As we are approaching an EU election and there is also likely to be a GE in the near future I thought people may be interested if I exposed some common misconceptions about how political parties work (from the point of view of a former candidate. If this post is popular I will try to do one a day in the lead up to the June Elections

Part 1. Canvassing

Canvassing has nothing whatsoever to do with trying to win your vote. This is a point most commonly misunderstood by canvassers themselves who often are little old ladies from the local party who don't know what to do. Canvassing is an information gathering exercise and nothing more. A good canvasser should know that (s)he has loads of houses to do and to spend as little time as possible at each one. The idea is find out whether someone is sympathetic to your party or somebody else's and then use this information so as to 'target' election literature to the right people. The literature is the thing that is designed to convince people not a an old lady saying 'but really the liberals are very very good on the local council' when she should be finding out who the person voted for last time!
below are examples based on my real experience

A good canvasser

Good Canvasser (GC): Are you aware that there is an election on the 4th?
Joe public (JP): Yes I heard sommit 'bout that
GC: Do you think you will be voting?
JP: Dunno, all a bunch of morons if you ask me, but I guess I should vote
GC: Well it's your chance to have your say, who do normally vote for?
JP: Not saying
GC: Okay, that's fine, who would you NOT/NEVER vote for
JP: Oh I'd never vote for the Tories I still remember what Thatcher did witht he milk and the poor kids.
GC: I see and I agree 100%. I hope you will consider our party as well. Nice to meet you. Bye

A bad canvasser

BC: Hello I'm from 'x' party can we rely on your vote on the 4th
JP: maybe
BC: Oh we are the best you kno our record on the council is etc etc etc we belive in - blah blah blah ad nauseam for 10mins
JP: oh well I think I'm still undecided.

Note how from the first one we know the person is not a tory so will either vote Labour or Lib Dem (maybe green) we'd call this 'soft labour' and then target this house with anti labour material and stuff that would appeal to old labour voters

The second we know nothing more than when we started - 'undecided' = useless data. The canvasser wasted 10mins of their time (when they could be getiing data on more people) trying to convince someone to vote for for them. Useless!!!