What is a Canvas Map?

When running for an election, one of the most important things to do is to talk to your constituents. May it be through phone calls, emails, texts, mailers, town meetings, or any other form of communication, but the most important form of communication is face to face. This is where you get to really see and hear the issues that affect your community the most. During your face to face meeting, if you are able to effectively inform the constituent on your policy changes and how you will help them and their community, you may be significantly more likely to get their vote come November.  

In order to meet your constituents you will need to use a canvas map.  This is the quickest and most effective way to meet.  So, what is a canvas map? A canvas map is a list of constituents, where you will go house to house to talk to them. The map can be a digital or physical map to show you directions on how to get there, but typically it is a fillable list with your constituents' information. This includes information like their name, information that can help you identify who they are (like age and gender), their address, and other form fillable sections that make taking data more easy when you are out in the field. Fillable sections include but are not limited to things like, whether they are home or not, have they moved or passed away, what kind of issues affecting them, what kind of policies do they support, and additional notes section. This not only allows you to truly understand what kind of issues are plaguing your community, but it also allows you to more easily follow up with them in the future, to gain their vote.

In order to make a canvas map, you first need to find the right people to visit. Using APS Sciences canvas map services, we can easily take the heavy lifting off of you so that you don’t have to waste hundreds of hours making the maps. Who are the right people that you should be canvassing? In an ideal world you would be able to visit every house and talk to everyone in your community. You should even visit the people that would never vote for you because they are still members of the community and they also have a right to have their input into what happens to the community around them. With that being said though, you do only have a limited amount of time available in your day, and there may be thousands of people you need to talk to.  Ideally, you want to canvas to the individuals that either, going to vote for you no matter what but need some reminder to get out and vote, or the people that are going to vote no matter what, but are on the fence on who to vote for. In a tight race, or a race that you are expected to lose, you will need to reach people of the other party and try to get their vote. Sometimes just talking to someone face to face shows that you care more for them than your opponent, and sometimes it will get you the votes you need to win. If you target these types of individuals, you can maximize your time to votes gained ratio. However, this is also one of the most difficult things to do without the right information, and APS Sciences can help you solve this. 

Once you have your target audience, you then need to figure out their address and make a walking path. This is the route you should take while out in the field. Please see Best Practices for Canvas Maps in order to help you make the most optimal walking path. After you have your walking path, you can print off your completed canvass map, and start making the rounds to the house. These face to face meetings are one of the best ways to gain votes for your campaign, and all candidates should do this to help improve their chance of winning.