more than $25,000 (see Table V) .' Moreover, the national parties insist on taking the
reimbursments of election expenses from local riding
associations. In 1988, at the beginning of the campaign, the
Liberal Party, and to a lesser extent the NDP, required al1
candidates to sign over half of their future reimbursements to
the national Party.'' For the 1993 election, the Liberal
Party once again required half of the federal rebate to be
returned to the national office. This ef f ectively reduced
the net amount of a candidate's surplus that could be
TABLE IV
Revcnrrs. ucpnscs and rrimburscmcat of cud-dates. 1979.I980.1984.[988 and 1993 g a l a d elecrioils (- of dollars)
1993 K Libenl NDP
1988 Fc Liberal NDP
1984 PC Libenl NDP
L980 Pc Likd NDP
L979 PC Liknl NDP
Source: Tdle 121. vohnc 1 RCERPF. p586 and W.T.S. Smbury. 'Rcgularïng the Ftnancing of Fedcnl mes and Candidates". Cadian Rrtits in Transition. 2nd ed.. p.377.
Naes: Bracketcd numkrs indicm atgative sums, i.e- dcficit
TABLE V
Funds currently available to constituency associations, 199 1 (percentages)
less than $1 000 $1 ûûû-4 999 $5 OMI-10 000 greater than $10 000
PC 8 Liberal 29 NDP 53 Refonn 9
Source: Table 4.1, volume 23 RCERPF. p.75.
56
transferred to the local riding association. l2 In addition,
the election expenses reports filed by local candidates do not
include pre-election expenses such as the purchase of a
cornputer or a riding profile done by Compusearch, nor are
campaign activities such as polling considered to be election
expenses . Indeed, election expenditures tend to be mucb
higher than reported by candidates, and thus, they generally
do not arnass large surplus funds, and riding associations in
turn only receive relatively modest funds (if any) after an
election.
A final impact of the new technology on local fund-
rais ing and finances has been increased competi tion be tween
the national level and the local level for individual
donations. Since direct mail is a more lucrative means of
raising funds, membership and donor lists have become a
j ealously guarded commodi ty , Voters generally join a
political party through their local riding association, and as
a result, i t is the association which possesses a list of
names of those likely to contribute to the party. Many riding
associations tend to maintain these mailing lists for their
exclusive use : for example, thirty-eight per cent of
Conservative riding associations reserve their lists for local
fund-raising efforts . l3
In the Liberal party, access to membership mailing lists
has also been an ongoing problem for the national party.
Currently, i t only has access to provincial-level lists , which
57
in some cases are out-of-date and contain numerous errors,
Riding associations maintain exclusivemembership lists mainly
because they believe that national direct mail campaigns
hinder local fund-raising efforts, as judged by f orty-four per
cent of Liberal associations, l4 Traditionally, riding
associations have a very s m a l l base of committed contributors,
and thus must compete with the national level for donations
from many of their nominal supporters .15 As local parties
try to shield their rnembership lists, the national offices are
attempting to centralize party rnembership lists. For example,
the Consemative Party has jus t initiated a National
Membership Program (NMP) . Now, when one joins a local PC
riding association, one also automatically becomes a m e m b e r of
the PC Party of CanadaDL6 The attempt of the national
parties to develop a completely integrated national party
membership, and the simultaneous improvement in the capacity
of local direct mail campaigns to generate revenue, may
illustrate one instance where technology use could divide and
perhaps weaken Canadian political parties. " To put it
differently, local riding associations are using the new
technology to become more independent of the national offices,
while the national offices are attempting to use this
technology to strengthen their control over local
associations.
THB IMPACT OF TEC-LûG'Y OH LOCAL PARTY ACTIVITY
Cornputers are becoming increasingly necessary for
58
carrying out the tasks required of an active riding
association. These are: organization maintenance, electoral
preparation, policy-f ocused s tudy and discussion, and
communications." Each task has accordingly been affected by
the arriva1 of the new electronic technology.
Many riding associations are using computers to maintain
accurate and up-to-date membership and donors ' lists, and thus
changing organization maintenance. Regarding electoral
preparation, computers have Unproved opposition research,
campaign planning and organizing, and poll analyses -
Cornputers have enriched policy-focused study, as illustrated
by the advances in issue research. About two-thirds of a l1
riding associations s tudy and develop policy between election
periods , As of yet, there is no direct way for local party
activis ts to influence the direction of party policy excep t
through their delegates to biannual national conventions, and
that is a particularly crude instrument. Even though the
membership wings of political parties have always been of only
marginal importance as a source of ideas, as they do not
effectively articulate interests, parties must be able to
incorporate and charnel grassroots activity on policy
questions successfully or else risk damaging party morale and
alienating their most committed supporte~s.'~
The final local party task affected by the new
technology is communications. With the Internet, direct mail,
and desktop publishing programs for newsletters, local
5 9
campaigns can respond to and reflect local concerns .20 In
doing so, cornputers have altered how parties communicate with
both their own members as well as the electorate. The most
common means of communication between riding associations and
their membership remains the traditional practices of
sponsoring public meetings and mailing out newsletters , A f ew
riding associations, however, have begun to embrace the more
modem technologies to communicate with their
constituencies . 21 The BurIington Reform Constituency
Association, for instance, has a "Demon Dialerw, which gives
a person information or asks for their opinion. This cornputer
dialler system informs members about the dates, times and
places of up-coming events and meetings in a 28 second
message, This system thus has the potential to Save many
volunteers a lot of their valuable personal the. Moreover,
this is an econornical method of disseminating local party
information: the cost is less than seven cents per call, which
compares favourably with the cost of approximately seventy-
five cents to send a ne~sletter.~~
The riding associations of the Reform Party have been
quick to acquire new technology, as evidenced by the 124
ridings that are represented in the party ' s e-mail
databa~e.'~ As a new party, the absence of existing elites
committed to traditional methods may have made the adoption of
new technology in the constituencies easiergz4 Another
possibility is that starting f rom scratch, Ref orm' s riding
60
associations simply bought the most modem communications
technologies available . 25
Use of the Internet has not been restricted to the
central party, candidates or MPs; riding associations are also
slowly getting on-line . The Calgary North Ref orm Association, for example, has a web site through which one can find
information about the sitting MP for the riding, the names and
numbers of the executive, upcoming events, and an opportunity
to sign the party's 'guest book', where one can also leave
comments. Thirty-nine Reform riding associations have web
sites, as of August 1996. A standard charge of ten dollars
for the initial set-up, plus fifty dollars a year thereafter,
links a local home page to Reformr s national web site.26 As
cari be seen, local riding associations are begiming to use
new electronlc technology to help carry out some of their
traditional roles . OBSTACLES TO UûE O? TECIWOWGY
Although the new technology off ers local parties the
opportunity to become more organized and efficient, the
majority of Canadian riding associations have been reluctant
to &race electronic technology. In a survey carried out for
the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party
Financing(RCERPF) in 1991, computers w e r e notably absent among
cons tituency associations. For instance, onïy nineteen per
cent of the Liberal riding associations which responded to the
survey owned a ~ornputer.~~ Although some associations may
61
have had access to a computer through a party mernber , this is
obviously not a desirable situation as it leaves the
association dependent on volunteer resources and vulnerable to
losing access to equiprnent and data at critical t i m e s Z e
Another concern of some riding parties is where to store the
computer during non-election years. Without sufficient Eunds
to rent or lease a permanent office, these associations look
to house the computer with a volunteer, preferably an
executive rnember, between elections. However, this can once
again present problems of use and access.
Cost can also prevent a local association £rom
effectively using the new technology. For small or poorly
funded riding associations, cost is an important
consideration. In 1991, fifty-eight percent of Liberal riding
associations reported having less than $5000 in the
association' s bank account . Such limited resources are
used mainly to support traditional local party activities
instead of being invested in new electronic technology. Even
when supplied by the national office, the new technology can
s till be rather expensive. The f ederal Consemative Party,
for example, paid for the collection of polling data in 1988;
yet local party candidates did not have access to the results
without first remitting $5000 to the national officea3* To
sign on with Target ' 88, a local candidate had to dedicate
$5000 of limited campaign funds, as well as ten volunteers, to
a program controlled by the party' s headquarters .31 It is
62
unknown whether a similar program was designed for the 1993
federal election.
With elections today, a basic cornputer is no longer
sufficient to run a local campaign. In addition to at least
two or three high-powered computers, a local campaign also
requises software, a modem for e-mail, and especially a laser
printer for direct mail appeals. In the 1993 federal
election, the London West L i b e w a l Association used two desk-
top cornputers, a notebook and a laser printer. Along with the
hardware, the association used a variety of commercially
available software programs, including Microsoft Access,
WordPerfect and Excel. To purchase a similar cornputer systern,
a riding association can expect to spend approximately $5000 .
With the introduction of sophisticated electronic equipment,
local campaigns must not only be concerned about the costs
involved, but more critically, having the expertise to
properly and effectively operate the technology.
A fusther concern is that the level of knowledge and
experience with computer technology tends to be low in many
riding associations and often, as a result, this technology is
not very well used. Composed of volunteers and with limited
resources to hire expertise, they rely on the national office
to provide them with services and software that are both
af fordable and easy to use. Consequently, when introducing
computer applications, the national office mus t keep the
lowest common denominator in mind. Another problem of
63
attempting to find software which can be adequately used by
a l1 the ridings is that riding associations have neither the
same needs nos the same level of expertise a~ailable.~~ With
scarce funds and limited access to technological innovations,
local parties will likely continue to rely for technical
expertise on grassroots volunteers, whose expertise is often
minimal . TEE IMPACT O? TZCH#OtOOY OH LûCAh VOL-S
Local constituency associations are the basic unit for
activity in Canadian political parties. These associations
provide for citizens the main organizational tie to the
national parties and the world of electoral cornpetition. 33
Through an association, one can participate in policy
development, nominate local candidates, select party leaders,
and help prepare for and fight an election campai-. Even
though Canadian parties are open and accessible, f ew choose to
join or actively participate in them. Between 1987 and 1990,
local party association memberships averaged 600, wbile during
the election year of 1988, it was 750.34
A i 1 Canadian parties have had difficulty sustaining
active local organizations . 3 5 AS a result , they have been
f orced to depend on relatively srna11 numbers of local members
to keep their riding associations active, and these numbers
fluctuate suddenly and extensively? Between 1987 and 1990,
membership in the riding associations of the Liberal Party
varied between 7 and 6000 ." For many voters, there simply
seems to be little point in maintaining their membership
between ele~tions.~' Consequently, parties tend to be hollow
entities that corne to l i f e only at election t h e or for a
leadership convention. lg
Arguably, there is less interest in local campaigns
today and f ewer people involved in them. Part of the decline
in interest may be attributed to the capacity of television to
convey emotional and personal messages f r o m political parties
to a wide audience of voters. With the arriva1 of television,
voters no longer needed to become involved in a campaign in
order to experience the drama and motion of an election, and
as a result, the number of volunteers willing to work on local
campaigns de~lined.~~ In 1988, only sixteen per cent of the
riding associations surveyed said they had enough
volunteers. Party organizations required an average of 2 3 1
volunteers to run an effective local campaign, according to
local organizers, yet in 1988, each campaign had an average of
170 volunteer~.~~ The new technology is transforming both
the number of volunteers needed to run an effective local
campaign and the roles available for them to perform. New
electronic technology now performs roles normally carried out
by volunteers, such as tracking the vote and voter
communication, and hence, fewer volunteers are needed than in
previous campaigns . Yet , these volunteers are increasingly
required to have computer skills. Volunteers m u s t be able to
input data collected by canvassing, to operate software
65
programs designed by the national party, and to design direct
rnailings . If local campaigns are to be succeçsful, they mus t carry
out three fundamental functions : first, they must target their
support; second, they must communicate their message; and
third, they must mobilize their vote on election day."
The first function of targeting party supporters has
been signif icant ly af f ec ted by the new technology ,
particularly the arriva1 of computer software for polling that
has enabled local campaigns to track the electorate during a
campaign with much greater accuracy and detail than previously
possible.44 More local campaigns are relying on polling
rather than volunteers to provide information on voters . For
example, approximately me-third of canadian r iding
associations claimed to have polled during the 1988 election
campaign. '' Selle and Svasand claim that technological developments
have reduced the information role of local party
organizations . 46 Grossman s tates that party organizations
are no longer relied upon to provide expertise and leadership
during an election. 47 Taras argues that parties, which were
once useful in relaying their knowledge of public sentiments
to their national leaders, have been replaced in this role by
public opinion polls and sample surveys which perform the same
function with a t least equal, and arguably much greater,
accuracy." All are of the view that party members have seen
66
the influence they once had through their local constituency
offices diminished, and that m o n e y and media have replaced
personal contact as the chief energizing sources of
politics. " As Thomas S. Amorthy notes, "Capital can now
purchase what only mass organization was once able t o
provide. " 50
Communicating the partyrs message has also been
influenced by the arriva1 of new technology, although to a
lesser extent. The distribution of campaign literature
continues to be important, with eighty-six percent of riding
associations clairning that it was very important or somewhat
important in their campaigns in 1988.51 Canvassing a l so
remains an essential aspect of a local campaign, rnostly
because of the persona1 contact that is invol~ed.~' It
reinforces the party loyalty of supporters, and it can a l so
rnake a significant difference, especially in a close race or
by-election. 53
Even though canvassing and literature drops are seen as
important for comunicating the party' s message, loca l
campaigns are increasingly turning to direct mail as a more
productive m e t h o d . In effect, efficient campaign technologies
are being substituted for less efficient volunteers. 54 By
creating substantial increases in efficiency andproductivity,
the new c o r n p u t e r technology allows f ewer people to perf orm
more tasks . s5 Direct mail production technology has become
so highly automated that the role of the volunteer in p o l i t i c s
67
has been considerably diminished.'= It would be premature to
conclude that the new electronic technology has replaced
grassroots volunteers. Parties today reLy on fewer but more
skilled volunteers
The third local campaign task of mobilizing the vote on
election day still depends upon an army of volunteers. They
monitor who has voted, offer rides and daycare senrices to
supporters, and contact those supporters who have yet to vote.
A strong grassroots organization is also considesed to be
crucial during an election campaign because without one, a
party will experience both long-term and short-term
difficulties, as the Ontario Liberals found out when elected
to a majority government in 1987 without a corresponding party
machine? In 1990, the Liberals were forced to rely more on
poli tical prof essionals than local volunteers, which was a
factor in their defeat.
Computerized direct mailing techniques aid cornputer
analysis of voting patterns have reduced the participatory
elements within local political parties, making more routine
the tasks left for the great mass of campaign activists. 5 9
This means that traditional means of campaign participation
such as literature drops and door-to-door canvassing have been
replaced by direct mail and polling. Only those tasks which
require manual labour, such as envelope stuffing and putting
up lawn signs, remain as opportunities for technologically
unskilled citizens to involve themselves in a political
68
campaign. In doing so, the new technology has reduced the
' creativer elements of participation fox the lower level of
party activists. At the same the, technical advances in
campaign methods have relieved elite party activists f r o m
routine functions which are tiresorne and boring, thereby
Leaving them more t h e for the design and implementation of
campaign s trategy . 60
Canadian political parties still try to recruit large
numbers of volunteers because most party organizers continue
to believe that the most politically effective contact is the
direct person-to-person link b e t w e e n campaign volunteer and
voter.61 Also, a large body of volunteers is seen as giving
the candidate ~redibility.~~ ut if the mind set of Canadian
parties changes to more fully embrace new electronic
technology, local activists may have to look for alternative
ways for pol i t i ca l involvement.
Richard Armstrongmaintains that computer technology has
so far been a dynamic force for the namateurization" of
political campaigns because the new technology off ers skilled
party activists the opportunity to fil1 new positions which
require a high level of technical expertise? The Reform
and Conservative parties, for instance, did not have to use a
professional firm to design their respective web sites;
ins tead they relied on volunteers who fully understood the new
te~hnology.~' The Liberal Party in London West during the
1993 f edexal election used information provided by
69
Compusearch, but the riding association also relied upon local
volunteers who possessed the expertise to design and operate
a cornputer software program that was used to produce a list of
voters, as well as to track voters throughout the campaign,
Wi th a powerful computer, well-designed campaign software, and
knowledgeable volunteers, a local campaign no longer requires
the large number of volunteers used in past campaigns. A
strong party organization is still required, but it is smaller
and more technologically skilled, not the same type of
organization that once engaged in mass canvassing and
railied'
THE IMPACT OF T B m L û G Y ON IiOCAI, PARTY ORGAMIZATZON
Thraugh the new technology, the national parties have
extended their influence over and control of local campaigns ,
While there are some instances where improved methods of
approaching voters has enabled independent or little-known
candidates to avoid national party chanriels altogether, such
instances are rare? The general effect of new technologies
is to create a wide range of opportunities f o r the national
parties to centralize campaign strategy, fund-raising, and
election spending. 67 Direct mail fund-raising, for example,
has enabled the national parties to raise the substantial
funds required for the use and development of new electronic
technology. But, more importantly, the national parties
possess the knowledge of how to use the new te~hnology.~'
According to John Street, technology creates dependence
70
relationships in which the supplier of the technology
manipulates the recipient . 69 Local campaigns have thus
become captive to strategies and decisions made at the
national level. They cannot significantly influence the
direction of the national campaign, and they possess a lixnited
independent capacity to communicate their own messages?
Fox exarnple, the PC Party has developed national standards for
al1 of t s associations to follow in their use of the
Internet. In order to be featured in the 'Ridings and
Regions' section of the national party's web site, an
association must satisfy six conditions, A riding
association' s web site must include the f ollowing : the PC
Party's new logo; the name of the riding, as w e l l as the
riding presidentrs name, adâress and phone number; an
executive Est; the date of the riding's founding meeting; a
l ist of upcoming events; and a brief description of the
riding's new boundaries ." Another means of manipulation of local campaigns by the
national parties bas been statistical analyses of ridings,
which have been a mainstay of federal election campaigns for
over thirty years. In 1962, the Liberal party began to
analyze ridings based on a system developed by Daniel Lang,
the Ontario federal campaign committee chairman, Using this
information, bath financial and organizational resources were
devoted to those ridings which the party supposedly had the
best chance of wi~ing.'~ Since then, parties only monitor
71
those ridings where a relatively rnodest shift in voter support
cari win the election. 73
With the advent of sophisticated riding analyses brought
about by cornputer technology, parties are able to accurately
target more of their attention and spending on certain ridings
rather than others. This obviously affects riding
associations in two ways. First, those ridings which receive
a great deal of attention are vulnerable to having the local
campaign being taken over by the national organization,
thereby alienating local volunteers. Second, those ridings
which receive little or no attention are susceptible to low
morale and may even become virtually non-existent for lack of
volunteers.
Electronic mail, geodemographic targeting and
computerized direct mail have al1 extended to the parties'
national offices the capability to bypass their local
constituency associagions and speak instantaneously and
directly to individual voters, thus making riding associations
less necessary for communication purposes. 74 Currently, f ew
riding associations have an e-mail address or web site; yet
al1 the national parties do, offering on-line mernberships and
the opportunity for voters to contribute directly to the
national party. As noted in Chapter Two,, the Liberal web site
averages over 2000 hits a week, while the Reform Party's w e b
site avexages about 19,000 bits per week. If v o t e r s
increasingly turn to the national party for political
involvement, then local riding associations could be in danger
of becoming dispensable. With new techniques of poli tical
communications fabricating different m e d i u n s of reaching
voters, the importance of the national organization has indeed
been enhanced at the expense of the local riding
associations 75
Contributing to the streagthening of the national
parties has been the arriva1 of campaign speciali~ts.'~
Their role in national campaigns, and their influence, is
concentrated in the national party organizations and in the
leaders ' entourages, which have become the basic instrument of
election campaigns ." As L a r r y K. Grossman notes:
Every political campaign of any significance today is run by highly specialized experts, full-the political professionals who have the skills, experience, and resources to orchestrate and exploit voters* motions and influence their views ." Writing in 1987, Rhayyam Zev Paltiel argued that
American-style specialized political consultants had failed to
take root in Canada because Canada' s party and leader-f ocused
campaign process suppressed the candidate orientation which
underlay the broad and profitable market for professional
experts in the United s t a t e d g It remains the case that few
individual candidates in Canada rely on professional political
consultants to manage a campaign for the reason Paltiel cited
and also as a result of close ties between party and
candidate, restrictions on television advertising, and lirnits
on election spending." R.K. Carty notes that in Canada
73
consultants are employed only in those instances where the
party believes that an infusion of special talent might pay
electoral dividends or where the situation is so desperate
that there is no local member available to take on the job."
Since 1987, however, the national parties themselves
have corne to rely heavily on political consultants- Following
similar trends in the United States, Canadian political
parties have chosen "to place their political fortunes
increasingly in the hands of professional managers,
consultants, and strategists . "" Accordingly, they have
developed close ties with American consultants. For example,
in the 1993 federal election the Reform Party employed Frank
~untz, an American political consultant, to help design their
campaign strategy. The need to assemble a team of political
professionals to design and direct a campaign has led to
increased election expenses and fewer opportunities for party
activists to participate at the national campaign level. In
doing so, the nature of parties and election campaigns has
been al tered . 83 The organizational structure of political parties has
evolved because of their need to assume the attributes of
media organizations to f ight elections . Although the new
electronic technology has not made party organizations
redundant, it has redefined the relationship between the
national office and the riding associations, and has tended to
transform the party from a bottom-up to a top-dom
74
organi~ation-~~ Ta put it differently, party organization
has switched from an organization mainly on the ground to an
organization that mainly gives direction to the ground?
With a transformation in interna1 organization, a party's
activities and behaviour are likewise modified- As Angelo
Panebianco argues, "a change in organizational physiognomy
implies change in party activity and behaviour " . " Yet, how
has this change in national organization and behaviour
affected local campaigns?
THE IMPACT OF T S m L d O Y 0 W GOCA& CAMPUGHS
In the days before the new communications technology,
the day-to-day political campaign was conducted mostly at the
local level through the parties' constituency associations.
As the new technology has transf ormed political campaigning at
the national level, so has the technology had a considerable
impact in the constituencies . The emphasis of campaigning has shifted still further from the local candidate to the national
leader, and the leader' s emphasis has largely shifted from
regional concerns to national ones." These shifts have
reçu1 ted in part f rom increasing national control of local
campaigns, as evidenced by the sophisticated election services
which they supply to local candidates and associations.
In many ridings, local organizations receive material
under a group purchase arrangement that provide "considerable
economies of scale" where the unit price of materials is
noticeably discounted. Known as Riding Services Packages
75
( R S P s ) , the concept and the contents of these packages have
achieved a widespread acceptance among the New Democratic,
Consemative and Liberal parties- In the Liberal Party, for
example, the use of RSPs by local associations in Ontario has
been growing since 1985, prior to which few had any experience
dealing with central services of thiç sort. One of the
selling points of RSPs is that when purchasing for a large
number of ridings, the economies of scale can be quite
significant. Most associations, if they decide to buy the
RSP, have the potential to Save money. More importantly, a
significant portion of the package usually falls outside
campaign spending limits. In the 1993 federal election, the
Liberal Party's RSP cost associations between $4,500 and
$5000, depending on the size of the ridi~~g.~'
What is most significant about the increasing use of
RSPs is the standardkation of political campaigns- When a l1
riding associations are required (or strongly pressured) to
purchase the same package, the national parties have more
control over local campaigns. Ken Tilley, an advertising
consultant, assembled the Ontario Liberals' RSP for the 1990
provincial elec tion . The package included brochures on the
government's record, personalized for each of the 130
candidates; a tabloid-size newspaper; stickers, banners,
buttons, rnanuals and training sessions. The package cos t
Liberal riding associations anywhere between $3,500 and $4,100
payable to the central campaign. ''
76
For most Canadian riding associations, the national
offices provide a n d e r of services, such as polling and
technical advice, on which they depend. The national office
of the Liberal Party, for exampIe, provides a considerable
number of services to its riding associations, such as a
' Speaker ' s Bureau ' , merchandising , and campaign manuals ,
training materials and sdnars . For the 1993 federal
election, the Reform Party satisfied requests £rom
constituency organizations and local candidates to set up
local polling organizations. The national office initiated
the constituency polling operation, while Gorgias Research
Consultants of Calgary developed an inexpensive standardized
polling package that could be implemented at the local level,
using campaign volunteers. 92
The Liberal Party, in conjunction with Mind Computer
Products, an Ottawa-based firm, offered a national purchase
plan for microcornputers to al1 ridings in the 1993 federal
election. Three computers, ranging between $1900 and $2300,
were singled out as preferable by LPC. In addition to the
computers, the national purchase plan featured a number of
benefits, such as delivery and installation, a service
program, and a technical support hot-line. The national
office had basic criteria that each riding was advised would
be required. The "National Standing Offern was made available
for both the Mind Computer hardware package and the Promark
software package. According to Janice Nicholson, the
77
administrative assistant to the national director,
approximately twenty ridings acquired the Promark software,
while between t w e n t y and forty-five ridings acquired the Mind
Computer hardware under the national standing offer
guidelines. 93
Currently, the federal Liberal Party is negotiating with
Microsoft and Compaq for bulk pricing of hardware and
software, and the party will strongly recommend that the
riding associations purchase whatever Microsoft, Compaq and
the Liberal Party agree to." While the national party
offices are increasingly determining the software and services
which will be used by local party candidates and associations,
some still prefer ta assess on their own what is available,
determining on their own which campaign tools to use . 9 5 The
London West Liberal Association for example used software and
services in the 1993 election that were not provided by or
recommended for use by the national office.
The national offices also seek to develop new programs.
For example, the Liberal Party is currently attempting to
develop a program which w i l l make it easier for riding
campaigns to track voter intentions, issues, volunteers, and
sign locations. 96 As such programs becorne available, it is
likely that local riding associations will become even more
dependent on their national office for cornputer software and
services in order to run an election campaign. fndeed, the
availability of riding services £rom the federal parties has
78
had a "nationalizing" effect on local ~ampaigns.~'
In conclusion, this chapter has attempted to show the
initial impact which technology bas had on both the national
party organization and the local riding associations. The
decision of the national political parties to use the new
technology to establish direct links between them and the
voters has also been, in effect, a decision to strengthen the
national parties at the expense of local riding associations.
On balance, it now appears that the new technologies stxongly
centralize Canadian politics in the hands of the national
party organizations . This has meant that local riding
associations have to find new ways to perform theis accustomed
roles. Although local parties have seen their influence
diminished, local candidates continue to depend on grassroots
volunteers. The key volunteers, however, are now f e w e r in
number and more expert in the use of computer technology.
ENDNOTES
10.
Il.
12.
13.
1 4 .
1s 0
R.K. Carty, "Party Organization on the Groundn, in Canadian Parties in Transition, 2nd ed., p.200.
R.K. Carty, Canadian Political Parties in the Constituencies, volume 23 of the Research Studies, (Ottawa and Toronto :RCERPF/Dundum, 1991) , p. 90.
Peter Wooistencroft, "'Doing Politics Differently': The Consemative Party and the Campaign of 1993", in The Canadian General Election of 1993, p.22, and Joesph Wearing, Strained Relations, (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1981) , p.225.
Elections Canada, Contributions and menses of Recristered Political Parties and Candidates, 35th General Election 1993, (Ottawa: Supply and Services Canada, 19931, p . 3 5 .
John Laschinger and Geoffrey Stevens, Leaders and Lesser Mortals, (~ofonto:~ey Porter Books Ltd., 1992) , p. 149 , and Chief Electoral Officer,1993.
Laschinger and Stevens, p.148.
Laschinger and Stevens, p.146.
W . T . Stanbury, Monev in Politics, volume 1 of the Research Studies, (Ottawa and Toronto:RCERPF/Dundurn,
Carty, Canadian Political Parties in the Constituencies, p.75.
Carty, Canadian Political Parties in the Constituencies, p.191.
Liberal Party mema from Jack Heath, Riding Services Package Chair, January 1993.
Stanbury, p.325.
Carty, Canadian Political Parties in the Constituencies, p.91.
Carty, Canadian Political Parties in the Constituencies, p.89.
Carty, Canadian Political Parties in the Constituencies, p.29.
32. Natalie Rawlings, [web__master@lpc-nhq,imrnedia.ca], "Techaology use in LPC", Private e-mail message to ~ o u g DeRabbie, 26 March 1996.
33, Carty, "Party Organization and Activity on the Groundn, p-190.
3 4 . Carty, Canadian Political Parties in the Constituencies, p-28,
35. fan Ward, "Media Intmsion and the Changing Nature of the Established Parties in Australia and Canada", Canadian Journal of Political Science, vo1.26, no.3 (September 1993 ) , p . 487.
36, Carty, "Party Organization and Activity on the Ground", p.195.
37. Table 3.2, volume 23 of the Research Studies, p-33.
3 8 , Carty, "Party Organization and Activity on the Ground", p.194.
39. David Taras, The Newsmakers, (Scarborough: Nelson Canada, l99O), p.238.
40 . Ward, p. 479. 41. Carty, Canadian Political Parties in the Constituencies,
p.167.
42. Bell, Fletcher and Bolan, p.190.
43. Carty, Canadian Political Parties in the Constituencies, p.167.
44, Richard Armstrong, The Next Hurrah:The Communications Revolution in American Politics, (New York:Beech Tree Books, 19881, p.22.
45. Carty, Canadian Political Parties in the Constituencies, p,180.
46. Per Selle and L a r s Svasand, "Membership in P a r t y Organizations and the Problem of Decline of Parties", ~oÏ&arative Political Studies, vo1.23, no.4 (January 1991) , p. 469.
47. Larry K. Grossman, The Electronic Re~ublic, (New York:Viking, l99S), p.122.
48. T a r a s , p . 2 3 8 .
49. John ~eisei and Matthew Mendelsohn, "Meteor? Phoenix? Chmeleon? The Decline and Transformation of Party in Canada", in Partv Politics in Canada, 7th ed., p. 187, and Grossman, p. 122
50. Thomas S. Axworthy, nCapital-Intensive Politicsw, Issues in P a r t y and Election Finance, ed. F.Leslie Seidle, volume 5 of the Research Studies, (Ottawa and Toronto:RCERPF/Dundurn, 1991), p.200.
51. Bell, Fletcher and Bolan, p.191.
5 3 . Jerome K. Black, "Revisiting the Effects of Canvassing on Voting Behaviour", Canadian Journal of Political Science, ~01.17, no.2 (June 19841, p.357 , and Carty, Canadian Political Parties in the Constituencies, p.167.
54. Larry J. Sabato, The Party's Just Be-, (Glenview: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1988) , p. 186.
55. Axworthy, p.189.
56. Armstrong, p.83.
57. Wearing, Strained Relations, p . 8 8 .
58. Georgette Gagnon and Dan Rath, Not Without Cause, (Toronto :Harper Collins Publishers Ltd., 1991) , p. 89.
59. Alan Ware, Citizens, Parties and the State, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 19871, p.148, anà p.233 .
60. Selle and Svasand, p.469.
61. Carty, Canadian Political Parties in the Constituencies, p.177.
62. Bell, Fletcher and Bolan, p.191.
63. Armstrong, p.247.
64. Farquhar, "Reform and technology", and Walter Robinson, [ w j racyberus . cal , "Conservative party and technologytt , Private e-mail message to Doug DeRabbie, 15 April 1996.
65. Selle and Svasand, p.474.
66. Grossman, p.122.
67. Sabato, p . 7 0 .
Armstrong, p.120.
John Street, Politics and Technoloqr, (London:Macmillan, 1992), p.96.
~ a v i d Taras, wPoliticai Parties as Media Organizations: The Art of Getting Electedm, in Canadian Parties in Transition, 2nd ed., p.435.
Robinson, Tonsemative party and technology".
Joseph Wearing, The L-Sha~ed Partv: The Liberal Partv of Canada 1958-1980, (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 19811, p . 3 5 f .
David C. Walker, "Pollsters, Consultants, and Party Politics in Canadan, in Canadian Political Party Svstems, pp.517-8.
Carty, Canadian Political Parties in the Constituencies,
Selle and Svasand, p.473f.
Larry J. Sabato, The Rise of Political Consultants, (New York:Basic Books, 19811, p . 7 .
Taras, "Political Parties as Media Organizations", p.424.
Khayyam Zev Paltiel, nPolitical Marketing, Party Finance, and the Decline of Canadian Partiesn, in Canadian Parties in Transition, 2nd ed., p.412.
Carty, Canadian Political Parties in the Constituencies, p.157.
S.J.R.Noe1, "Patronage and Entourages, Action-Sets, Networksn, in Canadian Parties in Transition, 2nd ed., p.241.
Taras, "Political Parties as Media Organizationsn, p.434.
Taras, "Political Parties as Media Organizations", p.436.
85. Bell, Fletcher and Bolan, p.193£, and Selle and Svasand, p . 469.
86. Lee, p . 3 9 .
87. Ange10 Panebianco, Political Parties:Orcranization and Power, (Cambridge :Cambridge University Press, 19 88 ) , p.262.
88. Bell, Fletcher and Bolan, p.193.
89. Bell, Fletcher and Bolaa, p.185f.
90. Liberal Party memo from Jack Heath, Riding Services Package Chair, January 19 9 3 .
91. Gagnon and Rath, pp.132-3.
92. Faron Ellis and Keith Archer, "Reform: Electoral Breakthrough", in The Canadian General Election of 1993, pp . 66-7.
93. Janice Nicholson, [[email protected]], "Liberal Party and technologym, Private e-mail message to Doug DeRabbie, 9 July 1996.
94. Rawlings, "Technology use in LPC".
95. Bell, Fletcher and Bolan, p.186.
96. Rawlings, "Technology use in LPC".
97. Bell, Fletcher and Bolan, p.186.
WmR 4: MAFTING TO mm mw TBCIWOLOOY
This chapter examines how the national partieç are
adapting to the new electronic technology. Sn doing so, it
explores the question of whether Canadian parties have been
successful in keeping pace with technological developrnents,
This chapter begins by reviewing where parties acquire ideas
on how to use computer technology. It then looks at the
factors which condition a partyf s use of this technology . Finally, it outlines the obstacles which parties face in
attempting to keep pace with new developments in computer
technology.
I#DCIST'RY AND PûGLTfCS
A considerable number of the parties ' fund-raising and
campaign techniques, such as polling and direct mail, have
been borrowed from the marketing industry. These techniques
have become cornmonplace in election campaigns , as poli tical
parties adopt marketing methods to research, analyze, and
quantify votersl attitudes and opinions. ~oliticians today
sel1 themselves and their political agendas to voters using
esçentially the sarne marketing techniques that are used in the
selling of goods and services - thus, Larry K. Grossman
concludes, altering politics "from a dedicated personal
calling to a large, thriving, expens ive service indus try . " ' It is not surprising, therefore, that business firms are
beginning to enter the potentially lucrative market of
performing traditional party tasks. For instance, GWE
86
Eiection Services, a Calgary-based company, offers a variety
of services to C a n a d i a n political parties, such as datzbase
and lis t services, campaign research, and rapid-turnaround
polling. ' Nost of these firms of fer their services and software to
al1 parties. Their brochures attempt to persuade parties that
the services they provide, along with their expertise, pave
the road to victory. Each business focuses on a key theme,
such as organization, control, or persuasion, in order to
attract business. J&T Cornputing Ltd., also a Calgary-based
company, offered a program named 'Candidaten in 1993 that was
developed specifically for political campaigning. 'Candidate'
was supposedly a user-friendly, relational database, which
automated the information gathering process and provided
immediate access to al1 information.' Software packages have
become increasingly available since the 1993 federal election.
For example, Riding Computing Inc. of Richmond Hill, Ontario
offers a useful program called 'Politix', which is a program
for riding record management. The program was initially
designed to be used mainly for reporting to the Commission on
Election Finances. But, af ter consultations with Canadian
parties, other features were added, such as a volunteers
report and sign location report. Priced at $450 plus
applicable taxes, the latest version of this program is
designed, according to the company, especially for use by the
' average volunteer ' .
87
Campaign software has become the most popular item of
political technology currently purchased by parties. Promark
Software Inc. of Vancouver markets a program entitled
MailBaset . This PC-based software enables a campaign t o
access postal code information, eliminate duplicates, and
speed up the delivery of mailings. The Company claims t h a t
this is the "ultimate program for precision mail management
and powerful target x~tarketing."~
For the m o s t part, software programs simply enable
parties to collect an arrange voter data, to print mailing
lists, and to organize the various aspects of a political
campaign into one comprehensive cornputer summary - Over the
past few years, however, systems that go beyond these basic
lis t management functions have appeaxed in poli tical
campaigns. For example, one particular new system uses
geographical databases along with conventional voter lists and
demographic information to allow for more effective data
analysis. Mapping data, as it is called, is a powerful means
of analyzing list-based information because it can arrange on
a map voter locations and voter attitudes, and then display
this projection on-screed In doing so, such a system
virtually elhinates duplication and errors. By linking voter
data directly to a fixed geographic location, this new system
is challenging the boundaries of traditional political
software .' Deciding which software w i l l be used i n a campaign is
88
critical, especially since there is ready access to powerful
and inexpensive computer programs that provide many of the
same capabilities as bookkeepers, schedulers, volunteers
coordinators, and researchers; or the services of pollsters,
fund-raisers , printers , and mailing houses. This could have
signif icant implications, for if parties and candidates decide
to use polling software, for example, then determining public
opinion on a particular issue would no longer be susceptible
to the intervention of a third party, such as a professional
polling f i m or the press. Potentially. this could allow for
more direct interaction between parties and voters.
In addition to providing parties with data and analyses,
a Company such as Compusearch also offers some of the software
used for the companyfs analyses to political parties for their
own in-house research needs. Micro-computer software such as
fnsight, a desk-top marketing information system, and Geo-
D i s c , a set of data and analysis packages for direct
marketing, consumer spending and financial services, are al1
available f rom Compusearch for purchase by Canadian poli tical
partiedo Other comercially available software can be used
as a further source of lists for either fund-raising,
targeting or canvassing . For example, Canada Phone contains every residential and business telephone number in Canada on
a single CD-ROM. With quarterly editions, the cost of Canada
Phone is only $125 and it can be purchased at any computer
software store. The information provided by Canada Phone can
89
then be dom-loaded into a database program. In the 1995
provincial election, the London South Liberal Association
merged the phone numbers of the Canada Phone CD-ROM with the
information on Vote Pro, and in doing so, created an up-to-
date and accurate voter list which was used for phone
canvassing during the campaign." The increased use of
business techniques and computer technology aff ords parties
the opportunity to improve the efficiency of certain
functions, particularly fund-raising, as well as allowing for
increased interaction between parties and voters.
TRE m- OF AbarCRLCM PARTIES
Historically, American political parties have often
furnished Canadian parties with new and innovative ideas on
how to use technology - albeit with a substantial tinte h g , since it takes, on average, between five and ten years for an
American campaign innovation to be used by a Canadian
political party (see Table VI) .12 Canadian parties,
moreover, f o r reasons to be discussed later, rarely achieve
the same level of technical expertise as American parties.
Despite lagging behind American parties in the adoption
of new technology, al1 major Canadian parties believe that it
is necessary to keep track of the latest American techniques
and technologies. C a m ~ a i a n s and Elections, an American
magazine which f eatures articles on new technologies and
techniques(a1though it is mainly an advertising outlet for
companies to solicit business) holds training seminars on a
TABLE VI
THE DIFE'USION OF POLITICAL INNOVATION
United States Canada
1. Radio political broadcasts 1924
2. Dtamatized radio ads 1944
3. Advertising agency influence 1952
4. Network television political broadcasts 1952
5. Network teIevision spot advertising 1952
6, Strategic use of polling 1959
7. Televised leaders debates 1960
8. "Negative" 30- or 60-second advertising 1964
9, Direct-mail fiind-raising 1964
10. Direct-mail vote targeting 1966
1 1. Home video(VCR) campaigning 1980
12. Cable political advertising 1982
13, Satellite teleconferencing campaigning 1984
14, Computer-assisted production of quick response ads 1984
Source: Table 5.2, Volume 1, RCERPF, p. 190-
91
xegular basis in the U n i t e d States, In 1990, it offered its
f irst Canadian campaign training serninar . H e l d over a three-
day weekend, the seminar featured workshops presented by
American experts on a variety of topics, such as targeting,
direct mail, fund-raising, opposition research, and polling.
out of the 211 participants, the four major Canadian political
parties were represented by 154 registrants . l3 Hence ,
~merican politics extends to Canadian parties fresh
technologies and techniques to draw upon.
BOREIûWIWG ?Ra PARTIES
Not only do Canadian political parties borrow heavily
£rom business and American parties, but they also borrow from
each other . Ideas for Canadian political parties ' web sites,
for example, are obviously acquired from each other. New
rnaterial for the Reform Party's web site is, for the rnost
part, obtained by observing what the other parties do on-
line.14 Yet, since Reform was the first major Canadian party
on-line, they have also provided other Canadian parties with
an array of ideas. New material for net use by the Liberal
Party is acquired by browsing the Intemet and through normal
interaction with individuals in the field .lS The
Conservatives' web site owes the least to its competitors , It
is mostly static, which means that there is little opportunity
for personal interaction, and most of its rnaterial cornes from
existing party documents, reports or press releases. l6 For
al1 parties, the development of new techniques appears to be
almost non-existent . Canadian pof itical parties, it would
se-, prefer to rely on campaign methods that have worked in
the past, borrowing only those new ideas and techniques which
have been successfully used by either the business community
or another political party.
A party8 s willingness to embrace new technology seemç to
be conditioned to a considerable extent by its electoral
fortunes , For example, the U . S. Republican party
wholeheartedly embraced direct mail once the computer
revolutionized the handling of mailing lists and was able to
target specific audiences.'' At the time, however, the
Republicans were perennial undesdogs, and they therefore
presumably felt the need to put forth more effort and try
something new. During the 1960s and lWOs, the Dernocrats held
most of the congressional offices and thus had moçt of the
staff, as well as more patronage to dispense in order to
secure Eollowers. To offset these built-in Democratic
advantages, Republican nominees were willing to experiment
with new campaign technologies that might help them to
overcome their traditional electoral weakne~ses.~~ The same
situation could be said of the Progressive Conservative Party
in Canada during the 1970s and early 1980s. Out of power for
most of this t h e , the PCs turned to technology, primarily
computer-generated direct mail, to help overcome their failure
to win goverrunent. For example, they quickly saw the
93
possibi lities of increasing their revenue under the tax-credit
system, established by the Elections Expenses Act(EEA) of
1974, by adopting Republican-s tyle cornputerized direct mail
fund-raising.lg Thanks primarily to this new technology, the
PC Party secured a three-fold increase in party donations
between 1980 and 1984, surpassing both the Liberals and the
NDP. 20
The Liberal Party made a sustained ef fort to employ
direct mail only after the PCs had beea using it for nearly a
decadeO2' Even after the passage of the EEA, the Liberals
determined that the constituency would continue to function as
the main organizational basis of fund-raising. Prominent
Liberal officiais did not appreciate the potential amount of
revenue Chat could be gained by using the direct mail
technique. 22 At the time, they believed that nothing could
surpass the face-to-face approach in soliciting contributions
at the local leveL2= Direct mail thus seemed to conflict
with the party * s existing fund-raising methods . Along with these dated views of successful fund-raising techniques, the
Liberals were slow to use direct mail partially due to their
organizational structure. With no national mernbership list
and little or no access to provincial rnembership lists, the
party's headquarters found it difficult to build up a
centralized mailing list containing the names of people apt to
respond to a Liberal fund-raising drive. The Liberals also
failed t o recognize the benefits of a well-funded national
headquarters . 24
Eventually, fiscal necessity stimulated changes in the
Liberal Party's methods of fund-raising. *' After the 1984
federal elec tion, the Liberals became increasingly divided and
disorganized and, without an effective meanç of fund-raising,
the party plwiged i n t o debt. As a result, during the 1988
federal election, the party was reduced to a "low-rent"
polling operation: it was outspent by the PCs by at least five
to one, and badly trailed in integrating polling data with
campaign s trategy . 26
In 1990 -1991, the f ederal Liberal Party f inally began t o
think about the need to invest in new technology. The party
did have an older system which tracked data regarding
financial donations to the party. However, in the early
1990s, party executives were discovering that there were data
that they required which could not be acquired with the older
system. As a result, some senior party executives began t o
consider the need for a new program to track persona1
political information and give better service t o
constituents . 27 Entitled ' Inf oplace' , this program enables
an Me to create and maintain a file on constituent case work.
It cari also be used to keep track of volunteer lists, donor
lists, and membership lists. The Liberal Party's willingness
to develop and use this new program largely depended on its
electoral fortunes at the time and the state of its finances.
In some instances, the adoption of new technology may
encourage more creativity and flexibility in a party's
campaign strategy. Parties can conduct more public opinion
surveys with computers, and accordingly, tbey are able to try
dif f erent techniques to exceed old limi ts . '' The Internet
provides parties with yet another tool for campaign innovation
as its use is directly controlled by the parties themselves.
Since technology offers parties new ways to perform
their traditional roles, it may theoretically lead parties to
experience a resurgence, eventually. However, it appears that
Canadian parties have generally misunderstood the
possibilities which computers open up to political campaigns.
Parties, for example, initially misperceived the
potential of television; only belatedly realizing that it had
become the major medium of political communication, and " then
they embraced it clwisily and with exaggerated
e~pectations".'~ Today, parties still seem to view the
Internet as a medium similar to television. Their web sites,
which contain press releases, party information and
newsletters, are essentially a combination of Newsworld, the
Home Shopping Network, and typical television ads. According
to Mark Bonchek, the main point that parties and candidates
have difficulty understanding is simply that the Internet is
not television - ratfier it is a unique medium which works best
when people interact with and relate to each other, sharing
96
information, opinions and experiences, Consequently, instead
of building static web sites around pictures and press
releases, parties should use chat rooms, newsgroups,
unofficial web sites and mailing lists to build "virtual
communitiesn around issues and ideas. The priority for any
party should def initely be to induce voters to discuss the
issues that rnatter most to its ~ampaign.~~ Hence, in order
to use the Internet ef fectively, Canadian political parties
mus t change how they campaign as opposed to simply refining
current techniques.
The parties record to date suggests that critics such as
pollster Allan Gregg are justif ied in questioning whether they
can keep pace with the new technology that is rapidly becoming
available , Gregg estimates that campaign managers only employ
a quarter of the technology presently accessible by them.lL
Vijay Jog of the Corporate Renaissance Group also daims that
Canadian political parties have not adapted to the new
technology very well. His company ' s program ' Campaign
Coordinator Canada' failed to sell, the disillusioned Jog
believes, because "candidates have no funds, no technical
expertise, and run the campaign almost on an 'ad-hocr
basis " , 32 Even with new electronic technology commercially
available , parties adopt new technologies and techniques as
the need arises as opposed to anticipating what might be
needed.
Parties fail to realize the full potential of new
technology for a variety of reasons. A partyts interna1
structure can hinder the effective development and use of
computer technology, as evidenced by the Liberal Party. The
partyes national office (LPC) is the link between provincial
organizations and elected MPs, but it is without effective
levers of power, performing mainly service and CO-ordinating
functions? The national office cannot force its riding
associations to do anything. For instance, even though it
knows that computers are increasingly essential for riding
associations. it has so far been unsuccessful in convincing
many of these associations that a computer is a necessary and
worthwhile invest~nent.~~ As noted in chapter three, only
twenty to forty-five ridings acquired a persona1 computer
under the Liberal Party's national purchase plan in 1993.
A second obstacle is that many canpaign organizations
are not sufficiently prepared in zdvance of an election period
to be able to incorporate sophisticated technologies into
their campaign efforts. '' Without adequate preparation, a
campaign will encountex numerous problems that will limit the
effectiveness of the campaign technology. The experience of
the Ontario Liberals in 1990 is a case in point. When they
settled into their summer campaign head-quarters, in the lead-
up to the 1990 Ontario election, the phone lines were not
connected, and consequently, nei ther the fax machines nor i ts
e-mail links to the campaign bus could be used. Moxeover,
half of the Party's intenial computer network remained
98
unpacked as technicians attempted to assemble it. '"ven the
mos t basic and elementary aspects of carnpaign organization cari
thus affect a partyrs use of the new technology.
Trying to incorporate new technologies when there is a
lack of suf f ic ient advance organization can also isolate local
campaign organizers. During the 1988 federal election, a
number of carnpaign managers complained about the absence of
adequate advance training of staff and volunteers . 37 For
example, in two Ontario ridings, Perth-Wellington-Waterloo and
Markharn, al1 the major political parties experienced
communication dif f iculties between the riding and the national
office. Direct computer link-ups were used to facilitate
communication with national party headquarters, which was
supposed to permit virtually instantaneous communication
between the riding offices and national strategists . However, for various reasons, including technical difficulties
in reliably installing and operating the systems and problems
in locating volunteers who knew how to properly use the
technology and had the t h e to devote to these tasks, the
system did not work as hoped. 3g In circumstances like these,
parties are not controlling the new technologies, but rather
coping with them as a "problemn.
There are some obstacles to the effective use and
development of n e w technology that are beyond a Party's
control. The Internet, for example, is potentially a source
of trouble. There is a legitimate fear by parties and
99
candidates that they could lose control of the message which
they are trying to convey; for example, if one message either
contradicts what the party or candidate has previously said or
if erroneous information is put out which can then be seen by
anyone, particularly one's opponents. Moreover , once
information is posted on the Internet, it is very easy f o r
another candidate or party to cut it £rom one page and attach
it somewhere else, thereby distorting its true meaning o r
masking its true source in the process." images taken £rom
web sites can also be easily distorted or taken out of context
and used in attack ads.
New privacy protecting technology, which is rapidly
becoming available to the public, m a y also present parties
with some difficulties, particularly concerning pol l ing .
Call-management telephone technology, or ' caller ID ' , f o r
example, allows people to identify and screen incorning calls
before answering them. As a result, fewer residents are
accepting calls from polling companies ." Pollsters are
nervous that mounting refusal rates m a y increase their
expenses to the point where telephone surveys no longer make
financial sense. Moreover. with high refusal rates, pol l s ters
fear that they will not be able to draw representative,
statisticaily valid samples for phone sulveys . 42 There is a
growing concern in the industry to find new rnethods of
measuring opinion.
While opportunities for taking advantage of information
100
technology in the home are increasing, these opportunities are
m o s t accessible to people in higher income households who cari
af f ord a personal computer." Financial limitation thereby
restrict the number and range of voters who can be contacted
by parties through the Internet. According to the 1994
Generai Social Çurvey (GSS) , 56 per cent of adult Canadians, or
approximately 12.3 million, were able to use a computer."
However, only 25 per cent of Canadian households had a home
computer, up from ten per cent in 1986. One in three of these
2 -6 million households , approximately 884,000 households , was
equipped with a modem, which sends and receives information
over telephone lines and allows households to access on-line
services, BBS and t h e ~nternet.'~ Although these numbers are
increasing, the Internet as yet can only be used by a minority
of voters.
As has been discussed, a partygs decision to use a
particular form of technology depends on a number of f ac to r s
such as a Party's interna1 structure, campaign preparedness,
arid the technology itself. However, the most effective limit
on the utilization of new technology is the partyrs ability to
afford the financial ~ o s t . ~ ~ Although the costs of
maintaining and using new technology are relatively modest,
initial costs remain high.47 As a result, parties are
restricted in their ability to acquise some of the more
expensive types of technology. Yet, some parties also realize
10 1
that new technology, if ef fectively uçed, will eventually pay
for itself. The federal Liberalsr spending on information
technology, for instance, has been steadily increasing,
despite their budget deficit after the 1993 federal
election .'' The improved capabilities of low-cost persona1
computers and data analysis software have alço encouraged
parties to use the new electronic technology . '' The Internet is both relatively cheap and highly cost-
effective, since those voters who search for information on
issues on the Internet are interested enough to make the
effort, and are therefore(presumab1y) more than likely to
vote. To mail comparable amounts of information would cost a
campaign millions of dollars .'O Indeed, one of the main
advantages to parties and candidates of Internet use is
reduced phone, fax and courier charges for of fice-to-office,
home-to-office and office-to-voter communicati~n.~~
Establishing a web site on the Internet is a relatively
modes t investment , especially when compared to party
expenditures on polling and direct mail. These costs are
becoming necessary business investments that parties must make
if they wish to become competitive and cost-effi~ient.'~ The
Reform Party's web site has an annual budget of about
$12,000.s3 The Liberal Party's web site cost $15,000 to
implement, and about $500 per month to maintain.=' The PC
Partyf s web site costs $500 per month for on-line charges and
102
HTML(Hyper Text Mark-up ~anguage)' auth~ring.~~ C o s t s are
thus more or less sunilar for the parties to maintain their
respective web sites, which will more than likely prove to be
worthwhile investments. They are now indispensable,
particularly between elections when, as Robert Blaemire notes,
"Every dollar spent in the non-election period is worth at
least two spent during the campaign season. "56
As the growing cost of television puts the medium beyond
the reach of an increasing number of candidates, voter
persuasion or candidate advocacy direct mail is being viewed
as a more effective, and much less expensive, alternative .'' Even though relatively expensive, compared to Internet use,
many campaigns farm out mailings to local data processing
firms, who are cost-cornpetitive in this line of advertising.
The laser printer has brought direct letter personalization
within the f inancial range of even a modestly funded party or
an di date.'^ The cost of a direct mail solicitation in 1990
ranged f rom $0.40 to $0.50 per "piece" for a prospect or donor
acquisition mailing to about $1.00 for a house-list mailing
using a personalized greeting." Since a direct mail piece
can be quickly generated, the possible number of voters who
can be contacted is increased, thus increasing the number of
direct links between parties and voter^.^'
The Election Expenses Act has not stifled the capacity
of Canadian parties to spend money on the use and development
HTML is the standard format for writing Web pages.
of computer
not need to
is dropped,
103
technology, but rather encourages it. Parties do
declare any money spent before the election mit
nor do they need to discloçe how much they spend
on "researchn during the election(inc1uding polling and focus
groups) . Parties can "shieldn many of their administrative
costs, such as telephones, travel expenses, and printing, by
treating them as pre-election expenses.61 Direct mail can be
an expensive technique, but demographic analys is conduc ted
outside of the official campaign period is considered not to
be an "election expensen . 62
Despi te the arriva1 of some relatively inexpens ive
innovations such as the Internet, modem political marketing
still relies heavily on relatively expensive technologies,
such as direct mail and polling, standard items in modem
election campaigns .63 One of the m a i n reasons why the
Liberals lagged behind the Consematives in their use of
direct mail technology iç its high start-up cost. The federal
Liberal Party, for example, did not use direct mail seriously
u n t i l the 19844985 period, and then spent $1.7 million to
only raise $1.76 million.64 In 1988, the Liberals were even
less successful spending $2,178,313 to raise 1,432,721- 65
Nevertheless , the Liberal Party continues to heavily inves t in
this technique.
Public opinion polling is another expensive technique
that has become a mainstay of Canadian elections. According
to John Laschinger and Geoffrey Stevens, polling costs a
104
minimum of $50,000 for a f ifteen minute national questionnaire
with 1,500 respondents . 66 National polling accounts for ten
to fifteen per cent of a partygs spending or $800,000 to $1.2
million, which is roughly $20,000 a day, in a typical
campaign- It bas become so crucial, and so expensive, that
polling constitutes an ever-increasing share of a party's
budget? For instance, it is expected that before long, if
parties wish to make a respectable showing in a national
election, tbey will have to be prepared to invest $40,000 to
$50,000 per day in various polling technique^.^'
Despite suspicious views of polling, as well as
budgetary considerations , Reform Party off icials eventually
realized that they required polling data in order to gauge
voter response to their ~ampaign.~~ Reform did survey public
opinion in Preston Manning's riding during the 1993 federal
election, but it could not afford to do the kind of in-depth
polling of the national electorate that is done for the major
parties. As a result, Reform's polling was much more
rudhentary and much l e s s important to its election strategy
than was the case for the Liberals and PCs. It did little
more than seek public opinion by way of open-ended question
and answer sessions at public
The NDP has also had an ambivalent attitude towards
polling and more importantly, less money than the Liberals or
PCs to spend on it. For the 1988 federal election, the NDP
spent $330,000 on opinion research. ~ h i s amount increased
105
during the 1993 election to $525,000 .?' Due to limited
resources, along with the high costs of certain computer
techniques, the NDP also lags behind the other national
parties in the use of computer technology.
Budget constraints also limit the ability of parties to
purchase the level of professional technical expertise
required in a campaign. Predictive dialling, for example, is
cost-effective but requises sophisticated, well-trained
administrative and supervisory perso~el.'~ With computers
playing a more central sole in campaigns, and appearing
increasingly in campaign headquarters, there is the need to
have at least one person in the office at al1 times who knows
how to operate the computers and the corresponding software.
This can accordingly present local campaigns with problems,
especially if relatively few volunteers understand and can
operate the technology.
The pace of innovation in election technol&y has been
brisk in the United States partially because candidates are
able to spend more.74 Hence, with more money available t o
spend on the developrnent of technology, American parties and
candidates have been inventing new techniques at a rnuch f as ter
pace than their Canadian counterparts. The Pace of election
technology research has been slower in Canada because Canadian
campaign managers face a number of dif f icult trade-of £S. For
instance, if they spend money on computer software, this will
reduce the amount they c m spend on advertising, since, unlike
106
in the United States, the total amount of cmpaign spending is
lirnited by la^.'^ As A l a n Ware argues, where limits on
election spending exist, there is reduced pressure on parties
to make use of campaign technologies whenever possible. 76
Candidates for the Liberal Party spent on average $41,458 in
1993, with an average election expense l M t of $59,670 (see
Table VII) .'? Meanwhile, Democratic candidates for the House
of Representatives in 1994 spent on average $425,977, and
Republican candidates spent $3 56.782. 78 Although in Canada
the national parties pay a higher proportion of campaign
costs , these figures show that American candidates have more
funds at their disposal to independently determine which
campaign technologies will be used. Local candidates in
Canada conversely rely on the national parties, as evidenced
by their substantially lower campaign expenditures. Even with
a limited capacity for campaign innovation, Canadian parties
have adopted (albeit slowly) new electronic technologies to
respond to the changes taking place around them.
1 n conclus ion, this chapter has examined how Canadian
political parties have adapted to the new technologies,
looking at what conditions a Party's use of this technology,
and the obstacles to its effective use and development. As
noted, Canadian parties have not always success fully kept pace
with new developments in campaign techniques, especially when
compared with mesican political parties, and there also
appears to be significant differences among the Canadian
TABLE VII
Total Election Expenses of Registered Politid Parties, General Elections, 1979-1993
Source: Chief Electoral Officer, 1993.
Totd E l d n Expenses of Candidates
Liberai 2,6 16,ûûû Progressive Consetvative 1,779,000 New Democratic Party 5 16,000
Liberal 9,676,996 Progressive Consecvative 1 1,864,239 New Dernomtic Party 7,306,414
Liberal 12,230,212 Progressive Consecvative 12,963,905 New Dernomtic Party 4,871,183
Source: Chief Electorai ûffïcer, 1966, 1988, 1993.
108
parties themselves. With scarce resources and a generally l o w
ievel of technological expertise, Canadian parties are unable
to rely as extensively on the new electronic technology to
perform their traditional roles as Arnerican parties.
ENDNOTES
Larry K.Grossman, The Electronic Re~ublic, (New York: Viking, 1995) , pp. 57-58.
Promotional material for GWE Election Services.
Promotional material for J&T Computing Ltd..
Promotional material for Riding Computing Inc..
Promotional material for Promark Software Inc..
Christopher Sachs, "Map-Based Data Management", in The Road to Victorv, p.67.
Sachs, pp.67-8.
Edward Segal, "Choosing the Right Campaign Software", in The Road to Victorr, p.72 .
Judith S. Trent and Robert V. Friedenberg , Political Cam~aicrn Communication, 3 rd ed. , (Wes tport : Praeger, l995), p.64.
Promotional material for Compusearch.
Doug Ferguson, "Lists! Lists! Lists!", Report of the LPC (O) Organization Coordinator, (Woods tock, June 1996 , p . 4 .
Thomas S. Axworthy, "Capital-Intensive Politics", in volume 5 of the Research Studies, p.159.
This information was taken frorn the seminarrs registration list.
Brad Farquhar, [farquharQreform.ca], "Reform and technologyn, Private e-mail message to Doug DeRabbie, 4 March 1996.
George Young, [web,,[email protected]], "Liberal party and technologyn, Private e-mail message to Doug DeRabbie, 3 April 1996.
Walter Robinson, [[email protected]], "Conservative party and technologyn, Private e-mail message to Doug DeRabbie, 15 April 1996.
Bruce L. Felknor, Political Mischief: Srnear, Sabotase, and Refom in U.S. Elections, (New York:Praeger, 1992), p.13.
18. Larry J. Sabato, The Partv's Just Beaun, (Glenview: Scott Foresman and Company, 19881, p .75 .
19. Ian Ward, "Media Intrusion and the Changing Nature of the Established parties i n Australia and canadam, Canadian Journal of Politicaï Science, ~01.26, no.3 (September l993), p.491.
20 . Charlotte Gray, " Purchas ing Powern , Saturdav Nic rh t , (March l989), p.15.
21. W.T.Stanbury, Monev in Politics, volume 1 of the Research Studies, (Ottawa and Toronto:RCERPF/Dundurn, 1991), p . 2 5 0 .
Stanbury, pp.255-6.
Stanbury, p. 250 . Ibid. - Ibid.
David Taras, The Newsmakers, (Scarborough: Nelson Canada, IWO), p.182.
C.J. Alexander, "Plugging Into New Currents", in Party Politics i n Canada, 7th ed.,pp.599-600.
Gary W. Selnow, Hish-Tech Cam~aians, (Westport: Praeger, 1994), p . 5 5 .
S.J.R.Noel, "Patronage and Entourages, Action-Sets, Networksn, i n Canadian Parties In Transition, p.238.
Mark Bonchek, "It's about community, stupid!", [http://www.iguide.com/pol_crovt/cyberpol/msgtopo1.htm], February 1996.
John Laschinger and Geoffrey Stevens, Leaders and Leçser Mortah, (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1992), p.250.
Letter correspondence from Vijay Jog, June 10, 1996.
Joseph Wearing, The L-Shaped Partv:The Liberal Party of Canada 1958-1980, (Toronto:McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1981), p.144.
Natalie Rawlings, [web__master@lpc-nhq~immedia.ca], "Technology use in LPCn, Private e-mail message to Doug DeRabbie, 26 March 1996.
4
35. Russell W-Getter and James Emerson Titus, "Voter Regis tration Tapes " , in Cam~aisns and Elections , p. 87 .
36. Georgette Gagnon and Dan Rath, Nat Without Cause, (Toronto: H a r p e r Collins Publishers Ltd., 1991), p.207.
37. David V.J.Bell and Catherine M-Bolan, "The Mass Media and Federal Campaigning at the Local Levela, volume 20 of the Research Studies, p.88.
38. Bell and Bolan, p.87f-
39. B e l l and Bolan, p -88.
40. John Dickerson, "Campaigning in Cyberspace", [http://www.org/newshour/bb/cyberrçpace/cyberspace~ll- 13.html1, F e b r u a r y 1996.
41. Laschinger and Stevens, p.251.
42. Laschinger and Stevens, p.252.
43. Statistics Canada, Preparing for the Information Highway:Information Technology in Canadian Households, by Jef frey Frank, [http://www.statcan...Trends/infotech,ht], Aprii 1996.
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid-
46. Joseph Wearing, "The High Cost of High-Tech: Financing the Modern Leadership Campaign" , Partv Democracv in Canada, ed. George Perlin, (Scarborough: Prentice-Hall Canada Inc., 1988), p.76,
47. Frank Tobe, "New Techniques in Computerized Voter Contactn, in Cam~aiqns and Elections, p.136.
4 8 - Alexander, p.600.
49. Selnow, p.61.
5 0. Dickerson, "Campaigning in Cyberspace" . 51. Frank Tobe, "Putting the Internet and E-mail to Workw,
in The Road ta Victory, p.585.
52. Tobe, "Putting the Internet and E-mail to Workn, p.586.
53 - Farquhar, "Ref orm and technology" .
54. Young, "Liberal party and technology" . 5 5. Robinson, Conservative party and technology" . 56. Robert Blaemire, "The Permanent Campaignn , in The
Road to Victorv, p. 82.
57- Frank I.Luntz, Candidates, Consultants, and Campaiqns, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell ttd. , 1988) , p . 215 -
58. Luntz, p.152, and Blaemire, p.66.
61. Gray, p.15.
62. Stanbury, p.271.
63. Larry J. Sabato, The R i s e of Political Consultants, (New York:Basic Books, l981), p.312f.
64. Wearing, The L-Sha~ed Partv, p. 188.
65. Stanbury, p.544.
66. Laschinger and Stevens, p. 65 - 67. Laschinger and Stevens, p.68.
68. Ibid.
69. Faron Ellis and K e i t h Archer, "Reform: Electorai Breakthroughw, in The Canadian General Election of 1993, p.66.
70. Ellis and Archer, p.66, and ~avid Taras, "Political Parties as Media O?ganizationsn, in Canadian Parties in Transition, 2nd ed., p. 430.
71. Alan Whitehorn, "The NDP Election Campaignn, in The Canadian General Election of 1988, p.45.
72. Man Whitehorn, "The NDPfs Quest for Survivaln, in The Canadian General Election of 1993, p.46.
73. Roger S. Conrad, "Winning Votes on the ~nformation Super-Highwayu, in The Road to Victorv, p.78.
76, Aian Ware, Citizens, Parties and the State, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987) , p. 118.
77. These numbers were obtained by dividing the figures in Table V f I by the number of Liberal Candidates (295) .
78. Theodore J-Eismeier and Philip H. Pollock III, "Money in the 1994 Elections and Beyondw, Midterm: The Elections of 1994 in Context, ed. Philip A. R l i r i k n e r , (Bou1der:Westview Press, 1996), p . 8 5 .
CIUOTn 5: C O ~ t U S I O ~
Canadian political parties are adopting new electronic
technology to respond to the changes taking place in the
environment around them. This technology allows Canadian
parties to more ef f ectively and ef f iciently perf orm some of
their traditional roles, particularly reestablishing links
between them and voters. With dmographic data and more
sophisticated public opinion polls, parties are amassing
greater and more detailed information on voters. Moreover,
they are using new methods of anaiysis to interpret this
information. Theoretically, at leas t , parties should now have
a better understanding of voters than ever before, and be able
to use this to their advantage when communicating with them.
The adoption of new technology by C a n a d i a n parties has
resulted in a number of consequenceç for both parties and the
Canadian political system. One consequence is that parties
now have less t h e to make important decisions and to react to
everyday events. As voters become accustomed to technological
developments, and with it a speeding up of the political
process, they will expect parties to make decisions in a
shorter t h e span than ever before. This, of course, is not
necessarily a dangerous developmeat. However, if parties
cannot keep pace with new developments, voter expectations
will exceed what parties can deliver, and thus possibly add to
the currently low confidence in Canadian parties.
A second consequence is that parties are mainly using
115
the new technology to replace decision-making and innovation,
and in doing so are failing to understand the possibilities
which computer technology opens up to political campaigns . With computer software, parties can design an entire campaign
strategy before an election, taking into account every likely
scenario. As a situation arises during an election, campaign
managers çimply have to consult with the computer program to
follow the directions given on how to best respond to the
situation at hand. Additionally, it would seem that
innovation, especially at the local level, is discouraged by
the national parties as cornputer applications such as direct
mail are believed to be more reliable, and as already noted,
parties prefer techniques proven to have been successful
instead of risking an election on new and innovative campaign
techniques.
In terms of political communication, the new technology
is used by parties rnainly to tell voters what they already
believe instead of generating active discussion on relevant
issues. As Richard Armstrong observes, the use of new
technology has tended to make political parties " facilitative"
rather than " ins tNrnentalN . ' In other words , parties no
longer decide what needs ta be done but rather how a
particular decision is to be carried out. With the new
technology, parties may arguably be better equipped to execute
political decisions, but it would seem that parties will deal
with political crises as they axise as opposed to anticipating
future problems . The opportunities created by technology are there for
parties to exploit. But, for one reason or another, the
potential is left largely untapped. Some riding associations
and local candidates are still not convinced that technology
has a significant place in contemporary campaigns. However,
technology has become a main part of everyday society. Even
though parties have expanded their use of new technology, it
doeç not compare to the alxnost encompassing use of the new
technology by business and industry. The result is a
political party systern seriously lagging behind the rest of
society, and this in turn leads to a party system t h a t cannot
keep pace with new developments and the issues which they
raise.
Another consequence is that parties appear to be
entering a new "fourthn party system which offers more direct
links between parties and vo ters in order to encourage broader
participation. But it would seem that the adoption of new
electronic technologies and techniques are transforming their
functions and structure as opposed t o effecting a resurgence.
Although parties are attempting to involve mors people in
politics through t he new technology, voter participation
remains passive and is often relatively meaningless.
Voters are now potentially better equipped to obtain and
respond to political information, and thus possibly shape the
political agenda. Through the Internet, for example, voters
can quickly download information on issues from their own home
whenever they want. By changing howvoters access information
and the type of information which they can access, computer
technology is expanding the number of options available to
voters for political involvement. Ta respond to these
changes, parties should employ the opportunities opened up by
the new technology. This means that parties must realize the
interactivity of the new electronic technology and accordingly
shape their development and use of technology to ref lect this
characteristic. For example, the fnternet, a medium through
which genuine two-way contact can take place, should be
carefully examined by parties as a more meaningful way of
approaching vo ters . Despite attempts to act independently of the national
parties, riding associations and local candidates continue to
rely heavily on them for services and resources that are
mavailable at the local level. If local candidates view
their electoral success largely resulting from the national
campaign, ties between candidates and riding associations may
be severed. By once again changing the nature of the
relationship between the national level and the local level,
the use of new electronic technology may further alter party
structure.
INTO TISE FoTmE
As political communication evolves, television may see
i ts position as the dominant political medium gradually
118
eroding. The new electronic technology provides parties with
alternative methods for approaching voters, methods that are
both cheaper and more effective; for example, direct mail and
web sites on the Internet . Hence, the replacement of mass
media with personal media may increasingly characterize future
political campaigns.
T h e importance of campaign technology to electoral
success, however, c m easily be overstated. Elections and the
choices voters make among parties and candidates are too
cornplex and involve too many variables to be determined by a
single element.' Hence, it would be an exaggeration to state
that use of new technology will absolutely determine the
victors in future elections. Yet, it seems safe to predict
that, other factors being equal, parties which invest in and
develop their capacity to use technology will achieve a higher
level of eiectoral success than those which do not.
ENDNOTES
Richard Armstrong, The Next Hurrah:The Communications Revolution in American Politics, (New York:Beech Tree
2. Larry J. Sabato, The Rise of Political Consultants, (New York:Basic Books, 1981), p.15.
eg. Petition 1 Ca6e (A) ??tition 2 Csce (5) Town Hal1 1 CdCo (Cj Comtituency remest C $ C ~ (Ci Constituency a s e 1 Csda (2 Connituerij case 2 C~CI (5 Coffee p a t y CaCe (Gi
City &sue Yau cm keep trô& of W t &sue tRe
Posta1 Cade Vety lmpanant - ensures 1imely peson is unemed &ut- defie y and cm &e Gnked Io demgraphiC Sta&tiQ eg- Envirunment Cade (A)
Unemnloyment Cade (9) Home Phone ~onst&&n Code (Cl
Pensions Code (0) ausiness Phone
Campaign Th& cade wauid tell you how supporters Po11 Nurnber Pull dNls&s are a m 7 . e fmm wu& be want ;O be i i l v e d id tne
Sections Canada campagn
'House" When the housWld c~nta.m a r e eg. poli ~ ~ r ' d e f Cade (A) trian one petsun. a cade 13 Phone Camass CGe (5) ~ssigned ra Viem far ease ai Donor Cade (C) taçeting and lo eUmrumr~te d u m e Lawn Sign Code (O) m w ~ ~ sent to one home. Liberai Memer Code (E)
e-g. singta person househald - Vote 77t& 13 tne mst impotTant caa'e. You ~ r n
Coda (01 get rmst al th& infamatian f i m jraur
CO~PUSEARCH Nrrket ird Social Rcrerrcfr Ltd, 1991 Liftstyles R e p o r t < a 5 1 Ares Lardon uut:
Oefinjtion y FE0 3enc-rk Onrrrio
o t f iniciori ly Province
rork UPSULE
TOTAL ntOOLE AWb uPPER !41OOLE CUSS
TOTAL LOUER f ~ f f l ~ 1,895 4.2 6.8 6 1
TOTAL YWWC SIMG~ES 3.317 7.3 3.1 IW
iOTAL Y a W C CUIPLES 3,568 7.8 1 191
~ O ~ A L w n NLSTERS 6.79s 14.9 12.1 ta
TOTAL O U & RETIRED 6,126 13.5 5.3 OS
TOTAL ETHWCC 106 0.2 5.1 5
TOTAL NON-URUN UPSfALE AM0 I(t00LE CUSS O 0.0 10.2 O
lOTAL MON-URW VORIIWG AN0 LWER lNC1J)lf O 0.0 S-8 O
TOTAL WON-URBU FARM [WC O 0.0 1.3 'O
---- ,,-*tt~--rrrrt+rrrtrrrrt---
TOT AL HOUSEHOLOS cs , n o
SOURCE: COMPUSURcn
Dear Fricndss
D h g the be several wecks. 1 have been meethg as many residenu of Lonaon We8 o I codd ui Lineaing to cheu questions and concem. 1 have found many people b m al1 waiks of We s&re a common concem.
Those with fiudies are concerned about the b u r e for their childrcn and ~ c h i l d r c n , ïhe mibbody hi@ unernployment tate, and the C o m a k position shat n o m g wiil c b g e und riie year 2000, points to a blealr fuMc for our Eimilics.
The Li- Party has a plan of hope, and a plan for change. A Li"berai Govemment will:
couccnûau on hclping d business. w h m mon jobs are crratcd offcf a National Apprenticahip Program m pivc young people a cimce to work bring the annuai deficit down graduadiy to $% oTGDP, h m the c m 5.5% . e m &u Medicarc will remain availablt to al1 Canadians.
Please call rny headquarte~ at 471-6361 if you have any 4 ~ & t i ~ ~ about the Liberai pl= When 1 am elected, you have rny cornmitment to rcpment you to the b e n of my ability.
Bcst regards,
Sue Barnes
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