Jason Kitcat

The Guardian has launched a rather bizarre but very interesting project to try and ensure Kerry comes out top in the US elections. Operation Clark County is a website where visitors submit their email address and are given the address of a voter in… Clark County, Ohio. This is a highly marginal county in a highly marginal state which could be decisive in what looks to be a knife edge result. So you get the address, write the voter a letter (persuading them to vote Kerry hopefully though the Guardian doesn't say this) and more people will vote potentially.

Robin Grant expands on the project on perfect.co.uk, they've filtered out registered Democrats and Republicans from the list to increase the impact of the letters. It's a weird idea, nice use of the web but I'm a little suspicious of 'outsiders' trying to influence the election of a sovereign state. But then US politics affects the world like no other country's can at the moment. Well whatever the rights or wrongs I would love to see the faces of those Clark County voters when they open a letter from a Limey they've never met!

Just posted on Ideal Government…

Assuming Government want more people to take part in consultations then putting consultations online is 'a good thing'. Online consultations are often easier to run, more flexible and more likely to garner responses. Sending an email is much easier than responding to a paper-based consultation. Paper-based consultation processes usually involve, in my experience, the following steps:

1. Find out about consultation (if you're lucky)
2. Request the paper-work
3. Wait
4. Receive the respondents' pack (if you're lucky)
5. Read through it all, perhaps do some more research if you're feeling keen
6. Fill out the questionnaire or draft a letter in response
7. Snail mail it
8. Hope someone received your response and read it. Responses can go unacknowledged.

Online consultations, if done right, can consist of:

1. Find out about consultation (if you're lucky)
2. Read supporting information on website
3. Respond via email or online form
4. Hope someone received your response and read it. Responses can go unacknowledged but electronic acknowledgements are for more likely.

Such an abbreviated process is likely to draw in people who haven't previously participated in consultations, or even any political activity. However one challenge is that once these newcomers have done one consultation they may not return for another. Why? Because often it's impossible to see what impact their responses had. At the very least respondents want to see their arguments acknowledged in a summary of submissions. But truly people submit to consultations because they want to make a difference!

Politics is a game of negotiations and compromises between a wide number of interests. However people participating in consultations are not provided with this context. Their expectations are raised to the level that their lone voice will have a meaningful impact. But if the consultation has 7,000 responses and is for a policy at the pre-legislative stage it's going to be very hard for the respondent to see what impact they have had in any outcomes that do emerge.

So online consultations need to do the following to ensure that participants don't go away disappointed but keep engaging in political activities:

• Explain clearly where in the legislative process the issue currently is (e.g. pre-legislative, legislative or post-legislative implementation stage).
• Define how the responses will be dealt with, what output the respondent can expect and what other interests the Government expects to have to take into account on this matter.
• Take email addresses and/or mobile numbers so participants can be told what is happening with the issue after they've put the effort in. So if the bill is passed – tell them!

One of the most stimulating things I do is advise the Green Party, especially in Brighton & Hove, on their use of the Internet. It's stimulating because unexpected things happen.

Keith Taylor is the Green Party's convenor for the group of 6 councillors they have on Brighton & Hove City council. He is also the male principal speaker for the Green Party of England & Wales. Most importantly he's the party's candidate for Brighton Pavilion, the Westminster constituency with the greatest chance of delivering the UK's first Green MP.

Keith is in his 50s, an excellent politician with a finger on the local pulse and used to be in the beer business. Keith also is currently carrying a Blackberry, two mobile phones and I just got him blogging. One of those mobile phones is so he can post pictures to his blog. His Blackberry lets him email posts to the blog and he's just loving it. His posts are combining personal, political and insider insights in just the right mix.

You can read his first week of posts at keithforwestminster.com (and yes I hinted at this development with my earlier moblog photo of Keith by his PC)

With any luck this will be the first of many Green politicians I persuade to blog.

PublicTechnology.net is reporting that the Conservative Party has launched a new web-based campaigning system called 'Conservatives Direct'. This is part of the party's relaunch including a radically re-designed site. Personally I find their new logo rather eerily disembodied but the new site seems to 'do' much more than the previous one.

A tiny amount of guesswork unearthed this link to a Conservatives Direct login page. The branding really does smack of being only a short way from catalogue shopping. Their strapline of “Winning the Field Campaign” is rather militaristic. But that's just fluff… what's behind the login? The Tory press release sheds little light on the matter, but is buzz-word compliant. The Telegraph tells us that campaign information, polling data and canvassing tips will be part of the offering. Nothing earth-shattering there then. But what is interesting is that Conservatives Direct will allow people to join the party at a national level without any local party affiliation. This is very interesting… many argue that all politics is local and certainly most MPs win or lose their seats on the local issues. But this is even more interesting because in many ways the Conservative Party doesn't really exist. Well it didn't, I don't know exactly how they are set up today but I know that for a long time it was merely an association of the local parties who pooled money together to pay for the centralised activities. Is Conservatives Direct the sign of a deeper structural change to where financial power lies in the party?

Party chairman Dr Liam Fox suggested to BBC News Online that “People are used to online shopping, online banking, why not online politics? … They do not want to sit through committees or be involved in fundraising. We want to be as open as possible and able to attract people from a wide spectrum.” This kind of attitude ties in very much with the debates I reported on at the Labour Fringe meetings.

It looks like the Tories are trying to follow in Dean's steps. But I think they may end up with a hollowed-out party if they go online at the expense of their local grassroots which form the core of all parties.

Kudos must be given to the Tories for having the sharpest looking site of the big three.

For more on Internet use in local parties see “Click Here for Participation” [PDF].