PAD and the 2005 General Election
At the cornerstone of PAD's quest is pushing animal
protection further up the political agenda in a positive way. In
order to do this at the 2005 General Election, we needed to maximise
the exposure of potential MPs to public concerns on current animal
welfare and rights issues. It was absolutely imperative that we
made it as easy as possible for people to directly contact candidates.
We invested serious time and resources to develop this totally
unique campaigning website, which enabled voters to sound candidates
out on key animal issues and encouraging tactical voting based on
candidate responses.
We also acted as a go-between for people without access to the
internet, contacting candidates on their behalf. The end result
was that compassionate voters across the country participated in
our survey of thousands of candidates on their commitment to hot
animal protection topics. We received huge numbers of replies to
input, and over two hundred candidates gave 100% support to the
PAD manifesto. As one candidate told us: "This is a very effective
campaign PAD are running."
So, the PAD Election '05 campaign was a major success, with many
PAD-endorsed candidates gaining votes and hanging on to their seats
with help from PAD. The impact of PAD's campaign has been acknowledged
by the British Library's decision to archive the election website,
as they consider it to be an 'invaluable primary source material
for current and future political science researchers'. |
