Party volunteers push to get vote out on campaign's final day

It may feel like the election is just about over, but for campaign volunteers, today is the most intense day of the entire campaign.

It's voting day, and that means party activists have a mere 12 hours to seal the deal — to get their supporters to polling stations to cast ballots.

"It's just going to be a crazy day," says Mike Babineau, the campaign manager for Green Party candidate Mary Lou Babineau in Fredericton-Oromocto.

"It's bringing the whole package together at this point," says Jason Stephen, the campaign manager for Saint John-Rothesay Conservative candidate Rodney Weston.

For some, the task began while you were still asleep this morning.

Around 5 a.m., Liberal workers were fanning out across the riding of Fredericton-Oromocto, attaching door-knockers — that glossy campaign document with a hole designed that hangs from a doorknob — to the homes of people identified as supporters.

"It's not that we've knocked on their door at five o'clock, but we placed it there," says Dan Leger, the campaign manager for candidate Matt DeCourcey. "And the first thing they see in the morning is reminding them to get out to vote."

The NDP was also planning a brochure blitz this morning aimed at the homes of supporters they identified during weeks of neighbourhood canvassing.

Then, once the polls open, the real push begins.

Elections Canada sends hourly updates to all the parties, telling them which voters on the list of eligible voters have cast ballots, and, crucially which ones haven't.

Party volunteers cross-reference those lists with their own lists of supporters. And as the day goes on, they call the laggards, reminding them, encouraging them, and, if necessary, cajoling them.

"We go to their homes, we call them, we try to make sure that they vote," says provincial PC MLA Brian Macdonald, who has been campaigning for both Fredericton Tory candidate Keith Ashfield and John Williamson in New Brunswick Southwest.

Volunteer drivers are ready to offer rides to the polls to voters who don't have a way of getting there themselves.

Stephen says he's seen an increase in recent campaigns of people calling the campaign office unsure where to vote.

For the Greens, there's an additional challenge: many of the supporters they've identified have never voted before, or voted for the first time last year when they cast provincial ballots for New Brunswick Green Leader David Coon.

They're voters who may feel the electoral system "hasn't done us as much good as it possibly can" and they may need extra convincing that their votes will count, Babineau says.

Some candidates have used sophisticated digital databases and mobile apps to identify voters and track turnout, while others, including Weston, have opted for the tried-and-true, old-fashioned pen and paper method.

"The technology helps a little bit, but at the end of the day, the principles are the same," Macdonald says. "You have to identify people and then you've got to go touch them somehow and bring them out to vote."

The campaigns know that they have only a limited time — 12 hours from when the polls open to when they close — to get as many voters as possible in front of a ballot.

"You don't work this hard to come to election day and not ensure that you go out there and get every single person to vote," Leger says.

John Hoben, the campaign manager for Fredericton-Oromocto NDP candidate Sharon Scott-Levesque, says it's an all-out effort that will continue until the very moment the polls close.

"If we get a ride request at 8:25, we will be there," he says. "We will make sure they're in line for 8:30."