I’ve covered more than 30 elections and referendums of one sort or another over my years in journalism, including four municipal elections here on the Sunshine Coast.
Every election is unique, but one thing they almost all had in common was lousy turnout.
The 2014 Gibsons election was a notable exception, with a turnout of 62 per cent, among the highest in the province. The preliminary estimate for this year is around 44 per cent. Sechelt was marginally better at just under 49 per cent, after posting nearly 58 per cent turnout in 2014. The SCRD numbers show voter turnouts in the rural areas were in the 30 per cent range.
With yet another municipal vote done, we’re right into the provincial referendum on whether we should change our voting system from first-past-the-post to some version of proportional representation (PR).
Ballot packages are in the mail, and pro-PR campaigners were out spreading their message at some municipal polling places on Saturday.
PR supporters claim, among its other advantages, that it would lead to better voter turnout.
I’m not here to analyze whether they’re right about that.
And I’m less concerned about the mechanics of converting votes into butts in seats at the legislature than I am about the number of people who still sit on their butts when it comes time to cast those votes.
The new mayors in Sechelt and Gibsons will take their seats next week with the support of well over 50 per cent of the voters who cast a ballot, but only around 30 per cent of the total eligible voters in their communities.
Regardless how the PR referendum turns out, it won’t change how municipal elections work. But I think changes at the municipal level could lead to the increased voter turnout PR supporters are hoping to see.
A population that’s more engaged in its local politics is more likely to get out and vote provincially or federally.
In the last Ontario municipal election I covered, in 2003, some smaller communities in Eastern Ontario, where I was working, introduced telephone and online voting. Like the Sunshine Coast, they’re small communities with populations ranging from 4,000 to 10,000, rural and geographically spread out. A follow-up report from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) showed online and telephone voting worked fairly well.
The response to the AMO questionnaire from South Dundas, about 60 kilometres southeast of Ottawa, was typical. “It was a positive experience, everyone could vote from the comfort of their home and accessibility was not an issue... Our voter turnout increased.”
If you read the headlines out of Ontario this week, you know there were glitches with online voting in some cities this year, but preliminary numbers from the AMO point to an average voter turnout of 55 per cent, an increase of more than 10 per cent.
Maybe, when we’re done considering tweaks to the provincial system, we should take a look at making it easier to vote locally – and harder to make excuses for not voting.
