UNA Election - Campaign Tactics?

There is a small group of election aficionados who really love exploring, debating, devising, and implementing electoral strategies and tactics.  I count myself among them., but with a special focus on local community/workplace/school forms of politics. The bigger stuff -provincial/federal is intersting. I used to run a cross country family election pool with special prizes for who could call the outcomes with focus on the quirks and minutia of regionalism in a national election.  I haven't done that for a couple decades now since I've come to find the local arena more engaging. The fun thing about local elections is that the playing field is  more equitable and thus the money and power of big-party elections doesn't play out in the same. 

Voting in a local context like the UNA elections relies a fair bit on who knows who. The way the 'who' breaks into groups or communities of practice, networks of people who connect with each other through the course of their daily routines,  can have a big impact on the final outcome of the election. I find it quite this interesting to  reflect on this aspect of local election.  

This is also a fairly low vote election (though I'm betting this one will land on the higher end of the spectrum). Early UNA elections counted only a hundred or so people. As time went on around 300 was about average. More recently this has been climbing up to about six or seven hundred. Odds on this election will top over 700 individual voters.  [Note: it's hard to get historical election data as the UNA website has no clear tab for it nor is it readily available from staff.]

A few elections back one candidate who wasn't well known in UNA circles turned out to get a very strong polling result becuase their networks intersected with local youth sports. Many of those parents were also UNA residents. That candidate was able to essentially 'campaign' by doing what they always did and in those information encounters was able to call upon those many links to have people vote them into office. That's the power of this kind of local election - it's not about party, it's about network and how well that network transects and connects with other networks.

Some past candidates have been able to gain election by virtue of having access to a tightly coordinated network of people who strongly supported them and (mostly) only them. The candidate might ask their supporters to only vote for them and not vote for a full slate.  In voting terms this tactic is called plumping. If, for example, there are three places available and five candidates running it makes sense for this kind of candidate (who is tied into a strong network that doesn't intersect with other networks very broadly) to have their supporters only vote for themselves.  In the current election with seven spots, thirteen candidates and the local area rule that stipulates no more than three candidates from one local area, a candidate with weak community-wide connections might opt for this approach.

When I ran successfully for the Board of Governors (BoG) in 2016 one of the other candidates clearly followed this vote only for me tactic (though, for them, it didn't work as they were unable to attract votes from beyond their immediate circle).  It is a risky tactic that can backfire (as it did for the BoG candidate in 2016), but for some candidates it will be worth the risk - focus on their immediate circle and encourage them to cast only one vote (or in this election, only vote for one candidate per local area).

Another tactic is to form an alliance - some societies (like the AMS) now ban informal or formal alliances. Nothing in the UNA by-laws prohibits candidates from cooperating with each other. In my 2012 election to the UNA Board I ran on a slate with Richard Alexander and  Shaohung Wu. We were part of an organized group called "OUR." We ran on a shared platform, cooperated in our campaigning, and encouraged voters to vote for our three candidates. We ran in a field of four candidates competing for three places so we were guaranteed that at least two of us would be elected, but our strategy clearly worked to ensure we could reach a majority of voters across many intersecting networks.  

There are also informal alliances that can emerge - these are harder to parse out as they don't typically show up publicly. Here the campaigning might not be explicit - vote for x, but there are ways through editing campaign statements to highlight similar positions, privately recommending other candidates in personal networks, etc.

Then there is the incumbent effect. This election has four incumbents running: Kang (Wesbrook), McCutcheon, Watson (Hawthorn), and Holmes (Hampton). Given that the core of those voting are likely people who are already paying attention to UNA politics incumbency lends an advantage and creates an erstwhile informal alliance. New candidates who lack a community foothold or prominence will likely need to bring in new voters. In the current context the four student affiliated candidates (Co, Gan, Ngieng, and Prost) may well be able to capitalize upon their networks to convince student residents within the UNA join and vote - but given that many student networks are not residentially based this may be harder for them then at first appears.

This election is complicated by the way the local area limit rule crosscuts various networks of engagement. So both candidates and voters should really take a moment to reflect on their approach.  The candidates with the biggest task ahead of themselves are those from the Wesbrook Place local area.  There are seven candidates from Wesbrook, but under the UNA bylaws only three of them can be elected whereas the two candidates from Hampton Place could both end up being elected (at least one of them will be even if they rank 12 & 13 overall).  With four Hawthorn Place candidates at least one (maybe two) will not be successful. The higher the votes for the two Hampton candidates increases to potential displacement of two hawthorn candidates.

The above table suggests the possible election outcomes (by local area candidate elected). Depending on the rank ordering of candidates by the electorate we could get a range of outcomes - it's not a guarantee that each local area will elect their full three directors (and it's not possible for Hampton). I previously suggested voters vote for three Wesbrook, three Hawthorn, and one Hampton to ensure maximum utility of their votes. I could see an argument made to focus on only one or at most two from each local area as a way to augment the chances of a preferred candidate. Or even, to only vote for candidates from one local area. I suspect most people will go through the list and select up to seven people they know, like what they say, or feel some kindred to.   

Finally there is the old fashioned person to person campaigning. This will work best for those already in community-based networks. If those networks extend broadly there is a strong advantage for that individual candidate. For newer residents or those with narrower networks some form of direct contact campaigning will be required and the best time for that will be during the week that UNA members are receiving our voting packages and before apathetic members toss them into recycling.

If I were running I would have already tried to connect with  range of people, to solicit their endorsements and to see about finding common cause.  I would have even tried to convince others to run as well and form an informal (but public) electoral alliance.  I would think being able to reach to various critical communities: faculty and staff (especially those of us in Village Gate Homes or Co-Dev properties), members of the coordinated multi-cultural committee and civic engagement committees of the UNA, my immediate neighbours, and the growing resident population of students -especially those who are tenants and very often kept out of local governance discussions.  All these linkages would be important for any candidate who is sincerely in their intersted in our community.