Why So Many Canadians Don’t Vote and why they should

Why So Many Canadians Don’t Vote and why they should

In the October 2008 federal general election voter turnout reached an all-time low of 58.8%. Just over half of Canadians on the voters’ list actually cast ballots. Forty-five to fifty years ago in the federal general elections of 1958, 1962 and 1963 over 79% of those registered to vote, almost four in five, turned up at the polls. What explains this sharp decline? When did it happen, and what can be done to reverse it?

The timing of the decline is relatively recent. As late as the elections of 1984 and 1988 voter turnout exceeded 75%, despite the lowering of the voting age in 1970 from 21 to 18 which added a low turnout group to the electorate. Only in the election of 2000 did turnout fall below 65%, a level it has not since exceeded.

The most widely accepted explanation for the sharp decline in voter turnout in Canada which began with the 1993 general election is that since 1988 younger eligible voters (those under age 45) became much less likely to vote compared to the same age group in previous elections.[1]  Fortunately, this trend does not appear to have continued in the four most recent federal elections. Since the June 2004 federal election, overall turnout rates and those for voters under age 45 have stabilized, although at historically low levels.

This decline in voter turnout, followed by stabilization at low levels, has coincided with developments which ought to have increased rather than reduced voter turnout. Today’s adult population is older and better-educated than it was in 1988 and voter turnout tends to increase with both age and the level of education. Demographic factors dampening voter turnout include the rising number of lone parents and persons living alone and the rising number of immigrants to Canada, particularly those from Eastern Asia and West Central Asia and the Middle East. Lone parents with children under age 5 and adults living alone are more than 10% less likely to vote than adults in couples with children older than age 5 or no children. Immigrants from Eastern and West Central Asia are more than 10% less likely to vote than adults born in Canada. [2]

Elections Canada and provincial election agencies have attempted to counter the decline in voter turnout by making it more convenient for eligible voters to get on the voters’ list and to cast their ballots. Canadians can now register to vote on their income tax forms and on voting day. The number of days when they can vote at advance polls or in the office of the Returning Officer have been increased and Special Polling Stations have been set up at nursing homes and prisons.

In Nova Scotia where voter turnout in provincial general elections has declined steadily from 75.8% in 1988 to an all-time low of 57.9% in 2009, Elections Nova Scotia has introduced several measures which will take effect at the next provincial election to encourage voter turnout. At that election it will be possible to cast a vote on all but four of the days in the four weeks leading up to Election Day. Polling stations will be set up in hospitals, homeless shelters, prisons and nursing homes to allow voting by disabled persons and others who find it difficult to travel to normal polling stations. Shut-in voters will be able to request that a ballot be brought to them by officials from the office of the local Returning Officer. Students attending universities and community colleges will be able to vote on campus, instead of having to return to their own constituencies. [3]

Some of these changes will address valid reasons why some eligible voters have been unable to cast ballots in past elections. For example, an article in the July 5, 2011 issue of the Statistics Canada Daily reported that in a survey following the May 2, 2011 federal election 44% of those over age 75 who had not voted cited illness or disability as the reason.

But this same article found that by far the two most common explanations people gave for why they had not voted were lack of interest (28%); including a belief that their vote would not have made a difference in the outcome of the election, and being too busy (23%); including having family obligations or a schedule conflict at work or school. Interestingly, recent immigrants were far less likely than native-born Canadians to give lack of interest as their reason for not voting but far more likely to cite being “too busy.”

This suggests that making voting more convenient alone will not reverse the decline in voter turnout since the late 1980’s. Steps must also be taken to persuade eligible voters, particularly those under age 45, to conclude that casting an informed vote is something that is in their interest.

Voting, after all, is one of the few areas of life where we are truly equal. The votes of new citizens and single mothers have just as much weight as those of our Prime Minister or of the wealthiest Canadians. Exercising the right to vote is worth a little inconvenience to make sure we are registered and get to the polls before they close. It is worth that inconvenience even if no party in our constituency offers an attractive platform or candidate. As George Orwell pointed out in the 1940’s, “Even when the choice is between the lesser of two evils, it is still worth making that choice.” Having no attractive party or candidate to vote for should stimulate non-voters to become more involved in the local political process so that they have a more attractive alternative next time.

Unfortunately, in recent elections much political advertising is designed to discourage potential supporters of opposing candidates from voting, rather than persuading them to support a party or candidate. Recall the high volume of negative advertising the federal Conservative Party mounted against the Opposition leaders, Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff, in the months leading up to the elections of 2008 and 2011.

In the 1960’s advertising encouraged adults in the USA to register and vote under the slogan: “Vote and the choice is yours. Don’t vote and the choice is theirs. Register or you have no choice.” If the decline in voter turnout in Canada is to be reversed and not just arrested, more non-voters in Canada will have to take that message to heart, resist the arguments of politicians who want to suppress rather than encourage voting and overcome their own laziness. The facts that it takes an effort to vote and that the choices presented are often less than ideal are convenient excuses, not valid reasons for not voting. They can be overcome with an effort on the part of current non-voters much smaller than the effort their ancestors made to obtain and preserve the right they foolishly hold to be of such little value.