Voter Apathy Alive and Well in Canada

I have a confession to make: I have never voted. I’ve never ticked off a name on a ballot during a municipal, provincial or federal election. I have never exercised my right to choose who makes my decisions for me for several reasons. At first, it was because I was too young to vote. No one can yell at you for not taking part in the democratic practice before your 18 birthday. It’s the law. Then I moved away soon after my 18th birthday, giving me a free pass to miss elections. I was new to the area and I had no clue I was even missing the chance to vote that year. As I got older, so did my excuses. “Not legally eligible” turned into “too much effort/don’t know squat about politics/don’t want to make an uninformed decision that will affect others lives.”

But now that I’ve spent about two years tracking local, provincial and federal politics I’ve run out of excuses. I now know enough to pick what I think is the best horse in the race. Unfortunately, many people don’t feel this way. Now, I don’t want to judge the non-voters because I was once like you. But I also want to be clear: voter apathy needs to end now because voting is one of the most important things you can do to determine your future.

As important as elections are, many people simply do not vote, for whatever reason. The importance of the vote or the size of the community doesn’t seem to factor in. Examples abound of voter apathy. In New Sarepta, 56 per cent of residents voted to dissolve the village and become a hamlet within Leduc County. However, only 134 people voted out of about 450 eligible voters. That’s a voter turnout of about 30 per cent, meaning less than one-third of New Sarepta’s population cared enough to vote on such an important issue. The same problems occur on a larger scale. According to Stats Canada, voter turnout in the 2008 national election dropped by more than five per cent, resulting in the “lowest percentage of registered voters ever recorded for a national election in Canada.”

It’s not that hard to figure out why many people don’t vote. The process of voting is intimidating and time consuming. And it can be really, really boring if you don’t know the candidates or the big issues in your area. Many people simply don’t vote because they don’t know anything about their government. Others pay attention only to federal and provincial politics while ignoring their municipal government.

Sometimes non-voters are simply apathetic about politics. Part of it certainly comes from a lack of motivation or from thinking one vote doesn’t matter. My generation is so blasé about things that Facebook is actually considering instituting a “Meh” application to go along with the application that lets you “like” someone’s status or photo with just the click of a button. Clicking is easy; voting takes a little more effort. But I don’t buy into the hype that it is just young whippersnaps who don’t give a crap about voting or politics. I think apathy spreads across generations of people who have grown disenchanted with government or never cared about it in the first place. Youth voter turnout is lower than it should be but youth show their political feelings in other ways, such as starting online groups, boycotts or petitions. One needn’t look no further than City of Leduc Alderman Dominic Mishio, who became the youngest elected official in Alberta and the youngest-ever member of City of Leduc council in 2007. I don’t doubt that many young adults like to voice their opinions about politics and things happening in their community. I just know that many of those same young adults don’t express those opinions through voting.

Voting is more than just a government-given right here in Canada. It is an essential process that determines your municipality’s course for three years. The councillors you elect represent you. They decide how your community will grow, what projects will be prioritized and not only how much taxes you will pay but how those tax dollars will be spent. It’s a big responsibility and an often thankless job. The people resilient enough to run for council must be lauded for their efforts.

With the municipal election coming up this fall (you did know it’s an election year, right?) we all have a chance to have our voices heard through the democratic process of voting.