Conservatives Abroad is celebrating the great success of its Think Of Three campaign to encourage expats to register to vote on May 7th.
In 2010 just over 30,000 expats registered to vote. For 2015 the Party set a target of 100,000.
When registration closed on April 20th the total number of expats registered stood at 113,742.
Conservatives Abroad has worked with the Electoral Commission to introduce online registration for the first time to make it easier for expats to vote. The organisation also campaigned successfully to extend the time for postal votes to be issued.
But most importantly Conservatives Abroad ran the hugely successful Think Of Three Campaign. Launched by the Prime Minister just before Christmas the campaign urged people to “Think Of Three” expats they knew and message them to urge them to vote, including a link to the online registration page. The message then asked expats themselves to “Think Of Three” expats and pass it onto.
Over four months Conservatives Abroad has worked hard to push the “Think Of Three” message to hundreds of thousands of people via email, Facebook and other media.
The message has been promoted in a rolling campaign of messaging including –
· - posted on the Prime Minister’s Facebook page with 400,000 followers
· - sent to 140,000 Conservative email contacts
· - targeted the mailing lists of candidates in the 40/40 key marginals
· - promoted through the 1922 Committee of Conservative MPs to send to their email lists
· - regular promotion through Conservative Abroad branches and members worldwide
· - regular boosts on Conservative Abroad Facebook pages
· - regular postings on all major expat Facebook pages
· - regular targeted boosting to expats worldwide through our special expat voters Facebook page
· - constant stories published on the Conservative Abroad website
· - regular emails to members of a wide range of Conservative supporting organisations
· - encouraging other expat organisations to promote “Think Of Three”
· - promoted in media interviews in the UK and abroad
Conservatives Abroad Chairman Heather Harper welcomed the result. “No other party has put the thought, the time, or the effort into expat registration. Conservatives Abroad can take a lot of credit for the nearly fourfold increase in expat voter registration. Working with the Electoral Commission we have delivered a fantastic result, smashing the target we were set. I want to thank all Conservative Abroad branches and representatives and our many friends who have helped to make this campaign such a success”.