Door-knocking more effective than cold calls, experts say

Cold-calling voters is one way to get a message across, but if the Voice referendum Yes and No campaigns really want to get their message across, knocking on doors is much more effective, seasoned campaigners have told Crikey. 

The No camp recently faced criticism after The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age revealed volunteers had been “instructed to use fear and doubt rather than facts” when calling voters. A senior campaigning official in a leading No activist group had told volunteers, according to the story, “not to identify themselves upfront as No campaigners as they make hundreds of thousands of calls to persuadable voters, but instead to raise reports of financial compensation to Indigenous Australians if the Voice referendum were to succeed”.

Another story in the same newspapers said trade union campaigners supporting the Yes vote were told to “tell Australians the No side is vilifying Aboriginal people in the Voice to Parliament referendum campaign”.