Recovery, Renewal, Resilience

Conventional campaigning tactics, such as door-to-door visits and town hall meetings to connect and talk to constituents, are not currently possible in many countries due to COVID-19 guidelines and concerns over risk of virus transmission. Clear guidelines that have the agreement of major parties are needed to ensure appropriate electioneering keeps election candidates and voters safe. Consider the need to:

• Develop an agreement between major political parties on the rules they commit to follow to ensure the safety of their election campaigns
• Identify alternative campaigning methods that are appropriate, such as:
  • Increased use of telephone and postal campaigning
  • Online platforms to support webinars and online town hall meetings with candidates to interact with voters
  • Increased involvement of volunteer helpers in constituencies
• Identify campaigning methods that are not appropriate, for example:
  • Driving voters to voting booths
  • In-person public appearances in places where crowds may then gather
• Appoint an arbitrator to advise on the adherence to agreed rules and the appropriateness of campaigning methods
• Consider how positive and negative campaigning may affect public mood at an already stressful time
• Communicate rules to campaign offices well in advance to allow preparation
• Communicate the campaign rules to the public

A guest briefing, by Michael Palin (GC Consulting), outlines the key challenges and considerations for local government in advance of the 'Recovery and Devolution' White Paper 2020.

To read this briefing in full, follow the source link below to TMB Issue 20 (p.2-9).

Korea held an election during the COVID-19 pandemic. The government ensured a number of voting rights for:

• Confirmed COVID-19 patients
• Those who were subject to movement restrictions and became infected with the virus after the registration period expired
• Those who came into contact with self-quarantined persons and were also quarantined
• Overseas arrivals who were subject to movement restrictions up until Election Day on April 15 2020

Officials' actions included:

• Texting eligible voters in self-quarantine before the vote - about 13,000 affirmed they wanted to participate
• Marking a metre of social distancing space to ballot booths from nearby streets
• Giving permission to those without fever or respiratory symptoms to leave their homes so they could cast their ballots after 6pm, when polling stations closed for other voters
• Escorting voters and monitoring COVID-19 positive voters through tracking apps
• Providing masks to poll workers
• Checking temperatures of voters on arrival and moving anyone with a fever or not wearing a mask to separate areas to vote
• Sanitising the facilities after voters
• Providing voters who pass the fever screening with sanitising gel and disposable plastic gloves before entering a voting booth
• Encouraging voting via mail for hospital patients or those who were under two-week quarantine
• Organising an early voting period for those who were mildly ill - 400 people cast their votes at temporary booths

In this briefing, we present an initial framework to assess the impact of COVID-19, building upon the UK Government’s National Recovery Guidance and Emergency Response and Recovery Guidance. This framework provides the structure to document national/international early recovery lessons for COVID-19 in The Manchester Briefing.

The framework asks you to consider types of impact, and how you can address each to enable recovery to take place. To view this framework, follow the source link below to TMB Issue 1 (p.7).