Young voters wild card in Ontario election
We know millennials don’t vote. Except when they do.
When young voters wanted access to cannabis, Justin Trudeau harvested the lowhanging fruit, so to speak, in the last federal election. But that one-time feat can’t easily be replicated by, say, legalizing cocaine or LSD …
So is there a way to push something other than drugs onto young people to achieve a new high in voter participation?
Ontario’s election turnouts are now the lowest in Canada, federally or provincially: A dismal 48 per cent of Ontarians voted in 2011, far below the roughly 70 per cent that turned out in a federal election earlier that year. A mere 51 per cent showed up for the 2014 Ontario vote.
Among those aged 18 to 24, about one in three (34 per cent) said they bothered to vote back in 2014, according to surveys conducted for the Toronto Star by the polling firm Campaign Research. But as Ontario’s June 7 election looms, there may be something in the air that makes young voters rise up.
A new analysis of the polling data suggests today’s millennials are more mindful of democracy than commonly thought: A remarkable 43 per cent indicated they were “extremely likely” to vote next month, and a further 34 per cent “very likely” this time (a less reliable barometer, but still promising).
Taken together, those numbers suggest far more voters aged 18 to 24 could participate, making them a wild card in the June 7 election, according to online panels totalling 8,065 eligible Ontario voters, with a margin of error of 1.1 per cent.
“Millennials are more globalcentric and issues-based,” Campaign Research CEO Eli Yufest told me. “Social issues resonate more with millennials aged 18 to 24.”
Education and issues such as sex education, LGBTQ and abortion rights are dramatically more important for young people than other age groups (where they barely register), according to the data. Youth are also more inclined to vote in federal versus provincial elections where they are attracted to global issues, suggesting that concerns over global warming could have an impact in the coming campaign.
Indeed, young people are far more likely than older adults to say they’d be motivated by an “issue, politician or party that I feel strongly about” — which perhaps explains the jump for Justin Trudeau’s cannabis plank, but also suggests susceptibility to a provincial election where carbon pricing is a flashpoint or PC Leader Doug Ford and Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne are lightning rods.
Millennials also appear less cynical than older voters, perhaps a vestige of youthful idealism: Young people are onethird less likely to say they didn’t vote because they “don’t trust politicians,” and are far less inclined to say that politicians are “just in it for themselves.”
But there are challenges. Young people are twice as likely to believe — almost certainly wrongly — that they can’t cast ballots because they don’t think they’re registered on the voter list. A similar misapprehension deters many new Canadians from exercis- ing their democratic right. In fact, any citizen can show up on voting day with valid identification to prove their eligibility on the spot.
Another obstacle: Millennials are far more likely (51 per cent) to say they lack enough information “to make an informed decision” at election time — compared with roughly one in three older adults (and only one in four seniors). Millennials are more than twice as likely as other adults to say they want access to more political reporting.
Part of the explanation for that information gap may be the lack of exposure to traditional mainstream media. Among millennials, 40 per cent rely most on social media, compared to 4 per cent of people aged 55 to 64, and 1 per cent of seniors over 65.
Some 57 per cent of all adults rely on mainstream media such as newspapers and TV (compared to 25 per cent of young adults).
In this election season, young people may be more motivated, but they also know what they don’t know — and that they need to know more. That’s an important message for both politicians and the press.
The campaign gets underway next week, but we won’t know until June 7 whether young voters — and all voters — will overcome Ontario’s democratic deficit. The only certainty is that a vote is a terrible thing to waste.