The Independent's Tool-box

Booth captain

Your booth captains will be those strong supporters who are prepared to be responsible for a polling place, or booth, for you on Election Day. They will also be helpful in finding other volunteers and supporters to take a shift on a booth.

Your booth captain will in most cases also be your scrutineer. There are special instructions for scrutineers, and these are available from the Australian or State electoral offices' websites or their physical offices in your electorate. It also outlines the law regarding access to the polling place and the placement of election material, card tables and chairs etc.

Your booth captains will ensure the volunteers are set up for the day with their material, which will be pre-prepared in cardboard boxes at campaign headquarters during the last week of the campaign. An example of Peter Andren's campaign 'booth box checklist' is here.

The captain also ensures the volunteers are looked after during their shift, with drinks, cups of tea and encouragement. Booth captains should be in place at least a month before polling day or ideally months before that as they are people prepared to spread your message throughout their patch of the electorate.

Other Volunteers

You are also going to need people who will volunteer for other very important jobs during the campaign.

You will need a roster of reliable volunteers to staff your campaign office/s. These office volunteers will be understand your position on relevant issues and be able to answer any queries from constituents who call, email or drop in. If they cannot answer a query, they will organise an appointment or arrange for you to get a response back to the person.

Office volunteers are also very important in helping to find volunteers to help on and in the lead up to Election Day.

You will also need letterbox droppers to help get your message out via an A5 flyer to each household in the electorate. This can be a big task, especially in regional and rural electorates, so if you have the budget, a delivery service can help too.