Canvassing, Turnout and Party Support: An Experiment

The contribution made by the efforts of local party organizations to the results of elections is much disputed. Butler and Rose, writing on the 1959 General Election, whilst conceding that ‘In seats with a majority of a few hundreds it would be absurd to deny that local organizations can make all the difference to the result’, nevertheless conclude that‘… if all constituency electioneering were abandoned, the national outcome would probably be little altered.’ Similarly, J. W. Grove in his editor's preface to Constituency Electioneering in Britain by D. A. Kavanagh, says, ‘It is clear that although many candidates and party workers derive considerable personal psychic satisfaction from the campaign, their efforts have little if any effect on the outcome.’ On the other hand, however, the authors of a recent study of party organization in a London constituency during the election of 1964, though they confess that ‘… it is impossible for us to say to what degree Labour's victory was tied to the more effective and more efficient campaign organization which the party was able to put into the field’, state in conclusion, ‘… but our research strongly suggests that organization was an important influence in the 1964 election in Baron's Court’.