Student Council Election Tips

I know I lost, but considering how well I did off of a write-in campaign, I will share some tips with you:

• Find a large group of people, like a clique, and make friends with just one person from that group. Then give that person a large stack of cards to hand out, and naturally, they will hand these cards out to their friends.
• What cards am I talking about? I suggest buying a pack of Avery business cards and printing something on them. You can make the cards clever, but make sure they include your name in plain view. This gives voters something to hang on to until election day.
• Make stickers. Your stickers should say something funny or outrageous. For example, the winner of an election between 7 people had stickers that said "Vote for Katie or your life is worthless."
• Make posters. Your posters should be all over the place, and should say funny things as well. Katie's posters had things on them such as: "Vote for Katie; She's endorsed by this guy." The posters included funny pictures of people, such as Mustard Man.
• Be nice to people! Stop and help someone pick up their papers, or say hello to the girl that sits by herself at lunch. Make people think that you care about them as an individual.
• Try to stay away from mentioning anything about what you will do if elected. This comes out corny-sounding and I've never seen it win an election. Instead, if you must give a speech, swallow your dignity and do a rap, if one hasn't been done before.
• Be courteous to your opponents, even if they are rude to you. Three people told me they voted for me only because they saw how I treated my opponent, compared to how she treated me.
• Target minority groups. This is where I failed, and this is where the election will be decided. Make sure you don't appear condescending. In fact, don't even bring up race or religion. Just talk to them like you would talk to your friends. Make them feel special.
• If your budget allows it, make pencils with your name and hand them out. These are relatively cheap, and many people don't bring pencils to class. That's a perfect combination to gain a vote from a grateful classmate. I didn't do this, due to the fact that I was running a write-in campaign, but I wish I had.
• If you do a write-in campaign, the spur-of-the-moment, bandwagon effect can get you votes. However, there is one thing you need to do differently than me. I asked people to write my name in; you should not. Instead, buy address labels, print them with "I vote for 'Your Name Here' for 'Your Position Here' " and give them to people. Instruct them to put these stickers on their ballots to vote for you. This would require you to talk to your election coordinator beforehand, of course. You should do that anyway when running a write-in campaign.
• And my last piece of advice: Don't run a write-in campaign. ;--)
  

Digg This!

Posted by PU on Friday, September 08, 2006 at 6:10 PM Post a Comment