Case Study - Electoral Enrolment Centre

This case study is part of the Government Use of Short Message Services (SMS) Web Guide.

Summary

Since 2002 the Electoral Enrolment Centre (EEC) has allowed and encouraged people through advertising to sign up to the electoral roll by requesting enrolment packs via SMS. 

• They receive a large response - they got 1,200 texts after their first 30 second advert on television in 2005.
• Thirty seven percent of people who signed up for the electoral roll in the last six months before the 2008 election requested an enrolment form by text.
• One hundred thousand (valid address) texts were received in the lead up to the 2005 election, 124,000 (valid address) texts were received in the lead up to the 2008 election (the 2008 election had a slightly longer lead up, which accounts for some of the difference).
• When it is not a lead up to an election, and they are not running ad campaigns, they get about 200-300 texts per month. 
• The EEC see this facility as a really good initiative which complements their other methods for people to request enrolment forms and will continue to offer the service in the future.
• The service is free to users with EEC paying the text costs

Details

Set up

In 2002 the EEC was working with their communications agency to find ways of getting more young people to sign up to the electoral roll when they hit upon using SMS technology to engage with this audience.

Initial aim

The EEC aims to get all eligible New Zealanders 18 and over to enrol. This particular initiative was originally introduced to specifically target the youth market (18 to 24), and complements the rest of the ways people can request enrolment forms. The public can either request an enrolment pack be sent to them by free-phoning 0800 ENROL NOW (0800 36 76 56), by visiting the elections website (www.elections.org.nz), or by going to any PostShop. Requesting an enrolment pack via SMS is another tool in the EEC's toolbox.

Customers can send a text message (at no cost to themselves) with their name and address to the EEC. On receipt of a message, the EEC sends an automated SMS reply advising that the request has been received and that an enrolment pack will be sent out shortly.  Then the pack is sent to the address provided, through the postal system.

The SMS service is powered by Datasquirt's product Contact  (which is also used by the Ministry of Justice and Immigration New Zealand). The EEC's telecommunications centre, who also manage the 0800 number, complete the fulfilment and posting of the pack requests.

The service is completely free to the customer. The request and reply message costs are both charged to the EEC.

Marketing

The SMS scheme was available for the 2002 election, but not greatly publicised at that time. This was because only Vodafone had the technology to charge the whole cost of the text to the EEC, thus making it free for the customer.

By the time of the 2005 election Telecom also had the capability to charge the cost of a text to the receiver, and all EEC advertisements (radio, TV, billboards, print ads, etc.) included the freetext number. This garnered a huge response - over 100,000 valid texts being received.

In 2008 the campaign resulted in over 124,000 texts being received.

Cost

The scheme was relatively inexpensive to set up, costing less than $20,000.

Product

The inbound texts are sent to a 4-digit short code (36 76) serviced by Datasquirt, and then go through an initial filtering system. There is one to filter out "joke/spam" requests – such as requests for packs to be sent out to God, Mickey Mouse, Helen Clark, and John Key etc.

The EEC can (and have) put blocks on specific cell phone numbers where people regularly text to requests enrolment packs for an address and the residents at that address can confirm that they have not been requesting the forms.

There is also a filter to separate out good (full, properly formatted addresses) from incomplete addresses - the "good" addresses can be printed out on an address label as they are, others need a staff member to go though and filter them to ensure the street name, suburb and city details are correctly spelt. 

The "good" addresses are printed off, affixed to an enrolment pack and posted. A staff member looks at the remaining texts and corrects the address details, if they can. They may have to look up the street to see if they can find which suburb they are in, or which city. Sometimes there isn't enough information in the text message so a response is sent to the texter asking for more address information.  Once this is received the text is processed and an enrolment pack posted.

The outbound confirmation text response from the EEC is automated, without staff intervention.

The system for dealing with the texts is currently separate from their other systems. The EEC would like to be able to link the two systems that they could automatically check an inbound text name against the electoral roll data. This would improve functionality, and would help them evaluate the efficiency of the text system.

Marketing

The EEC market the service along with other ways to sign up to the electoral roll in the lead up to the elections - big ad campaigns for the general elections and smaller campaigns for local body elections. The service is still offered when there is not an election pending. The cost of this marketing is not differentiated between the different methods of signing up to the electoral roll, because all are promoted at the end of each ad - the EEC do not worry about how a person signs up, they just want eligible electors to be on the roll once they qualify.

Cost of running the service

There is a fixed monthly licensing fee. Also the EEC pay for the text messages received and sent each month. Training for the call centre is conducted quickly inhouse.

Feedback

The EEC have not conducted any surveys on how people find the free texting service but anecdotal evidence suggests it is well received by people of all ages as another method to be able to enrol to vote.

The EEC cannot currently match up people who text in to see if they do complete the enrolment process.  This is currently being worked on in conjunction with their IT provider.

Thirty seven percent of requests for enrolment forms during the 2008 campaign were from people texting in.

Evaluation

Their initial goal was for the service to encourage more youth to get onto the electoral roll. About 80% of 18 - 24 year olds are on the roll. This number is very low compared to other age groups of eligible electors.

The EEC considers the SMS service to have been a hugely successful initiative in providing people, of all ages, another easy source to obtain an enrolment form. 

They are looking to expand the current functionality of the system, to provide services such as streamlining it with their database, so they can carry out searches to see if people are already enrolled, or just need to update their address in the electoral roll.

The EEC were originally going to deal with the inbound texts in-house, however they received 1,200 texts after their first television advert with the text number. They didn't expect such an overwhelming response, and faced with this they outsourced to their telecommunications centre, who run their 0800 number, to ensure all requests were actioned promptly.

Best thing about SMS

People have their cell phones with them, so they can take instant action when they see an ad from the EEC whether it be TV, radio, press, walking along the street, siting on a bus, and so forth - they do not have to write down a number to call later, or make a note to go in to the PostShop.

Most people in New Zealand have cell phones and can text. Although this scheme was targeted at youth a much wider audience has picked it up and embraced it.