Why Vote Mobs Aren't Enough

Young voters aren't showing up to the polls because political parties are ignoring them.

As inspiring as it has been to watch vote mobs spring up across Canada, these efforts aren’t enough to fix the problem of low youth turnout. If we really want to change the trend of youth staying home on election day, Canadians and our political parties need to adopt innovative ways of reaching out to unengaged youth.

Some pundits claim that young people just don’t care about the democratic process. However, all of the available evidence contradicts this. A survey conducted during the 2008 election found that 78 per cent of Canadians aged 18 to 25 think their vote matters. In fact, research consistently shows that young people are less cynical about politics than their parents’ or grandparents’ generations.

So why is youth turnout so low? Why are young Canadians today casting ballots at approximately half the rate they did in the 1960s? The answer is surprisingly simple: because we aren’t asking them to vote. There is conclusive evidence showing that nothing is more effective at mobilizing voters than personal contact. Simply knocking on doors increases voter turnout between seven and 10 percentage points, and this is true among youth, as well. This type of on-the-ground, face-to-face mobilization played a decisive role in the victories of U.S. President Barack Obama in 2008 and Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi in 2010.

Yet Canada’s political parties have been abandoning this type of direct voter engagement. As Canadian comedian and political satirist Rick Mercer has pointed out, our parties consistently ignore anyone under the age of 30. They rely on short-term tactics – such as winning the “air war” or running negative TV ads – to sway existing voters, while doing little to mobilize new voters.

Unfortunately, vote mobs aren’t mobilizing new voters either. Watch a vote mob video, and you’ll see hundreds of politically engaged students putting their activism on display. Meanwhile, thousands of youth are missing from the camera frame – the students who are busy studying in the library, or the young people who don’t attend a college or university. Those are the unengaged youth of my generation. They didn’t take part in vote mobs, and they’re not likely to turn out on May 2.

We also can’t expect schools to solve the turnout problem. In 1999, the Ontario government introduced mandatory civics classes for all high-school students. If education was the silver bullet for voter apathy, these classes should have improved youth turnout in Ontario. They didn’t. In fact, students who took the civics classes were slightly less likely to vote in subsequent federal elections.

Given all of this, what can be done? For the young activists who are organizing vote mobs, I have a simple message: Reach out to your unengaged peers. Don’t just organize activities for the people in your networks, who already share your passion and convictions. Knock on doors, canvass your campuses, and find the people who aren’t paying attention to the election. It’s by mobilizing them that you will make a lasting impact.

For all of Canada’s political parties, I have an equally simple message: Your long-term success depends on mobilizing the youth vote. There are more than 5.5 million Canadians under the age of 30. If they formed a city, its population would be larger than the GTA. With fewer than 14 million ballots cast in the last federal election and everyone looking for a “game changer,” the youth vote is a sleeping giant. Apathy is Boring has been working since 2004 to engage youth in the democratic process. During this election, more than 70,000 youth have pledged to vote as part of our “I Will Vote” campaign, and our work will continue throughout the year. However, it’s high time that the key players in our elections – candidates, political parties, and civil society –made serious commitments to reaching unengaged youth. Declining youth participation is an issue that affects all Canadians, and we can’t assume that vote mobs will fix it for us.

Photo courtesy of Reuters.