Vancouver launches effort to boost voter turnout
Vancouver’s wacky election season could boost voter turnout in October, says pollster Mario Canseco.
With eight mayoral candidates and dozens more council, parks board and school board hopefuls jockeying for position, this year’s election is going to be pretty hard to miss, said Canseco, president of Research Co.
But the sheer number of candidates may also lead to confusion, particularly given the new randomized ballots debuting in this election, he warned.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” Canseco said. “There’s going to be an added element of promotion, but there will also be this aspect that it might be too confusing for voters who say ‘I thought there were just two parties.’”
Paul Hendren, election outreach lead for the City of Vancouver, said there’s already buzz on the street about the upcoming election.
“We’re in an interesting situation this year where there’s a lot of people talking about their candidacy already and there’s a lot of media coverage — a bit earlier than has happened in the past,” said Hendren.
In 2014, voter turnout in Vancouver jumped 25 per cent from 34.6 per cent in 2011 to 43.4 per cent — the highest turnout since 2001, bucking the trend in municipal elections where voter turnout is often notoriously low.
“It’s important to us that turnout continues to go up,” said Hendren. “Our goal is to keep growing that number as much as we can.”
An independent election task force established by city council has established a goal of at least 60 per cent voter turnout by 2025.
The city’s election office, that has a staff of 17, has already begun its outreach campaign, reaching out to non-profit groups to offer voter information presentations, engaging the youth vote and fanning out to community events — targeting east side neighbourhoods where voter turnout is lower.
“There’s some interesting research that theorizes outreach and physically connecting with people is really effective for groups that tend to have lower rates of turnout and may be less familiar with the voting process,” said Hendren.
In contrast, traditional advertising approaches tend to be effective in neighbourhoods with high turnouts, he said.
Hendren credited 2014’s significant jump in voter turnout to a number of initiatives by the city, including allowing people to vote in any polling station and increasing the number of advance voting days.
Vision Vancouver and the Non-Partisan Association’s well-oiled, sophisticated getout-the-vote machines and added publicity from Meena Wong’s run as COPE’s mayoral candidate also bolstered the numbers who showed up to vote, said Canseco, adding it remains to be seen whether the parties will be as effective in mobilizing voters this year without their formidable war chests following a ban on corporate and union donations.
This year, the City of Vancouver will switch from an alphabetical to a randomized name order on the ballot for mayor, council and park board (the Ministry of Education has not yet indicated whether it plans to go with the randomized ballot for school board).
Due to concerns the new system might lead to lineups at polling stations, the city is spending an extra $225,000 on communication and extra staff to avoid long waits.
The randomized ballot, which will be chosen based on a random draw, will be released in advance so people can familiarize themselves with it, said Hendren.
That’s a welcome move, Canseco said, noting municipal elections can already be daunting for first-time voters.
Unlike federal or provincial elections where a voter chooses only one candidate, municipal elections involve voting for one mayor and several councillors, park board commissioners and school board trustees, he pointed out.
Getting people to come out and vote is important, said Hendren.
“The more people that vote, the more the officials who get elected represent the full range of people in the city.”