Apparently, voter apathy was not restricted to the young at the 41st election. Below are the numbers broken down of the wall of shame known as the non-voters:
18 to 24 years old: 29.9%
25 to 32 years old: 30.8%
35 to 44 years old: 27.5%
45 to 54 years old: 29.1%
55 to 64 years old: 25.8%
65 to 74 years old: 21.3%
75 years old and over: 13.4%
The reasons excuses cited for not voting were also pretty flimsy and really don’t hold water, given all the options available to voters, if one bothered to either call Elections Canada or consult their website. Early polls, special ballot voting, hell, a commenter on the Grope & fail comment board, who was in France during the election season managed to vote and found it quite painless:
During the entire advance voting period as well as on voting day, I was on holiday in France. I looked at the instructions on the Elections Canada website for out-of-country voting. I filled out a form and scanned my passport, then faxed that to Elections Canada. Less than a week later, I received my voting package by general delivery, and sent my ballot right back with lots of time to spare.
Many cited excuses like “Oh, they don’t engage me!” or “I’m just not interested!” or work and family obligations. Yes, there is the “I just plum forgot, Guffaw!” The real reason is laziness, pure and simple and it is a major character flaw, especially when it comes to exercising our civic duty. We outta be damned appreciative that we have this right.
Laziness, a character flaw, my father deeply frowned upon when my brother and I were growing up. It was right up there with dishonesty. It should not be soothed or rewarded.
Employers are required by law to give employees a few hours off on election day to go vote.
Doesn’t the future of your family largely depend on going out to vote and keeping up with the issues? I would certainly think that would be far more vital than catching the men’s Olympic Hockey final or finding out what Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge is wearing during the Royal visit.
Hell, even if you’re hospitalized, an Elections Canada Employee comes by so patients can vote. Prisoners are able to vote.
I also remember many candidates on Twitter offering rides to polling stations for those who needed it. Even before the social media age, I remembered various candidates advertising rides to polling stations, that all it took was a call to the campaign office, particularly when I was living in rural areas.
I’m also sick of this whole idiotic meme of “engage me!” “They’re not engaging me!” Oh Sweet Jesus! Engage yourselves! Do your own homework! What is it exactly that you want them to do? Perform death defying circus acts? Oh, the Obama speeches. Have we not learned anything from Obama? It turned out speeches were all that he knew how to do. He turned out to be an abject failure, otherwise.
I’ve read other dumb comments on the Grope and Fail comment boards; those from those claiming to be so disgusted with Stevie Spiteful and his Harpercons that they decided to stay home. Well, allow me to break it to ya, by staying home instead of going out to vote for anyone else but Stevie’s merry band of thieves, you endorsed Stevie’s acts. You endorsed his puppets. I’ve always said that those who stayed home on election day voted for Stevie and the Harpercons. Simple as that. Stevie knows it, why do you think those Cons from their war room went to all the trouble dreaming up vote suppression stunts? I thought this one from Jezebel5 was particularly adorable:
When faced with the scenario of having to choose between 3 rapists. It’s best to stand back and let the strongest rapist prevail among them to rape you.
Huh? Isn’t that how fascism gets started?
Now it seems that some political scientist and other folks are proposing online voting. A very bad idea. For openers, how can the vote and voter be authenticated? Can it be trusted? I don’t think so. I don’t even trust online banking. Furthermore, I tried filing my taxes online, but it was so complicated, that I gave up and just printed everything and mailed it the old fashioned way. I have a feeling it would be simpler to show up at the polling station. Then, as someone who assists an IT department, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the tech issues involved, like the system crashing, thus erasing all electronic information recorded. Then what happens? Is it as if those online votes never happened? What about hackers playing around? With every vote suppressing stunt those Harpercons pulled, I don’t think they’re above having skilled hackers play around with the Elections Canada servers. Also, who’s to say voters won’t just plum forget to go to the Elections Canada voting site to vote when it’s time? Will they sacrifice a few precious minutes from their social media or video game playing time to vote? Besides, offering online voting is simply rewarding that bad behavior of laziness.
No, replacing our first past the post system with proportional representation won’t change that much, simply because most don’t know the difference between the two. In fact, Brian Tanguay, a political science professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, admits that in democracies that use a proportional representation voting system haven’t seen their voting turn out numbers rise. Somehow, those same flimsy excuses which really boil down to laziness would still apply.
Don’t like the traditional parties? There are always independent candidates and candidates in fringe parties running in all ridings. There are all kinds of fringe parties to suit all tastes to cast a protest ballot. Perfect if you live in a riding touted as a strong hold for a certain party or candidate. Besides, I think the last election taught us that there is no such thing as a safe seat, unless, of course, you live in Blue Conservative Alberta, thus proving every vote does indeed count.
No, the answer is something the Harpercons will never ever entertain because it plays against their own self-serving interests and I seriously doubt any of the opposition parties, if they ever get into power, and at this rate, it looks problematic, will entertain neither, because it’s not exactly a crowd pleaser, but the only real solution is mandatory voting like in Australia. It is the only way to actually have a real turn out and have real numbers. None of this 27% of all Canadians giving a party a majority to govern. It’s that simple.
I’ve mentioned this before and I will mention it again. Folks in the Middle-East have been sacrificing life and limb and taking to the streets to rid themselves of dictators who have long overstayed their welcome; demanding democracy which includes the right to free elections. Yet, we can’t be bothered to appreciate our own democratic rights. Worse, our democracy is eroding and not only is no one noticing, many appear to be embracing this.
The next four years are going to be one sorry lesson for those apathetic voters, assuming they learn anything that is, assuming they shed the ‘Jezebel5′ attitude. One can only hope they wake up before it’s too late. By the time 2015 comes around and comes near to the end, and if an election still hasn’t been called, will voters and non-voters, especially even notice? Will they wake up and demand “Hey Steve! Where’s our election?”
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ello Sister Sage,
I would agree with you that voter apathy is a major problem. There is no reason what so ever for a person NOT to vote. As citizens of this country, it is our DUTY to engage OURSELVES in the Canadian political process. I would even be satisfied if folks would only engage themselves once every four years. Lord knows there was more than enough info available on the issues, by the main stream media, social media etc for people to make an informed choice. People like you and I were screaming the issues from the rooftops. Still are. I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to feel like the mad man on a stump in the village square, wildly waving his arms, trying to warn all the villagers of the impending apocalypse. It’s frustrating. It’s demoralizing. It’s pissing me off!
Not sure if MAKING people vote is the way to go. If we do that, then we get people in the polling booth going eenie meenie minee moe!Or voting conservative because they like the colour blue, or even worse, voting blue because they’ve been coned into thinking that this is the same old Conservative party as opposed the “wolf in ships clothing” Reform Party that annexed the party name in 2004. Uninformed voting could have equally devastating consequences. Perhaps worse. What if everyone voted and Harper STILL got a majority. He would be even more embolden by this fact, that he was given a divine mandate to carry out his ideological, corporate driven anti Canadian agenda. And the disengaged would remain blissfully disengaged.
Some how, people need to start caring on their own. It is possible. Look at the citizens of Iceland who not only brought down their government by taking to the streets, but are now in the process of jailing the corporate barons who wrought economic chaos on their beloved country. The people of Iceland, unlike the people of Greece, stood up and said “we wont buy your austerity bull shit. You did this and you know you did this. Now it’s time to pay the piper. YOU guys are accountable to US, not the other way around”.
I believe Canadians need to get angry enough on their own. They need to be able to see that we are being taken for a very long and perilous car ride by people who mean us harm. Canadians need to wake up of their own accord from their blissful ignorance. I’m not quite sure how to do this other than to continue to wave my arms like a mad man and shout out my message from the stump in village square. I hope that if enough of us “mad folk” shout out our messages loud enough and long enough, we might be able to awaken a slumbering sot or two to the realities that we face.
I have a very positive feeling that something is starting to happen. It’s pretty small right now. But small things, like Bridgette DePape”s personal protest are getting noticed. As in Egypt, I think Social media will be the key to unlocking the door to peoples hearts and minds, it will be the key to becoming organized. Mr. Harper knows this by the way. So watch for what he tries to do with the internet. It will be quiet, subversive and he will have tons of rationalization for his censorship. But it will happen. It has already started, giving police the ability to scan and carry out surveillance unfettered. Look at what he did during the election campaign, kicking people out of his rallies because of their Facebook pictures and comments. There was NEVER a full accounting as to who did that scanning and to what extent. It’s history, it’s forgotten now.
But once citizens start to feel the pinch, the infringing of their rights right here at home, in our own homes on our own computers, start to wake up to the censorship and to the corporate driven police state that is evolving,then people will start to wake from their blissful slumber, then people will take to the streets. Until Canadians start to see and experience for themselves what we’ve been saying all along, they will remain asleep. So lets hope Harper proceeds with all haste in implementing his agenda. Because I think THAT is the only thing that is going to compel Canadians to become engaged.
Sorry for the novel. I tend to get carried away at times.
Keep it real Sister!
Sincerely,
Bob DeWolfe aka PoliticosRKD
[email protected]
I too was in Honk Kong and my wife and I went to great lengths to get down to Central, twice, to the Canadian Consul to register and cast our vote. It was important to us. We actually thought we had a chance this time to effect a change. What a disappointment.
ck Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 12:56 PM
What are you saying, Mark? you’d rather we never ever have another election again? Hey! Now talk about real change!
In most European countries where Sunday remains for the most part a non commercial activity day, voting takes place on that day. My solution to voting is to make the lottery terminal also act as a voting machine. How to prevent fraud is not fully realized in my mind but I am sure it could be done. Assuming that you get a ballot in the mail or download it, mark your choices just like picking lottery numbers and vote at the nearest corner store.
What I heard from a lot of people was.
Canada is a sewer. It doesn’t matter what party wins, the politicians are all corrupt anyway.
Another one, the politicians are all liars. Look what Campbell did. He has stolen so much, he has to be a multi millionaire.
How about, Harper reminds me of Putin from Russia. Harper had a criminal working for him. He is in contempt of the house. Why is he even allowed to run. That’s the kind of s..t, that goes on, to hell with voting, doesn’t do any good anyway.
Another, it’s the rich gas and oil, unprintable, that run this country. The politicians all took bribe money from them and now the gas and oil own everything, politicians are @#%^&#@ useless.
Most of these people are young. They see no futures. Some have large student loans. They have educated themselves, and there are no jobs for them anyway. They all said, it is the corrupt politicians and their greed, that is killing this country.
So I said, well get into politics and change things then. Nah, if you don’t fall in with the corruption, you are out on your @$$. Campbell got rid of everyone, that wasn’t corrupt.
At that point, I gave up. Because, they were pretty much right.
ck Reply:
July 7th, 2011 at 8:05 PM
Not voting makes the problem worse. It’s an open invitation to fascism. If you think things are bad now, you ain’t seen nothing yet. What if Harper were to take away free elections? The cost of that would be much, much higher. Perhaps Harper gets away with what he gets away with is largely due to low voter turn out. As I’ve pointed out, not showing up last election was an endorsement for him and his acts. Imagine if most of the 39% who didn’t show up, did? We’d probably be looking at a much different result now. I agree none of the parties are much good, but Harper is unprecedented. He is far worse.
Thanks for posting this, Sister Sage, and thanks in particular for the link to Tanguay’s commentary. I’ve been trying to keep tabs on the online voting discussion as it unfolds, and to keep looking at ways to increase voter turnout in general. There’s a lot to think about here, and I look forward to reading more!
ck Reply:
July 8th, 2011 at 9:32 PM
Think nothing of it. I realize my post would piss off a lot of folks, but that’s the idea. I only hope they would perhaps, if not now, but later, channel that anger toward themselves and their fellow apathetic Canadians rather than your humble scribe.
I agree with you ck.
On most sites, you can’t say the words, fascism and dictatorship. Even when you see the pattern developing right under our noses. Our Constitution is ignored. Our Civil Rights and Liberties, have been taken away from us. We have no say about anything.
Democracy and Freedom, is all but gone. Even an Australian paper said, how badly Democracy is being eroded in Canada. The world sees it, but, unless you find a polite word to call it, keep your mouth shut.
What do you call it when, Guelph University was stormed to stop the students from voting? They even tried to seize the ballot boxes. I’m afraid, I can’t call that Democracy. This is what our young Canadian boys were blown to bits for, during WW11. They died to keep that kind of crap, out of our country.
However, it’s a total waste of time, to get people to see what is happening. In BC, all the corruption, lying, deceiving, thieving, dirty tactics and cheating to win, by the BC Liberals. Has that stopped? No, it has not. The entire province is rotten with corruption. But, for Heavens sake, don’t call it what it is.
The example of our politicians have given to our young people. Who in the hell wants to be a corrupt politician. There’s no glory in that, unless you are out to line your pockets with gold. Even if you tell them, pick the politician that has told the fewest number of lies. They just won’t care, until something really hits them close to home. Then there will be, rage and rioting in the streets.