December VoteSource Newsletter

Welcome to the December edition of the VoteSource Newsletter.

We are pleased to be back with some more exciting updates about the VoteSource system as we approach the end of the year!

Missed our last edition? Catch up by clicking here.

Or click here to browse all previous editions.

Merry Christmas from the VoteSource Team! 🎄 🎁

On behalf of the VoteSource Team here at CCHQ, we would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas as we move towards the festive season.

After what has been a busy and successful year for VoteSource, we want to take this opportunity to thank all of our users for working on the system, going out and campaigning using the system, and helping us to improve and develop VoteSource through your valuable suggestions and reports. Together we have made VoteSource the incredible campaigning tool it is today.

We hope you take this time to have a wonderful festive season, and we look forward to seeing you again in the New Year!

VoteSource Highlights of the Year. ✨

It is safe to say that 2025 has been an exciting year for VoteSource.

With a plethora of exciting new features and upgrades to the system being released throughout the year, we would like to take some time to highlight just how much work we have completed on VoteSource to make the system work better for you throughout the year.

So, as we come to the end of another year and reflect on what has happened this year, we are pleased to say that through 2025 we have:

• Created the new count-only Target Audience feature. This function is up to 50% faster at getting you the number of people, addresses, and emails that could be included for a specific criterion.

• Fine-tuned Control room activities to improve performance and so give you files to mail merge quicker than ever before.

• Made it so contact consent can now be stored relating to specific issues, making issue specific petitions more compatible with the VoteSource System.

• Introduced a new capacity for managing Proposed or Future electoral boundaries on VoteSource, allowing them to now be uploaded for your campaigning needs.

• Published a new update for the VoteSource Canvasser App.

• This release targeted the interface to make the VoteSource Canvasser App even more user-friendly, and as well as this has delivered the following improvements too:

  • Improved household layout to make the app easier to navigate.
  • Improved Survey layout to assist you in recording your data.
  • A refresh option has been added for when you pull down on tasks, streamlining this process.
  • Improved results for searching on telling to allow you to conduct this activity more efficiently going forward.
  • New performance improvements across the application have been delivered, particularly surrounding improved online synchronization.
  • Delivered better consistency between the iOS version and Android version as well.

• Updated the Map Tiles for Canvass Cards and Delivery Lists to include new estates and roads. Over 15,000 of these map tiles have received this update to allow you to canvass your address’ even more accurately going forward.

• Uploaded New Mosaic codes, Tenure, Household Income Band, Age, Mortgage and Employment Status data onto the system this year to improve your ability to target your constituents. Approximately 200 million records have been updated with this data this year!

• Introduced a new feature that automatically enables certain activities within the Target Audience activities section as you toggle them on. This has been applied to the following activities:

  • Canvass Cards
  • Delivery Lists
  • Canvass Data Entry
  • Mobile Data Entry
  • Mailing Data Entry
  • Connect Calling.

And along with this we have completed a multitude of performance enhancements and bug fixes as well.

2025, therefore, has been a really successful year for VoteSource and its ability to serve you in your campaigns, and with work for 2026 already on the way, we look forward to continuing to make the system work for you into next year!

Data Uploads in 2025

The Data team here at CCHQ would also just like to highlight the sheer amount of data handled by them in 2025, which they have used to provide you with the best possible data to build your campaigns.

With this in mind, we can confirm that, firstly, the Data team have been able to import 750,000 rows of survey data taken from CCHQ nation-wide petitions developed by our Digital team. This data has supplied us with emails, and issue positions, for you to use to build your campaigns that focus on the big national issues of the day, such as the Winter Fuel Allowance. We are proud to say that so much of this data has been made available for you.

And, as another key example of the Data teams work this year, they would also like to highlight Marked Register uploads.

Over the years our users have often asked for an import method for Marked Registers, and last year we pioneered this feature.

This year, the take up has been extraordinary, and we can now confirm that over 7,300,000 rows of Marked Register data has been imported into the VoteSource system this year, particularly across the below elections:

This data is incredibly valuable for target voter models created by our Insight team here at CCHQ, and so your push to provide us this data, and our Data teams hard work to make it available for you, has meant we have a huge amount of voted data to provide to you to base your future campaigns upon; we are so pleased that we have been able to deliver this for you.

Data is always the basis of a successful campaign, and our Data teams hard work here at CCHQ has delivered great results on this front this year, and we look forward to 2026 where we can continue to bring you the best possible data for all of your campaigns.

Changes to the VI Scoring Algorithm

This relates to VI’s gathered via 0-10 (Matrix) VI questions. This change only affects freshly gathered VIs at this stage.

The VoteSource and Insight teams would like to make you aware that the algorithm that uses the scores you enter into VoteSource to define Voting Intentions has changed as part of a release onto the system.

The intention behind this is to enable our activists to see and access more easily the voters who are deciding between two parties (for example a Y voting intention), strongly favour a single party, or are extremely soft and choosing between multiple parties.

In practice, this will mean that when you extract an audience of Ys, Ts, Ms, Hs or Zs you’ll have a larger audience of people who are choosing between two parties, and it will include all constituents we know are choosing between those parties. So, you won’t have to guess what a U or a P on a canvass card really means and can more effectively plan your conversations and squeeze your voters. Some hard canvass codes will also be changed – for example a VI based on a score where Conservatives are scored 9 and the Lib Dems are second with 2 will in the future be an M, having previously been a C.

This change will affect only newly gathered VIs at this stage.

VIs already on VoteSource will be altered to reflect this algorithm change in the New Year – so please do not be alarmed if you notice a drop in the number of Cs and Ps in your area at this time. The number of Cs affected will be very small – scored Cs are already overwhelmingly voters who have a score entered for only one party (and likewise for scored Ns, Ls, etc).

The decision to make this algorithm change has been made in response to multiple requests from our candidates and activists, and is an approach favoured by our most experienced campaigners. Once decided, the VoteSource team prioritised this work to make the change ahead of next year’s local elections.

In addition to putting voters into a more appropriate canvass code, two significant improvements are made possible due to this change:

1. The first relates to data quality – VoteSource users will no longer have a reason to alter a voter’s scores to force them into a more appropriate canvass code.
2. Secondly, the dual meaning of canvass codes is removed and replaced with a single, clearer meaning. For example, the canvass code T will no longer mean someone who is either probably Labour or a Labour-Conservative waverer – all Ts will now be Labour-Conservative waverers.

We hope that this will encourage more use of the 0-10 matrix questions for the upcoming local elections.

Now that we’re competing with multiple parties, a canvass of P or U in the traditional way is less useful going forward – we need to know who the choice is between (now summarised in the voting intention code) and the differences in general warmth towards the parties (retained in the raw 0-10 data).

Please do continue to increase your use of 0-10 canvassing, which has increased over 2025.

Should you need any assistance with setting up 0-10 VI Matrix questions for your surveys and canvassing sessions, please see the below step-by-step guides that detail how you can create these questions:

Survey - Section 2B - Explanation of question types for answers – https://votesource.uk/support/helpcenter/viewarticle/384

Connect - Creating a calling script - Part 4E - Mapping Logic: Adding a Matrix Voting Intention – https://votesource.uk/support/helpcenter/viewarticle/415

And should you need any further assistance with this, please contact our Member Services Team via email at memberservices@conservatives.com, or phone on 020 7984 8036 (Monday to Friday, 9am – 5pm), and we will be able to help you with this process.

Finally, should you have any concerns, quibbles, suggestions or requests for detailed VI information about your electorate, please contact Judd.Ryan@conservatives.com, who will be happy to assist you with this

We will be in touch when VIs already on VoteSource are altered to reflect this algorithm change in the New Year, so please keep an eye out for this.

Annual Rollover – Another success for the Data Team here at CCHQ

As December progresses, the Annual Rollover is in full swing, and here at the VoteSource Team we would like to draw your attention to another remarkably successful rollover this year!

If you missed our article explaining what Annual Rollover is, and how to prepare for the immediate aftermath, please see here: https://votesource.uk/support/news/newsview/311. But as a quick summary of what Annual Rollover is: the Rollover is the name given to the process of adding and deleting electors, and renumbering electoral roll numbers, that is undertaken at the beginning of December every year based on the annual canvass of electors carried out in the Autumn by local publishing authorities.

And since the 1st of December, our Data team have been hard at work – as part of this Annual Rollover process – contacting councils across the country, processing their Annual Rollover files, and making sure that said files upload correctly onto the VoteSource system.

And this year, they have been as successful as ever!

This is why we can now confirm that at the time of writing, the Data team have:

Completed the Annual Rollover process for 310 Council areas.

With only 25 Council areas delaying, this means that going forward towards the New Year, Annual Rollover has been completed for the majority of the country, providing you, our users, with the most up-to-date electoral data in an incredibly timely manner.

We can only conclude, therefore, that this has been a considerable success, and we now ask our users to go ahead and start using their updated electoral data; after all, using the most up-to-date data is crucial for electoral success, and we at the VoteSource team are delighted to be bringing this to you now.

New National Volunteering Tags – Helping you reach your volunteering base

The VoteSource team are pleased to confirm that a new National Volunteering Tag group has been set up on the VoteSource system, to aid you in reaching your potential volunteers through your surveys and campaigns.

This Tag Group contains multiple tags that are designed for you to attach to your canvassed constituents based on their interest in helping volunteer for your association. By using this tag in your campaigns from 2026 onwards, therefore, you will be able to create an easily identifiable volunteer base for your association, which you would then be able to call upon for your campaigns as needed. This tag, consequently, should become an essential part of your VoteSource campaigning arsenal as we move forward into the new year.

We would recommend that you make use of this new tag group for all of your canvassing sessions going forward, therefore.

The new tag group in question is titled as follows:

And this can be assigned to any constituent within your area – firstly – through their respective constituent record. The guide below will assist you with this process:

Constituent - Adding a Tag – https://votesource.uk/support/helpcenter/viewarticle/227

The Would like to Volunteer (2026-) tag is also available to you through a Question Bank survey question, which can be added to your surveys to collect this valuable volunteering data. This Question Bank question appears as below:

And is titled:

Would you be interested in finding out more about helping local Conservatives Campaign for our area by

Should you need any assistance with attaching this question to your surveys to aid you in building up your volunteering base, please see the below guide:

Connect - Creating a calling script - Part 2 - Adding questions from the question bank: https://votesource.uk/support/helpcenter/viewarticle/408

And finally, not only has this tag group been designed to make it easier than ever to label your constituents based on their desire to assist with your campaigns, but it also assists you by making it clearer to define what your volunteering base is, based on this tag group. This is because, going forward, if you use solely this tag group for your volunteers, you will be able to pull target audiences that use criteria that looks for this tag group. In so doing, you will be able to extract full lists of your volunteers for your campaigns, to assist you with reaching out to them either via in person meetings or through direct mail outs/emails inviting them to your canvassing sessions.

This is possible through the Advanced Target Audience set up, and a guide for setting up an audience using an Issue or a Tag (both are set up in the same way, for reference, but use ‘Tag’ or ‘Issue’ criteria as needed) can be seen below:

Target Audience – Using Issue Positions as Audience Criteria – https://votesource.uk/support/helpcenter/viewarticle/418

But, should you need any further information on this target audience set-up process, or any further assistance on using this tag group at all, please just contact our Member Services team via email at memberservices@conservatives.com, or give us a call on 020 7984 8036 (Monday to Friday, 9am – 5pm), and we would be more than happy to advise.

Making use of this new tag group will, therefore, allow you to reach your volunteering base like never before, and we would so encourage its use for this reason.

After all, building up a strong base of volunteers across your region is the best way to get our message out there, and in turn bring about positive electoral results. So, why not make use of our new Volunteering Tag Group today?

Important VoteSource Canvasser App Information

We want to make our VoteSource Canvasser App users aware that as we continue to develop and improve the VoteSource Canvasser App, that new updates will arrive on your respective App Stores. Please take a look at the News Article below to see our most recent Canvasser App update, and the features it brings you to improve your mobile VoteSource experience:

https://votesource.uk/support/news/newsview/310

However, with every new update released to the App Stores for the incredible VoteSource Canvasser App, we are subject to changes to operating level and device requirements that are set by the devices operating system (Apple and Android). With this in mind, we want to make our App users aware that we now cannot guarantee that the VoteSource Canvasser App will be downloadable for any devices on below:

• IOS 16.1.
• Android 14.

This is because operating levels below the two above levels have stopped or are about to stop receiving vital security patches from their operating system provider. This regularly happens as new devices and operating levels are brought out. But, as we strive to keep our App and database as secure as possible, it does mean that we also have to ensure that our App is only available for those devices running on Android 14 or higher or IOS 16.1 or higher.

We do apologise to those on affected devices that are now unable to download the VoteSource Canvasser App.

However, rest assured that if the App is currently on your device, even if you are running your device on an operating level below that of the above, you should still be able to use the VoteSource Canvasser App. This notice is only for those users who are attempting to download the App. With this in mind, should your device be operating on below Android 14 or IOS 16.1, please do not delete the App and attempt to reinstall it should you face any issues with accessing the App; please, instead, get in contact with the Member Services Team first via email at memberservices@conservatives.com, or phone on 020 7984 8036 (Monday to Friday, 9am – 5pm), and we should be able to help.

We hope to be in touch in the New Year about further exciting App updates!

Looking forward to Next Year

All that is left for us to say here at the VoteSource team is after a year of successful feature changes and improvements to the system, we are excited for the New Year where we can deliver even more significant updates to the system to enhance your everyday experience on VoteSource.

Some of the updates to the system in the pipeline – which you may have heard of in our previous editions of this newsletter – are:

• The upcoming continued rollout of the VI Matrix Algorithm changes to affect VI’s already in the system, and not just those newly gathered (as discussed in article 3).
• Potential further rollout of exciting new Online Survey Features, which concern themselves with improving your Survey Insights and, therefore, your future survey targeting (for more information on these exciting new features, please see our November edition of the VoteSource Newsletter).

And, we have many more new and exciting features on the way!

So please, have a very Merry Christmas, and we hope to see you in the New Year for an even more exciting year for VoteSource.

Happy New Year! 🎉