I have to admit, when I saw the title "Let's vote together" I thought/hoped it would be a parody of that song from The Parent Trap, the original one.
Well, anyway. Next, the Globe and Mail talks about the vote mob phenomenon.
When Canadian television celebrity Rick Mercer challenged young Canadians to get themselves to the polling station on election day, he had no clue what he had started.
“In the back of my mind I was thinking perhaps some of them would write a nasty letter to the local paper,” Mr. Mercer said Sunday on CTV’s Question Period. “But no, they’ve started these vote mobs."
While the vote mobs have definitely been a mobilizing force on campuses, the Globe brings up the little-known fact that university students vote at about the same rate as the general population, while young people not at school are the ones who tend to stay home from the polls. So will youth mobilization reach out to all youth?
Still, there is something in the air this time around. It’s not just the vote mobs. It’s the huge number of election-oriented messaging that is available on the internet and on social media like Facebook and Twitter that reach students but also the young Canadians who are not actively enrolled in post-secondary education.
Gracen Johnson, one of the organizers of the vote-mob movement in Guelph, said she “definitely” believes the message is getting out to people her age who are not in school. “We all have a lot of non-university friends,” she said Sunday. “You can avoid university, you can avoid classes, but you can’t really avoid Youtube."
And since everyone knows that the real way to motivate youth is booze, Gracen Johnson and her friends are all planning to vote in the advance polls on Friday and then go out for election-themed drinks. This is something I've never heard of before. I mean, I know people who watch the election results come in at the bar, but I've never heard of going out to celebrate voting. It's like a giant drunken democracy-fest sorta reminiscent of nineteenth-century elections before they brought in the secret ballot. But I digress.
Both the Liberals and the NDP think they've been doing an awesome job at courting the youth vote. I will grant the Liberals YouTube victory, for all their excellent, pithy, short, clever videos that are easily Facebookable ("Hey Stephen Harper, stop creeping me on Facebook" being my favourite). And it makes sense that the NDP would have the strongest promises about net neutrality and cell phone billing, like this candidate claims, although if that's been in the news I've somehow managed to miss it. On the other hand, I think that the issue most likely to draw out youth voters (other, perhaps, than students) is the fact that the unemployment rate for the under-25s is almost twice that of the general population. Both the Liberals and the NDP have discussed youth employment initiatives, although I'm not sure it's an official platform plank.
This is one of the most interesting questions raised by this article, besides the student/nonstudent distinction:
If young people are going to turn out to vote in larger numbers, their new interest in democracy is impossible to measure in public-opinion polls.
Christopher Waddell, the director of the journalism school at Carleton University, who questions how Elections Canada knows who is voting and who is not given that age is not included on a ballot, said polls largely exclude the youth.
“The majority of young people these days no longer have landlines on their phones, almost all of them have cellphones. Most public-opinion surveys are not calling cellphones,” said Prof. Waddell.
And internet polling panels are largely assembled from mailings that have been compiled for other purposes like points plans or credit-card companies. “It’s very unlikely that those mailing lists would include a wide variety of young people,” he said.
I don't know. It's true that a lot of young people don't have land lines (I do, call me old school) but I would say most have credit cards, especially those in the 20 and up range. And I know lots of people (myself included) who have WAY TOO MANY points cards. Air Miles, Aeroplan, HBC points, PC points, Shoppers Optimum, MovieWatchers, Chapter's iRewards, Subway points… Most people probably have points cards from some shoe places or American Eagle Outfitters or something at the bottom of their wallets, like from that time when there was a special so if you got the points card you got 15% off your purchase that day. Anyway. The point is that young people might not be entirely unrepresented in opinion polls, although that being said by Prof. Waddell's criteria I probably should be on some pollster's list and no one's called me yet.
In other youth vote news, Ilona Dougherty of Apathy is Boring talked to Decision Canada about why youth don't vote. A lot of it is stuff I've heard before--young people feel uninformed about the issues, and think that casting an uninformed vote is irresponsible--but this is new, and something I hadn't thought of before:
Every candidate says that they want young Canadians' support. But for the most part, political campaigns are more interested in persuading the people who already voters than in encouraging young people to cast their first ballot.
Don't believe me? Ask anyone you know under the age of 30 about the last time a candidate got in touch with them. At Apathy is Boring we have an office full of 20-somethings, many of whom live in competitive ridings. None of them have received a knock on the door during this election. Or the 2008 election. Or the 2006 election. Or the 2004 election. In the last four elections, none of the parties have bothered to ask for their votes.
Up until last week I would have cried, "Too true!" However, the Liberal candidate in my riding did, in fact, come knocking on doors last week in a mainly student-populated neighbourhood. Then again, he is a fairly young candidate, and intentionally courting the considerable student vote because it's a really close race around here.
Meanwhile, Global has three ways to fight apathy. There's the informative method, taken by Apathy is Boring (which you should totally check out, by the way. They're supposed to post major party platforms minus the partisan rhetoric sometime before the advance polls). Then there's the motivational. I Vote Because… asks Canadians to explain why they vote, and then posts their responses on a map, in order to spark a conversation about why voting is important. Finally, there is The Great Canadian Blank Ballot Project, which is intended "to raise awareness of the dire need for democratic reform in Canada."
So far, the project has received both support and condemnation. “People frequently think we are advocating spoiling a ballot, which is illegal and simply not true,” says Dean.
The group makes the distinction on their website www.rejecttheelection.ca between a rejected ballot and a spoiled ballot.
“A blank ballot is perfectly valid and is counted as a rejected ballot and reported by Elections Canada,” says Dean. “whereas a spoiled ballot - one that has been defaced or destroyed - is not counted by Elections Canada.
Voters can request “None of the Above” campaign signs through the project website.
See? What did I tell you. Didn't I tell you, that if you're frustrated with democracy the blank ballot is the way to go? Answer: yes, I did tell you that. Anyway, if you're interested, this is what the lawn sign looks like:
Anyway. I've mentioned before that the vote mob movement seems to be more or less English-Canadian in nature. But I recently came across Qui vote gagne, a French site devoted to combating youth voter apathy and creating informed voters! It's awesome, and also has links to two Facebook apps, one of which allows you to create your own government by naming your friends as ministers.
Also, if you understand French at all, watch their video. It's hilarious!
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