Getting out the vote
Political scientist weighs in on ways to boost voter numbers
A Cape Breton political scientist proposes that introducing a voting day holiday might help to boost voter turnout in Nova Scotia.
Overall voter turnout in the province was 53.88 per cent. Jim Guy, professor emeritus of political science at Cape Breton University, said there is tinkering that can be done with the system to better encourage voting, much of which has already been done by Elections Nova Scotia. But he noted that as he was researching a book project, one concept he came across was a voting day holiday.
“The two outstanding reasons I found in doing my surveys for people who didn’t vote was that they were too busy or they couldn’t remember,” Guy said. “If you wanted to turn that around, if you had a special day, like a democracy day, that would be designated for Nova Scotians to practise their democracy.”
If the day was properly promoted it may encourage a larger number of people to actually go to the polls, Guy suggested.
It would be important for Nova Scotia in particular to take a step like that because of the province’s place in the history of democracy in Canada, he said.
“We were the first democratic province, in 1758 we were the
ones who established the legislative assembly in Halifax and that was the model for democracy,” Guy said. “It’s kind of designated us as a representative or exemplar of democracy. We should act that out, we should be willing to show that we consider democracy to be very important.”
He added he expects there would be some push-back about introducing yet another holiday. Legislation for fixed election dates could be another measure, although Stephen McNeil has indicated he has no intention of pursuing that.
Lowering the voting age and engaging new voters at a younger age may also serve to boost statistics, Guy said, noting
a striking characteristic of non-voters is their relative youth.
“Sixteen would bring in a whole other set of young attitude that politicians could cater to,” he said.
Despite the lower turnout, there were actually more opportunities to vote in the lead up to the election in this campaign.
Guy said among those who did vote, health care was likely a driving issue, noting he attended several of the recent public meetings held to discuss the shortage of doctors.
“I was really quite impressed by how many people were being affected by it,” Guy said.
The highest voter turnout in
Cape Breton in Tuesday’s election was in Cape Breton-Richmond at 69.92 per cent, where Liberal incumbent Michel Samson was defeated by Progressive Conservative Alana Paon by only 20 votes. In the 2013 general election, voter turnout in the riding was 70.98 per cent.
In some countries, such as Belgium and Australia, voting has been made mandatory by law, which has resulted in turnouts well above 90 per cent.
“I guess we have to decide how crucial it is in our society to have people decide on their fate,” Guy said. “We have all kinds of other kinds of compulsory behaviour, civic duties, we pay taxes and we serve on juries, why can’t we also make it a
requirement to vote?”
There are benefits to compulsory voting, however, Guy said that can be problematic in dealing with issues such as First Nations populations. While aboriginal communities routinely see high turnout in band elections, the same often can’t be said for First Nations voting in provincial or federal contests. Guy noted First Nations voters may see voting in those elections as being in conflict with their right to self-government.
“It grates against their independence,” he said.
In the 1850s, a private member’s bill actually tried to make voting mandatory but it failed, Guy added, because it was considered to be draconian. Other voters might also feel compelled to not vote as a protest, he said.