The dream of electronic voting moved one step closer to becoming reality with the success of a pilot program by the Town of Markham for November’s Ontario municipal elections.
Digital marketing and applied research agency Delvinia Interactive built an integrated campaign for the township, population 235,000, to raise awareness of Internet voting and increase voter turnout for the advance polls.
Backed in part by the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Voter Outreach Program marked the first time Internet voting was used in a Canadian election, according to Adam Froman, president of the Toronto-based agency.
Launched in mid-September, the $150,000 program used print, online, direct mail, telemarketing and some TV to drive people to a specially created Web site, markhamvotes.ca.
The goal
‘Originally our goal was to increase voter turnout,’ says Froman. ‘But from a marketing point of view it was really to make people aware of the Internet voting option and try to increase the proportion of those who vote online during the advance poll.’
Along the way the program had to overcome a number of challenges. Historically, municipal elections get very low turnout – in the range of 28% to 32% – says Froman. Additionally, ‘voter fatigue’ was an issue given that the provincial elections had just occurred the month before.
And, as it happened, there were few significant races going on in Markham. ‘So there was a concern whether anyone would bother coming out to vote,’ says Froman.
The strategy
Driving people to the Web site and staying top-of-mind were the prime considerations behind the choice of media, which included community newspapers.
‘We were really trying to enhance what was already being done by the town because they were already sending out the municipal notices,’ explains Froman. ‘In terms of driving people to the Web site we really wanted to contain it to those in Markham, so doing something in a paper like the Globe and Mail really didn’t make sense.’
There were three messages being communicated, according to Froman. ‘The underlying message was, go to markhamvotes.ca. The other message was making [people] aware of the online voting option. And then the third message was, depending on the time, ‘get registered.”
The execution
To drive voters to the Web site, Delvinia employed a variety of tactics including: postering and announcements at community centres; print advertisements in community newspapers; outdoor electronic billboards; animated buttons on various Markham community Web sites; and PSAs on Rogers cable access.
DM was sent to 158,000 registered voters. It contained voting access codes and instructions about how they could vote online. Municipal vehicles were outfitted with ‘Vote 2003’ decals to further brand the Web site. A voicemail broadcast went out to 70,000 households and booths were set up in high-traffic malls urging people to register. Those who registered received a PIN number.
After the initial registrations, Froman says the marketing effort focused on getting the registered voters to actually follow through and vote. This included two more voicemail broadcasts – these were also sent to those who had not registered online the first time around.
The results
Delvinia had hoped to get about 10,000 people registered online. Nearly 12,000 people were registered. Of those, 7,200 followed through and voted online. The Web site received 25,000 unique visitors between September and the Nov. 10 election date.
Voter turnout increased by over 300% and Internet voting accounted for over 70% of advance poll votes.
But perhaps the most interesting numbers were gathered through online exit polling conducted by Delvinia. These show, among other things, that baby boomers were most likely to take advantage of online voting (see chart) and that an astonishing 25% of those voting online had not voted in the previous election. Also, 99% of those surveyed said they would vote online in the future with 86% of those citing convenience as their primary reason.
