How to help the Lib Dems win more MPs on Thursday

The number of MPs you have is the basic currency of British politics – influencing greatly media coverage, party funding and political power.

Last time round, just one more vote each secured between every three party members (that’s one-third of a vote each, not even three votes per member) in the most marginal seats would have doubled the size of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party.

That’s why so many of the communications to Lib Dem members and helpers in the last few days has been about helping in target seats between now and 10pm on polling day. There’s the rest of the year after 10pm Thursday to return to building up our strength more broadly.

But between now and 10pm, securing extra voters where they can convert into extra MPs is the dominant priority. And helps us avoid the heartbreak of missing out on a seat by a handful of votes.

So if you’re not in a target seat yourself, how can you help make this happen?

Travel to a target seat

If you can make it to a target seat, go travel. Details here.

This will direct you to where it’s most important to help based on the very latest polling data, canvass returns and volunteer numbers. The humans making the decisions based on that data are, of course, not infallible – but they’ve also got access to better, broader and more recent data than almost anyone else in the party. Which is worth remembering if your eyebrows are raised at where you’re asked to go.

Make phone calls

If you can’t go in person, make some phone calls from home or – even better – get some local volunteers together to do a group phoning session. Details [were] here.

Some of the most brilliant contributions from Parliamentary candidates in this campaign has been from those in non-target seats who want to build up their team of local phone canvassers, who want local members to be motivated and to feel party of a winning team, and so who have been organising team phoning sessions locally to help target seats.

Donate

The ability to turn on extra digital advertising at the last moment means that last minute donations really do turn into extra campaigning above and beyond that which would otherwise have happened. Donation details here.

Share the party’s messages online

The ability to help spread messages online means you can help them reach voters in target seats even if you aren’t one yourself. There’s a huge amount of material to choose from, so here are just three you could pick to share on Twitter, Facebook or elsewhere:

• Tim Farron standing up for immigrants in the face of bigotry
• Former Chief Executive of NHS England backs the Lib Dem plans for the NHS
• 10 things ITV learned about Tim Farron

What happens on polling day

If you’re new to helping in a campaign and wonder what happens on polling day, here’s the answer: