Join the Vote: Member feedback

Back in April thousands of other 38 Degrees members took part in the first Join the Vote, registering thousands of people to vote.

It was the first time 38 Degrees members worked together to register new voters, and lots of the volunteers gave feedback on how Join the Vote went. Like anything that’s done for the first time, some things didn’t go too smoothly.

75% of 38 Degrees members who took a poll about Join the Vote said they would want to take part again in the future:

And the poll results suggest that, next time round, we all focus our efforts on groups of people that tend to be unregistered:

Here’s what 38 Degrees members thought those priorities should be:

(From top to bottom that reads transitory groups, students, sixth formers, people living in care homes, other, immigrants, ex offenders. Click here to see a large version of this graph).

The staff team has already started talking to organisations that can help focus efforts on groups that often don’t register to vote. Like working with Centrepoint shelters to register people without a home address. Or working with NUS to make sure all students are registered.

Over half of the volunteers thought a little bit more time would have been helpful to make sure as many people as possible were registered:

And whilst the site seemed easy enough to use for the majority of volunteers, there’ll certainly be lots that can be done to make it more accessible:

Here’s what 38 Degrees members had to say about some of the positives and negatives of Join the Vote:

I enjoyed talking to the mixed group of people I met

Helping to make people aware of just how important their vote is

Doing something positive and worthwhile and meeting other concerned citizens who want to change things for the better.

Talking to people about the elections and convincing them to sign up

It was quite exciting to be involved instead of just spectating – there is a lot of exciting politics around at the moment – europe, scotland etc we could capitalise on this

Surprised at getting a positive welcome at all but one house.

conversations with people I do not usually meet. They were nearly all friendly.

The level of suspicion I was met with. Perhaps the initiative could be better publicised next time?

Not enough time to do the task as laid out

Not meeting anyone else doing it locally. There was one other person according to the website.

The weather which was cold, windy and raining.

Not being able to identify any unregistered voters in my area

The feeling I was wasting my time ie people who answered the door nearly all registered.