A Door-to-Door Campaign by Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU): Hello, could I give you our manifest and a leaflet about our local candidate? The woman at the door beams, we already voted by post, so don't worry. The Petitioner pulls out his phone, opens an app called Connect17taps a Smiley Face.

When we started, we were the only party that did this. he explains. Along with other Young Activists, he is plying the hilly streets of Jena, in the State of Thuringia, Germany, doing something new to Continental Europe: Door-to-Door Canvassing.

Elections here traditionally involve Posters, Street Stalls, and Rallies, but not the Doorstep Campaigning common in America and Britain. Tighter Privacy Laws prevent Parties from holding Data on Individuals. Continentals more often live in Intercom-Protected Blocks of Flats, increasing the time and effort needed to reach a Voter's Front Door. And Electoral Systems in Countries like Germany are Proportional, Lowering the Rewards: Micro-Targeting Voters in Key Places counts for much in Majoritarian Anglo-Saxon Systems in which Swing Constituencies decide Everything.

In New York City, where I served for 14 years as a Member of the Independence Party, Petition gathering was as Hard as the Continentals' living in Intercom-Protected Blocks of Flats. As an Independence Party Candidate, we could not collect Petition Signatures on the Street or Door-to-Door. We had to use a Caller to get the Party Member's Permission to get their Signature, at their Work, Home, or wherever they were located. For the 73rd Assembly District I covered, the Eastside of Manhattan, getting to know the Building Doorman really helped with knowing when a Party Member was Home. My District covered around 3,500 Party Members.

Yet things began to Change when Obama's Grassroots Campaign in 2008 showed European Strategist how much Knocking on Doors can achieve. Guillaume Liegey, a consultant then studying in Boston, brought the Techniques home to France and applied them first to François Hollande's Successful Campaign for the Presidency in 2012, and then last year to En Marche!, Emmanuel Macron's New Political Party.

Apps and Big Data are managing to skirt around Stringent Privacy Laws. Connect17 never uses Voter's Names, instead directing Activists to Demographically Promising Areas, where they record Responses: Positive, Neutral, or Negative at Each Door. Combined with GPS Co-Ordinates, this provides the Party with a Street-by-Street Mood Map, explains Christian Zinke, the former CDU Staffer whose firm built the App.

Primarily, European Politicians are turning to Doorstep Campaigning to Boost Trust and Interest in an Age of Disenchantment. The New Tech serves an old Principle: People Trust their Fellow Citizens more than Faraway Leaders. In Three German State Elections earlier this year, Connect17 coaxed unexpectedly high numbers of CDU Supporters to Polling Stations.

Parties in Span, Italy, and Scandinavia are making similar discoveries. Sweden's Social Democrats have found that Canvassing raises Turnout by Four Points. As Liegey puts it: When voters see political volunteers who look like them, it contradicts that politics is a distant world to which they do not belong. It sends a signal.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker