The Momentum movement was first formed back in 2017 in Hungary. During the 2018 Hungarian Parliament elections, they failed to meet the 5% threshold of the popular vote to enter parliament.

Fast forward to 2019, and they are now considered to be the most important party to not have a representation in its home parliament. It is all starting to change however, coming off the back of a very healthy European parliament elections in May. Securing 9.86% of the voter share and adding 2 MEP’s to the European Parliament in the shape of Katalin Cseh and Anna Júlia Donáth.

As evidenced by its EP campaign, the Momentum movement is a “young” Hungarian party that represents a new political generation. Aside from being heavily focused on younger Hungarians, Momentum is also the most vocally pro-European Hungarian party, along with DK. It wants extensive EU integration, better health care, and education and fair wages. Momentum advocates for the replacement of the present Hungarian political elite, including the Orban gov, with a new breed of political community in Hungary, the party identifies as generally pro-European and pro-globalization.

It is no surprise therefore that Momentum was pioneering political technology despite having no politicians elected to government in Hungary. Having their sights firmly set on Europe, they got in touch with Ecanvasser back in November in 2018 to discuss a potential rollout ahead of the European elections.

Embracing technology

Many people who are users of political technology and followers of campaigning trends may already be familiar with what the team here at Ecanvasser offers to candidates and political parties. The election campaign management software aims to transform the way your entire political organisation operates.

When we began working with the Momentum movement, it was refreshing to see that they were trying to transform the democratic process in their own way.

Setting up over 24 campaigns on the Ecanvasser platform from February 2019, the Hungarian movement had nearly 724 volunteers to not only organize, but also motivate.

This is where Ecanvasser stepped in.

Volunteer motivation tool

Using our Ecanvasser dashboard as a central hub, the volunteers or field officers all downloaded the Walk mobile app, where they recorded every single piece of canvassing and outreach work they conducted. Syncing all their completed work back to HQ, it became apparent how useful the gamification functionality of the Walk app suddenly became to team leader. The Momentum movement realised the results on the Team management page could be utilised to not only keep volunteers on track but also to motivate them to become more active. A healthy rivalry soon began to appear between volunteers working on the same campaign and then expanded across regional campaigns to see who could do the most direct voter outreach.

In total, there were over 75,230 canvasses completed out of a possible 233,000 voters. All this field campaigning work led the Momentum party to collect voter information on what issues were most affecting the Hungarian people. It then became more people-informed and the voters began to resonate with the political parties messaging better. Connecting this closely with the electorate saw the movement swiftly become a party with 2 elected members of the european government and no longer just a protest movement.