<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 TRANSITIONAL//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; CHARSET=UTF-8">
<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="GtkHTML/3.16.0">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
Hi Ray,<BR>
<BR>
seeing that we had 60 days and still pulled it off (in 45), I certainly think it can be done - but not without serious effort.<BR>
<BR>
The key is to get attention. And we don't get attention in mainstream media, that's just not going to happen. Mainstream media reports when we have already built momentum elsewhere.<BR>
<BR>
You mention that you can gather signatures electronically, but that 3,400 signatures are required. Does that mean you can gather them on a website? If so, I'd like to point you to this excerpt in the Wikipedia article for inspiration:<BR>
<BR>
<I>The website for the Pirate Party was opened <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_1">January 1</A>, <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006">2006</A> (at 20.30 <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_European_Summer_Time">CEST</A>), starting the foundation of the party. Six phases were presented, with phase one being the collection of at least 2,000 signatures (500 more than needed) to be handed over to the <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Election_Authority">Swedish Election Authority</A> before <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_4">February 4</A> (while the absolutely last date would be <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_28">February 28</A>), so that the party would be allowed to participate in the <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_general_election%2C_2006">Swedish general election of 2006</A>, which took place on <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_17">September 17</A>. Fewer than 24 hours after the opening of the website, the party had collected over 2,000 signatures (2,268 at 16.05 CEST).</I><BR>
<BR>
<I>By the morning of <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_3">January 3</A>, the party closed the signature collection. In about 36 hours, they had gathered 4,725 signatures.</I><BR>
<BR>
<BR>
This is in a nation with nine million people, and the word of mouth just spread like wildfire.<BR>
<BR>
You can also gather signatures physically, but it's much harder work. Our best people could gather about 50 signatures per hour in a city center. It took the whole organization five weeks of concentrated effort to pull it off altogether.<BR>
<BR>
My advice for getting the necessary attention to electronic signatures would be to try to get the story out ("Utah Pirate Party needs your help") on Digg or Slashdot, once you have the registration mechanism up. Or maybe even TorrentFreak.<BR>
<BR>
Rick<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
On Tue, 2007-10-16 at 09:18 -0600, Ray Jenson wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE>
<PRE>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Hello, Everyone!</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">I'm needing a bit of help, and I hope that you can all assist me.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Today marks a very important day. Today marks 120 days from the deadline</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">in February to have all of the signatures ready and counted for Utah to</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">be permitted to form the Pirate Party of Utah.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">However, there is a problem. In spite of our attempts to gain some</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">measure of attention with the press, it simply hasn't happened. We're</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">simply not making enough of a wave to gain the kind of attention we need</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">to get people interested and aware. I'm still running into people</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">regularly who have never heard of the Pirate Party, or who think that</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">we're actually a lobbying group without much in the way of support. We</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">aren't making a stir, and so the media just doesn't care. The perception</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">is that we simply lack support (though the supporters I have found tend</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">to be rather excited-sounding about the idea of there being a political</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">party as long as they personally don't need to do anything more than join).</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Truth be told, we are indeed lacking in signatures. We announced 60 days</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">ago that we were looking to collect signatures to petition the</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">government for political party status. It has not happened yet, and at</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">the current rate we're not going to qualify.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">What I need from everyone are some ideas about how to generate enough</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">publicity to make this happen. I'm completely out of ideas, and the</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">press just is not interested in publishing stories, because all of the</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">press in Utah is currently owned by members of one or the other major</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">parties. Except for my own newspaper, which is not yet publishing due to</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">my lack of money, but which I hope to be having soon.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">I hope to hear any ideas soon, as this second 60 days needs to move</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">much, much faster. Official count on the signatures has not yet reached</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">50 out of 2000 needed. If we go with electronic signatures, we need</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">3,400 instead of 2,000, according to the current Lieutenant Governor's</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">rules.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Thank you, anyone and all.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Sincerely,</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Ray Jenson</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Interim Administrator</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Pirate Party of Utah.</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">____________________________________________________</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000">Pirate Parties International - General Talk</FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000"><A HREF="mailto:pp.international.general@lists.pirateweb.net">pp.international.general@lists.pirateweb.net</A></FONT>
<FONT COLOR="#000000"><A HREF="http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general">http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general</A></FONT>
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
</BODY>
</HTML>