Electoral Dysfunction

More than a third of Canadians didn't vote in the last election, even with such riveting political figures as Michael Ignatieff and Stephen Harper.

A Statistics Canada survey released last week unveiled the reasons why nearly 40 per cent of eligible voters didn't cast a ballot in the May 2 election, with the bulk of them saying they weren't interested or were too busy to do so. Gerry Nicholls, writing for The Hill Times, arrives at a conclusion that anyone outside the Ottawa bubble probably could have told him – our federal politics are a tad dull, and, in the rare times that they are interesting, they're so wrought with partisan nonsense that most people are put off by the whole process. “This is a fact media pundits, political consultants and politicians sometimes forget,” says Nicholls. “Every now and then, they fall into the trap of believing that just because their fellow political junkies are worked up about an issue, that all Canadians must be equally concerned about the same issue and for the same reasons.” (To wit: Jump on Twitter, search #cdnpoli, and follow the esoteric finger-wagging that passes for modern political discourse).

The Globe and Mail figures the least Elections Canada could do to help rectify this matter is to find a way to introduce electronic voting next time around. The editorialists write that electronic voting “would essentially eliminate the reasons – or excuses – of a wide-ranging united alternative of electoral abstainers.” With the exception of the “not interested” segment, voting from home means those who said they were too busy or were out of town or what have you would only have their apathy to blame for not voting. All told, those people represent roughly 3.5 million people, nearly half of all non-voters. Or as the Globe puts it: “When a percentage in that range is found among those who actually do vote, that’s enough for a majority government.”

And what of those much-worried-over young voters, asks Kerri-Anne Finn of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives? Less than 30 per cent of people under the age of 25 are likely to vote, which Finn attributes to them no longer seeing “the federal government as a force for change, not because they don’t care.” Not a terrible hypothesis, but if our (somewhat recent) experience on both university and high school campuses tells us anything, it's that illiteracy of our political institutions probably figures in a lot more. In Ontario, for example, students are required to take just one course on civics in Grade 10. They can hardly be blamed for not understanding how a bill is passed, or the first-past-the-post voting system, or that we elect MPs and not a prime minister if their sole exposure to it comes from a teacher at age 15. For such allegedly important matters as state funding for aid groups (and the subsequent Bev Oda “not” fracas), a high degree of parliamentary comprehension is needed to make sense of the issue. If we're not arming our youth with the knowledge to understand the political process, or why their role in it matters, then we shouldn't be surprised when they don't go out of their way to contribute to it.