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The Campaign
Getting out the vote
by Peter Hadzipetros
Seems fewer Canadians than ever are interested in being heard on election day. Figures from Elections Canada show that in the years following the Second World War, about 75 per cent of eligible voters cast their ballots.
The last time turnout was that high was the "free trade election" of 1988, which handed Brian Mulroney his second consecutive majority government.
But the three elections won by the Liberals under Jean Chrétien saw turnout steadily slip – from 70 per cent in 1993 to 64 per cent in 2000. Turnout in 2000 was originally listed as 61 per cent but Elections Canada head Jean-Pierre Kingsley recently admitted that the names of as many as one million voters appeared twice on the voters' list. Take out the duplicates and you get the higher turnout number.
Still, at 64 per cent, voting in Canada is a lot more popular than it is south of the border. Barely half the electorate turned out for the Bush-Gore hanging-chad battle of 2000.
Politicians are trying to change that – and academics are churning out theories on how to do it.
Earlier this year, two professors at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., published the results of their research into what does – and what doesn't – get out the vote. Donald Green and Alan Gerber have been studying federal, state and municipal elections in 12 states since 1998.
Their book – Get Out the Vote! How to increase voter turnout – links declining voter turnout in western democracies to the depersonalization of politics.
"Our experiments have shown that high-quality interaction with people – like door-to-door canvassing – can increase voter turnout by seven to 12 per cent," Green told CBC News Online. "But things like direct mail, e-mail and robotic phone calls have virtually no effect on turnout."
Bottom line, Green says, most voters don't need much of a nudge to get out to the ballot box. Some quality face-time can do the trick. And it doesn't necessarily have to be with the candidate. Real human volunteers can get the message out. Forget spamming constituents' voice mail with recorded messages.
Green adds their research also suggests that face-to-face contact has a spillover effect.
"If you can have a meaningful interaction with one registered voter in a household, you will increase the turnout not only of that person, but of their roommate…whom you didn't speak with, which suggests there is a process of communication going on in the household that spreads enthusiasm about elections."
It's a strategy the Green party appears to have adopted – especially in the B.C. riding of Saanich-Gulf Islands, where pundits say the party has a shot at electing its first-ever MP.
"I have never seen so many undecideds in my life," Andy Shadrack, the Green party's B.C. campaign co-chair, told CBC News Online. Shadrack's been working on election campaigns for 41 years.
His get-out-the-vote strategy? "Identify your vote and you phone it on election day," he said. Shadrack will make sure several hundred campaign volunteers are on hand to make those phone calls – and to offer to drive voters to the polls, if necessary.
In Toronto, Liz Crowley won't have as many volunteers on hand as the Green party. She's the central campaign manager for the Communist Party of Canada – and one of 35 party candidates across the country.
"It will be a low-key effort," Crowley told CBC News Online. "We're not expecting a close race for any of our candidates. We'll be phoning some of our friends and hoping they come out."
Should the parties' efforts at getting out the vote be a huge success, Elections Canada says it will be ready.
"We are preparing for the worst-case scenario based on our experience in the year 2000 and based on the number of electors who have not changed their data," Jean-Pierre Kingsley told a news conference last Friday. That includes positioning staff so they can move quickly between one polling station and another to deal with an onslaught of unregistered voters.
Kingsley added that a "worst-case scenario" is actually a "best-case scenario," because it would mean more people will be exercising their right to vote.
One figure that has attracted a lot of attention is the number of people who voted at advance polls this year. At well over one million, the turnout was up 60 per cent from the last federal election. Kingsley wouldn't speculate on whether it suggests a return to higher turnout numbers on election day – or a surge of Canadians heading out on holidays before Canada Votes.
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