October 28, 2009

What IS the ideal voter turnout?

By Alison Loat
Back in warmer days, an interesting online debate about political engagement and our young people took place, sparked by a provocative column in the Globe and Mail.

Earlier this month the organizers of the NOW conference at the University of Calgary (an event put together around the Dalai Lama's visit to Cowtown, complete with a White Hat) invited me to participate in a panel on political engagement. My fellow panelists, Troy Wason and Naheed Nenshi, and I were fortunate to have a lively and dynamic audience, making our jobs pretty easy.

Naheed kicked off the panel by asking everyone to address the oft-stated comment that young people, despite their low voter turnout, are much more engaged than people realize, just not in the traditional ways. The notes for my opening remarks are available here.

The most provoking question we received, albeit during the informal post-panel chatter, was this: what is an ideal voter turnout? Should it be 100 percent? Would we be satisfied with 80? 70? Why or why not?

I've been pondering this question off-and-on since, and I don't have a good answer or even a good basis on which to formulate an answer. Thoughts? Is there a point at which turnout affects good government?

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otoburb

March 5, 2010 20:45 PM

Perhaps this article will shed a different perspective on why some people vote and others do not:

www.spring.org.uk/.../...-people-bother-voting.php

Evidently, one factor for people not voting is that they don't have enough persuasively politically active friends around them to implicitly encourage each other to vote.

NRG

March 5, 2010 20:45 PM

i think it's about the quality of the vote, rather an the quantity of votes.  are voters informed and educated on the key issues?  do they have a clear vision for the city/province/country?  what, exactly, are they voting FOR?

I'd take a 10% turnout if it was people who were thoughtful about their choice, over 100% turnout if it was voting by rote/partisan loyalty/ignorance any day.

otoburb

March 5, 2010 20:45 PM

There shouldn't be a specific number. My impression is that most public servants are driven not by ideals, but by cravings for power, influence and recognition. The backdrop to this comment is that candidates and parties seem to take long-term views into account when analyzing their political circumstance and formulate strategy (as they should).

If voter turnout for one election was a record number (e.g. 75%), it wouldn't take much to wear voters down by attempting to force more referendums or elections -- especially in the case of a minority government. Keep in mind that even if we had 75% voter turnout, there's no guarantee that we'd be any better off regarding the outcome of any election.

By not exercising their right to vote, citizens are giving their implied, passive acceptance for other (more active) people to make their choices for them. The inconvenience (and perhaps fear?) of voting clearly doesn't seem to outweigh the "negative consequences" that people assign to this foregone right -- namely, being a sheep and going along with the democratic crowd.

Only if the inconvenience factor were lowered via technology far into the future, or if a clearer connection between lack of voting and negative personal consequences were made (i.e. education), would voter turnout increase in a meaningful manner.

nabeel

March 30, 2011 10:35 AM

I don't know what the argument would be for a 70% turnout instead of 90%,wouldn't that be less representative?

Alison Loat

March 30, 2011 10:41 AM

Thank you for your comment.  Some might argue that 90% is unrealistic (I'm not certain it's ever been that high). Others may argue that being representative isn't the most important thing (see NRG's comment above, for example).  Others argue that our democratic system would buckle under the weight of too much participation.  Others still argue that low voter turnout is a good thing - it indicates that people are content with how their society runs.

I suppose another way to phrase it is, "when will be satisfied that enough people have voted?"  We spend a lot of money encouraging people to vote, so it may be worth asking what success would be....

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