出典(authority):フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』「2015/07/07 19:50:27」(JST)
|
Part of the Politics series |
Political campaigning |
---|
|
Key people |
|
Politics portal |
|
Canvassing is the systematic initiation of direct contact with a target group of individuals commonly used during political campaigns. A campaign team (and during elections a candidate) will knock on doors of private residences within a particular geographic area, engaging in face-to-face personal interaction with voters. Canvassing may also be performed by telephone, where it is referred to as telephone canvassing. The main purpose of canvassing is to perform voter identification – to poll how individuals are planning to vote – rather than to argue with or persuade voters.[1] This preparation is an integral part of a "get out the vote" operation, in which known supporters are contacted on polling day and reminded to cast their ballot.
Canvassing can also be done by telephone by activists who will be working from a script. The following is an excerpt from a script used by the UK Labour Party in the buildup to a general election:
The script then divides into two sections based on whether the voter intends to support Labour or another party. The section for Labour supporters encourages the use of postal votes, asks whether the individual would consider displaying a poster in their window or deliver leaflets on their street and asks whether the individual would consider joining the party.[2] The section for non-Labour voters asks the following questions:[2] This sample script is also representative of elections in the United States, in which a volunteer might ask, "if the election for (congress, governor, president, etc.) were held today, would you vote for (Candidate A) or (Candidate B)?
The script concludes by thanking the voter before ending the call.
Local governments in the United States have passed local laws to limit Americans’ ability to canvass. Many of these challenges escalated to the Supreme Court, which has ruled overwhelmingly on the side of the public’s right to canvass as protected by the First Amendment. For example, in Martin v. Struthers, Justice Hugo Black stated:
“Freedom to distribute information to every citizen wherever he desires to receive it is so clearly vital to the preservation of a free society that … it must be fully preserved. To require a censorship through license which makes impossible the free and unhampered distribution of pamphlets strikes at the very heart of the constitutional guarantees."[3]
In 2002, the Supreme Court reconfirmed its conviction that canvassing is protected by our First Amendment rights in Watchtower Society v. Village of Stratton. Justice John Paul Stevens stated:
"It is offensive, not only to the values protected by the First Amendment, but to the very notion of a free society that in the context of everyday public discourse a citizen must first inform the government of her desire to speak to her neighbors and then obtain a permit to do so."[4]
Look up canvassing in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Canvassing. |