A checkable manifesto system for a state campaign

The situation

The client had a strong political position and no written programme. What existed was a set of intentions held in several people's heads, expressed differently depending on who was speaking and where. Down ballot candidates were writing their own material, which meant thirty-nine versions of the same party saying thirty-nine different things.

What we built

A single programme of government, then thirty-nine editions drawn from it: one for the governorship ticket, three senatorial, nine federal constituency and twenty-six state constituency editions. Each edition carried the same commitments in the same order, localised to the communities it would be read in.

Every commitment had to pass a written gate before publication. Commitments that could not pass were returned to design rather than published with a caveat.

What changed

Candidates could defend their own material because they helped write it. Journalists could check a claim without calling the campaign. When the campaign became an administration, the same document became the programme of government and then the basis of the delivery tracker, so nothing had to be reconstructed after the election.

What we would do differently

The local verification stage was underestimated. Confirming road names, community names and facility conditions on the ground took longer than the writing did, and it should have started in week one rather than week six. On later engagements verification runs in parallel with drafting.