While I didn’t support the creation of the Liberal “supporter”category that allows anyone that’s not a member of another party to vote for the Liberals’ next leader without buying a membership, now that we have the system, I want it to be a success. And the integrity of the supporter system is going to be an important part of the next leadership race.
In a recent message to Liberals, the party touted the sign-up of over 10,000 supporters in the first month the system was up and running. It’s an impressive number, and I know many ridings are making signing up supporters a real priority, going door to door in their communities. This is the kind of grassroots work that will be needed to get the Liberal Party back on track.
I am concerned, though, about how real that 10,000 number is. It sounds impressive … but it may be too good to be true.
That’s because another way many people are being signed-up, beyond old fashioned grassroots door-knocking, are through the widely-circulated, issue-based petition drives coming out of Liberal HQ in Ottawa. The petitions are mainly a data gathering exercise; the party wants to find out what issues you care about, and then send you targeted messaging (and fundraising pitches) in the future. It all makes good sense and is part of modern campaigning.
The problem, though, is evident when you actually look at one of the petition forms. As you can see above, when you land on the petition page the box to become a registered Liberal supporter when you sign the petition is pre-clicked.
:lol:
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Liberal Party Renewal: How many people just supported the Liberals without meaning to? | Full Comment | National Post
EULA kids, EULA. ;-)