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Step one: Find your candidates
The first step is to find details of your candidates, and a bit of information about them, so you know who you are targeting.
It can be hard to find out who is standing for election. There's no official source and nominations for candidates may be made as little as 11 working days before an election so you may not find out about some candidates until very late! Even when you have found out, their views can be recorded in many different places. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to find out more.
1. Find your constituency
Visit theyworkforyou and type in your postcode. It's worth checking as some constituency boundaries are changing. Alteratively, call the House of Commons information office on 020 7219 4272
2. Find your candidates
Visit the UK polling report site. Click the menu on the left to see an A-Z of constituencies. Select your constituency for the latest list of candidates
All of the large political parties list candidates on their websites, often providing biographical information and contact details.
- Conservative prospective parliamentary candidates
- Labour prospective parliamentary candidates
- Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidates
You can also contact your local political parties directly to ask who their representatives will be. Their contact details should be in the telephone directory, and your local council or library should have details.
Jump to Step 2: Contact your candidate
3. Finding out more
It's useful to do a bit of research before contacting a candidate. This can help you
- Prioritise who to contact. For example, you may only wish to contact the candidates you think most likely to support the campaign, those you're likely to vote for, or those with the strongest chance of winning. Of course, the more candidates you are able to contact, the more impact our campaign will have!
- Find out about your candidates' views and interests, and help you select the arguments that are most likely to be successful.
Online
There's an increasing amount of information out there, much of it online with more and more politicians using new media to engage with voters.
Personal websites: Many candidates are setting up their own websites or blogs. To track these down, try putting 'parliamentary candidate' and the name of your constituency into a search engine.
Twitter: Over 100 MPs and 200 parliamentary candidates are already using twitter, an online service where they can write short text messages (of up to 140 characters) known as tweets (which can usually be viewed by anyone).Candidates typically use this to broadcast their views and post updates on their campaigning, but if you're a twitter user you can also reply to their messages with your own responses and questions. Tweetminster tracks political trends on twitter and maintains a list of MPs and prospective parliamentary candidates who are using the service. Find out more about twitter on the CAAT website.
Other sites: We've also found candidates with Facebook pages, on Youtube and on Flickr.
Local newspapers:
Check your local newspapers for reports of candidates' views on different issues or details of events they're attending. These may give you an indication of their particular concerns and interests.
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