Too apathetic to vote? Would you do it for ice cream?

It takes no twisting of Olenka Bazowski’s arm to get her to vote.

Since the owner of the Sweet Olenka’s ice cream shops was old enough to cast a ballot, she has dutifully headed to the polls every election.

But most people, she admits, don’t have that dedication.

That’s why she’s trying to sweeten the deal by doling out sumptuous scoops of her ice cream on Election Day for every customer who flashes a photo taken in front of a polling station building after they vote.

The quirky method places Bazowski among a growing group of food purveyors and non-political organizations across Canada that are at- tempting to boost voter turnout with promises of tasty treats.

To whom voters throw their support doesn’t matter, they say, as long as ballots are cast.

It’s a method Bazowski thinks worked wonders in the last municipal election, when she offered ice cream or truffles to voters.

“We had a lot of people vote just for ice cream. I was shocked,” she said, estimating her staff handed out about 1,000 scoops that day. Most who crowded her shops thought it was a nice idea.

The feeling is generally the same at Ryerson University, where the students’ union offered pie to voters who cast a ballot at an on-campus advance polling station. Why pie? “Because it rhymes with die” — an homage to the American Vote or Die campaign — and “because most people like pie,” said Cormac McGee, the Ryerson Students’ Union vice-president of education.

The campaign was inspired by Be the Vote, a youth voting advocacy group, and conversations McGee had with students who were apathetic about voting.

Students used the treat “as an incentive but not the main incentive.”

Myer Siemiatycki, a political science professor at the school, called initiatives like McGee’s “interesting,” but a “sad commentary” on the voter turnout rate, which stood at 61.1 per cent in the previous federal election.

He warned that “if all these companies are going to reward people who would have voted anyway, then their own goal is not going to be successful.”

While he thinks businesses may be acting altruistically, he suggests they partner with existing non-partisan organizations that encourage voting.

Offering food incentives, he said, isn’t like the bribery of days long gone, where “votes were bought with bottles of alcohol or shots,” but it does “come close to the line.”

That line is outlined in the Canada Elections Act, which says, “every person is guilty of an offence who, during an election period, directly or indirectly offers a bribe to influence an elector to vote or refrain from voting or to vote or refrain from voting for a particular candidate.” When asked if it is considered a bribe to offer someone food to vote regardless of whom the person votes for, an Elections Canada spokesperson said: “No, unless you are influencing their vote for or against a candidate.”

Plus, Bazowski said, “Imagine if they actually did that — arrested us for offering ice cream.”