Hey young people: exercise your right to vote this election
[attach]2704[/attach]St. Paul’s is the youngest riding in the country: It has the greatest percentage of voters under 35, and the most educated. It is not the richest, and a majority of its residents are tenants.
In the 2006 Federal Election we were proud to have a 74.18 percent voter turnout (compared to 64.7 percent nationally), and then were saddened to see it drop to 66.2 percent in 2008 (58.8 percent nationally).
In the 2009 provincial byelection in St. Paul’s, the voter turnout was a worrying 35.26 percent.
Voter turnout in byelections tends to be low, but even the turnout in the 2007 provincial general election was only 57.10 percent.
Truly disturbing is the fact that in St. Paul’s in the last municipal election voter turnout was only 39.3 percent and well under 50 percent in the two municipal elections before that.
We can and must do better. The upcoming municipal election is a crucial time for Torontonians to participate in determining the future of our exemplary city. As we say at the door: “If you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain”.
But there is something sinister happening to put people off politics. The belief that “they are all just as bad as one another” or “it doesn’t matter if I vote or not” means that others who may not share our views will determine the direction of our beloved city.
Democracy is dependent upon good people running for public office and citizens paying attention and then participating in the choice of their representatives.
American law professor Spencer Orton in his book Stealing Democracy: The New Politics of Voter Suppression comments that voters don’t choose politicians — politicians choose voters by manipulating election rules. He describes the various tactics used in the United States to deter legitimate voters from getting to the polls. There is no question that here in Canada, Elections Canada, Elections Ontario and those overseeing our municipal elections have established a fairer system that encourages all eligible voters to get out to vote. But in Canada, we are still feeling the effects of what Elizabeth May has called “voter abandonment.” This strategy, as Lawrence Martin described in a recent column in the Globe and Mail, is “to drive the ever-diminishing participation in Canadian elections down further. Then it becomes a matter of which party can get its base to vote in the largest number.
Lee Iacocca once said that if automobile executives spoke about one another’s cars, safety records, etc. the way politicians speak about one another, no one would ever buy a car. He in effect has explained the decreased voter turnout. The voter suppression tactics are working to erode the fundamentals of our democracy. Turn off the voters, and leave the decision to the highly partisan base of the electorate.
Obama’s success was in part due to his ability to motivate those that previously had not gone out vote. Young people particularly have an innate sense of when they are being manipulated. In the war on tobacco, warning of the risks of heart disease or cancer or even wrinkles didn’t work. It was only when our young people realized that they were the targets of ‘Big Tobacco’ who needed them to replace their dying customers that they ‘got it’.
Our young people redeployed the normal youthful rebellion from their nagging parents and teachers to the industry that was using its advertising heft to lure them in. We need another rebellion. Our young people need to understand the Machiavellian tactics of voter suppression. We also need to do a better job including them in our ‘Democracy between Elections’. We need all Torontonians out in big numbers in this upcoming municipal election so that the Toronto of the future is a Toronto they will have a say in building.