You know the way they say the Irish are late for everything, even their own funerals? Well so it seems is any major campaign aimed at mobilising the youth vote in Ireland.
Maman Poulet would usually have no problem in supporting anything that mobilises young people to stick their number 1 (and other votes) on the ballot paper. However Rockthevote.ie with lots of money and no sense it seems are launching in April 07 – that’s one month before the general election folks. Whilst young people are being turned off voting in their droves by crap debates and crapper posters, this crowd aim to break through all the noise in 43 constituencies complete with a Constituency and Community Director and get young people out to vote. Oh yes and when the electoral register is closed and supplemental registration is extremely difficult to do.
You’d think they might have been at colleges throughout the country last September, or at the Oxygen festival last summer or at the GAA finals in September, rocking the vote… Just an idea like…
It would seem that they have money to burn and lots of fancy job titles and descriptions. Would the American who wears a cheap watch and travels economy have anything too do with backing it? Honestly I thought AP had more sense on what they got involved with since the other problems in the past 18 months. In fact wouldn’t any funder of this non partisan initiative have said ‘nice idea but you should have launched last year’?
One wonders if this is aimed at giving a group of mates a cushy job for a few months. Where else other than the website are the jobs being advertised? And if those behind it are trying to keep it hush hush until they launch (that’s right in April!) who’ll get to know about how to apply for a job?
Well now you have read Maman Poulet you might get your CV ready for the easiest money you might ever make. It’s a shame as it could have been such a good idea if executed in a timely manner. Actually thinking about some other private philanthropist funded projects I know about this is probably how they like to organise – ie. tell no-one, give the jobs to your mates and launch late and effect no change.
Or maybe with it’s April Launch date this whole thing is an April Fool’s joke????
Gosh, jobs for the boys… what group does that remind me of? ;>
Hey there,
The questions you have raised are really spot on and very important.
The starting date does confound common sense, and so you’re entirely right to ask why April 2nd? The answer is that the starting date is based on watertight international evidence. The experience from elsewhere is conclusive and the statistics speak for themselves: starting more than 4 weeks before the day of a national election is highly ineffective – 6 weeks is the absolute limit, with the last week being the most crucial. Like it or not that is the reality and that is the reason we are launching on April 2nd and not March 2nd or tomorrow.
The reason why we were not around for the closing of the electoral register was because we were not really around at that time – we wish we were as we would have done something appropriate at that time, still waiting until April 2nd for our big push to get people out to vote though! The register is a massive issue, but remember you can still be added to the register up until 15 days before polling – admittedly it is complicated and is something we will address as soon as we are ready.
The whole idea only began to take proper shape as the register was closing. November, December and January have been spent conducting extensive research into non-voting in Ireland and how to tackle it using experience and evidence from abroad.
As for the job postings, they were for the benefit of a number of student union officers around the country, who we have been holding meetings with recently. The website is only up in a highly limited and ugly-duckling form. Those jobs will be advertised elsewhere and the closing date extended by some weeks – provided we grow our funds – we are afterall running on very little at this point.
The whole campaign is dependent on funding continuing to increase and that means finding people who see beyond partisan confines and are prepared to put much needed money into something very worthwhile.
I would be very interested in meeting with you. Just drop me an email. The criticism is much needed – it helps us zone in on important questions that we need to answer.
Talk soon,
Paddy
this ‘type of thing’ was mentioned by des bishop monday 5th Feb on RTE Q&A (the show with the under 26′s), which came first? btw the renewal date for the domain rockthevote.ie *was* 30 January 2007
Paddy, I have 17 years experience of election campaigns and getting votes out. No candidate would engage in a campaign one month before an election or do the structural work 3 months before. And in the NGO sector (where I also have the same amount of experience) a lobby campaign takes months to prepare.
Whilst I would agree on holding back the publicity part of the operation to 4 weeks before D-Day, I do think that voter registration is essential and well as longer term planning of staffing and structure of such a major organisation.
All those staff should be in place, with structures organised – not getting some SU heads together now to try and get organised amidst modularisation, getting the J1′s ready, exams, and how are ye to target the non student youth vote? Those who have not got a leaving (20 percent!) those trying to get a trade and others working and not working in the post tiger economy.
If I was in your situation I would have written the exact same reply, someone found out about your plan before you were ready and you are managing the spin! good luck…
Maman Poulet » Blog Archive » Here’s one I made earlier // Feb 23, 2007 at 02:29
[...] God it’s like an episode of Blue Peter. Rock the Vote have now pushed their launch date back a further week to April 8th. That’s further away from April Fools day! And get your washing up liquid bottles and sticky back plastic ready. They want the yoof to design t-shirts and ‘giant outdoor artworks’. [...]
Maman Poulet » Blog Archive » Next April…10 Days to Next April // Mar 21, 2007 at 01:00
[...] But wait they are not launching till April 7 – so we’ve had 3 launch dates for this thing – the 2nd, (cos the 1st would be a little April Foolsesque), the 8th and now the 7th. [...]
Maman Poulet » Blog Archive » Take it away there Frank // Mar 26, 2007 at 14:37
[...] The pause ended with him saying that she did not favour same sex marriage but did favour civil unions. And then he hoped that the question went away. (Interesting that a caller thinks that this is an election issue – my post on lesbian and gay issues and the general election is forthcoming!) Whatever about Colm O’Gorman running in Wexford (he lives there and was born there!) and having a background in social policy and legislation and the like, Frank is more than a bit more removed from his potential electorate and like Rock the Vote, he too seems to believe in April Fools and that the voters of Dublin South Central will too forget the joke and vote for him. [...]
Maman Poulet » Blog Archive » Rock the Vote - The Advertisements // May 3, 2007 at 00:28
[...] It’s been a while since I checked in with the good folk at Rock the Vote. You might have noticed that the majority of those big jobs were filled by the lads – the junior positions have some female participation – nice to see they reflected the glass ceiling that exsists everywhere else in society. [...]
Irish Election » Late to the Party (But not the Interview) - ROTV to Return? // May 14, 2008 at 23:39
[...] rejoice as John has this news over on his blog. Yet Rock the Vote are launching their campaign on May 19th [...]