ELECTIONS ARE ALWAYS SETTLED BY THOSE WHO BOTHER TO VOTE
When former B.C. MLA Frank Calder passed away a decade ago, he was remembered as a great leader of the Nisga’a and the first aboriginal person elected to a legislature anywhere in the British Commonwealth.
Calder also provided the most teachable moment about the importance of getting out the vote, delivered at the end of his 26 years in the B.C. house.
For when “the little chief,” as he was known with some affection, lost his seat in the 1979 provincial election it was by a single vote to Al Passarell — thereafter known as “landslide,” of course. More to the point, Calder and his wife had themselves both neglected to vote.
B.C. electoral history provides other results worth recalling on a day when getting out the vote is critical for electoral success.
Dave Barrett, the province’s first New Democratic Party premier, lost government in the 1975 provincial election and also his own seat in the legislature — the latter by a mere 18 votes.
Longtime Social Credit MLA and cabinet minister Grace McCarthy lost a comeback bid by just 42 votes in a 1994 byelection against B.C. Liberal Mike de Jong, then at the beginning of his long political career.
That squeaker was not just the last hurrah for McCarthy, the most influential woman in provincial politics until Christy Clark came along. It marked the last gasp of the Social Credit party, which had governed most of the preceding 40 years.
New Democrat Tim Stevenson, now a Vancouver city councillor, lost a bid for a seat in the legislature in the 2005 election by a mere 11 votes to B.C. Liberal Lorne Mayencourt.
In today’s election, New Democrat Selina Robinson should have no trouble reminding her supporters of the importance of getting out the vote. The CoquitlamMaillardville incumbent had the smallest winning margin in the 2013 election — just 41 votes.
In Victoria-Beacon Hill, incumbent New Democrat (and later party leader) Carole James fell just 35 votes short in her first bid for a seat in 2001. She recently recalled, not at all fondly, how afterward supporters told her, “Gee, I thought you’d win, so I didn’t get out to vote.”
How she managed to avoid punching those laggards in the face is a mystery.
The serious political parties don’t leave voter turnout to happenstance. Each has its own get-out-the-vote organization, some better than others. But sometimes they are fighting uphill against other forces.
When I started the political beat more than 30 years ago, organizers were still talking about the challenge they faced in the 1979 election. Voting day, May 10, also marked the seventh and deciding game in a landmark hockey playoff between the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Bruins. Given the intensity of the followings for both teams, there was no persuading many a British Columbian who’d not already voted to do so after play got underway at 5 p.m. Pacific time. The game, ranked as one of the most memorable in playoff history, saw the Bruins take a bad penalty late in the third period, Montreal’s legendary Guy Lafleur score to tie it up, and the Canadiens’ Yvon Lambert settle matters at the 10-minute mark of overtime.
By then the polls were closed in B.C., much to the frustration of organizers for both main parties.
As also happened, the 1979 election is remembered both as one of the closest and most polarized in provincial history. The Socreds defeated the New Democrats by just five seats and two points in the popular vote.
B.C. Liberal leader Gordon Campbell vented his own frustrations about turnout after the 2005 and 2009 elections when the party did not, in his perfectionist view, mount a sufficiently rigorous get-out-the-vote drive.
Campbell won both elections by decisive margins, but nevertheless thought that the Liberals left a halfdozen or so seats on the table for lack of effort.
But as one Liberal observed back in those days, the fundamental shortfall was in recruiting enough volunteers.
“When Liberals call for help their supporters pull out their chequebooks,” he remarked. “When the New Democrats do so, their supporters roll up their sleeves and get to work.”
Generally that comparison has been valid over the years. But the New Democrats believe they themselves fell short in turning out support in 2013 because of overconfidence and taking the win for granted.
Not likely will they fail to “give 110 per cent” this time, as they say in the team dressing room. No disrespect to fans of the Ottawa Senators and the New York Rangers, but I doubt tonight’s scheduled playoff game between those two will prove as great a distraction as did the Bruins versus Canadiens a generation ago.
For all the efforts of the parties, in the end it is up to those who vote and those who don’t.
“Elections are decided by the people who show up,” says U.S. political scientist Larry Sabato.
Everyone has opinions. But the only ones that count on election day are translated into a check mark on a ballot and deposited at a polling station.
“You mean you can’t vote on Twitter?” wrote one social media activist on the morning after the 2013 election. He was just kidding, I think.
“Every vote counts,” the election organizers say. To one might add, with a nod to the memory of Frank Calder, “especially your own.”
When Liberals call for help their supporters pull out their chequebooks. When the New Democrats do so, their supporters roll up their sleeves.