We are thrilled to have a dynamite team of academic advisors working with us on the Democracy Index project, and even more happy to share with you the first of a series of election blogs from our team.
Lawrence LeDuc is one of the country’s leading scholars on political behaviour and voter turnout, and he will kick off this series with a piece that outlines the effects on lower levels of youth voter turnout. If all things remain equal, we should expect turnout in this election to drop to 57.2%, from just below 59% in 2008.
If he’s right, that will be the lowest turnout on record for a federal election in Canada. Read more....
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Estimating Voter Turnout
By Lawrence LeDuc, Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto
If demographic data can help us to plan for the number of kindergarten classrooms that may be needed five years from now or the number of hospital beds required for an aging population, it can also be useful for understanding trends in voter turnout. This is because one of the strongest forces that has been driving the decline in voter turnout in Canada and other countries in recent years is the tendency of young people to vote at much lower rates than their parents or grandparents. Thus, as one generation gradually replaces another in the electorate, turnout trends down.
Let’s see what simple data about population changes might tell us about the potential turnout in the forthcoming federal election.
According to Elections Canada, 13,929,093 votes were cast in 2008, and the turnout was 58.8%. The eligible electorate in 2008 was 23,677,639.
If the growth in the electorate mirrors the general population increase, the number of eligible voters should increase by about 865,000 to approximately 24,542,639 (estimated from Statistics Canada projections based on 2006 census data).
About 1.1 million young voters will have become eligible to vote since 2008. A study that my colleagues and I conducted for Elections Canada a few years ago found a participation rate of 22% for this cohort. Other studies place the number of 18-20 year olds that might be expected to vote closer to 30%. If we apply a 25% participation rate to this group, about 275,000 of them will be voting in the election.
The death rate in Canada is 5.4 per 1000 population, or approximately 235,000 per year. Thus, about 600,000 people will have died since the 2008 election. Of these, about 470,000 will be in the older age groups. Since this cohort has voted in the past at about an 80% rate, that means about 376,000 fewer voters in 2011.
This leaves a balance of 365,000 others that I will assume would vote at a “normal” (60%) rate. That will add about 219,000 more voters.
So we add it all up: 13,929,093 +275,000 (New voters) –376,000 (Attrition) +219,000 (Others)=14,047,093
Estimated 2011 votes cast 14,047,093 / 24,542,639 = 57.2%; the estimated 2011 turnout.
Of course, demographics are not the only factor that affects voter turnout, so this estimate should not be taken by itself as a prediction. We have also found that political factors such as party competitiveness, both in the aggregate and at the constituency level, can make a difference in turnout. If the race tightens in the final week or two of the campaign, turnout could be affected in a positive way, as happened in the 2006 election. Variations in the timing of the election can also matter. But the demographic factors are likely to continue to be a drag on turnout in any event and will continue to cause turnout to be lower than it might otherwise be. All other things being equal, expect turnout in the 2011 election to be at least a point or two less than it was in 2008.
References
1. Lawrence LeDuc and Jon H. Pammett. 2010. “Voter Turnout” in Heather MacIvor (ed.), Election (Toronto, Emond Montgomery), pp. 251-267
2. Lawrence LeDuc and Jon H. Pammett. 2006. “Voter Turnout in 2006: More Than Just the Weather” in Jon H. Pammett and Christopher Dornan (eds.), The Canadian Federal Election of 2006 (Toronto, Dundurn), pp. 318-342
3. Jon H. Pammett and Lawrence LeDuc. 2002. Explaining the Turnout Decline in Canadian Federal Elections: a New Survey of Non-Voters, research report prepared for Elections Canada (available on line at www.elections.ca – publications)