Voters need motivation, not advance polls, experts say

Changes the Conservatives are proposing for the Canada Elections Act aren't the best way to get more people casting ballots especially young Canadians,say the people who study the problem.

Under bill C-23, the head of Elections Canada would have tight restrictions on what he could talk about, limited essentially tohow to become a candidate, how to vote and what identification to bring.

Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrandtold CBC Radio's The House last week that he wouldno longer be able to talk about democracy ortake part in Student Vote, a national program that allows 500,000 students who are not yet of voting age to vote in a parallel election.

"It's something that should be worrisome," Mayrandtold host Evan Solomon about the changes in the bill."I don't think it reflects a model democracy that Canadians aspire to."

PierrePoilievre, the minister of state for democratic reform, says political parties are better placed to get people voting, and that Elections Canada needs to do a better job of telling people about advanced polls and which identification to bring with them to cast ballots.

Half of young people, and up to 75 per cent of aboriginal youth, don't know where to vote,Poilievretolda committee ofMPsThursday.

It's 'motivation that matters the most'

But experts say it's not the logistics of voting that deter people: it's a sheer lack of motivation.

"Voting is easy," said Andr Blais, a professor at the Universit de Montral who studies elections, public policy and political behaviour. Blais has done research projects for Elections Canada.

"The hurdles as such are not big. Its really motivation that matters the most."

Poilievresaid that many of the reasons for not voting are practical, including being too busy or having to go to work or school, numbers he got from Elections Canada's report into the 2011 federal race. The report says turnout was down to 61.1 per cent that year, a slight bounce back from 2008 but still in a downward trend. Youth turnout was just slightly more than a third of all those 18-24: 38 per cent.

"Clearly the public advertising and outreach campaigns of Elections Canada have not worked," Poilievre said.

"Since they came into effect, voter turnout has actually plummeted. And the problem is even more persistentamongstthe groups that the campaigns purport to help."

Alison Loat is the executive director of Samara, a non-partisan group working to improve political participation, which last year received fundingfrom Elections Canada worth about one per cent of its budget, and is in line this year for project funding worth about three per cent of its annual budget.

Loatsays access barriers are one reason why people don't vote, butagrees with Blais that motivation barriers are both a bigger problem and one that's harder to deal with.

"The more this does to tackle the motivation barrier, the more successful a bill itwould be," she said.

'Incapable'

Loatpointed to Student Vote as one of the programs that helps with motivation by running mock elections that get students into the habit of casting a ballot. She says parents and teachers have as much of a responsibility as the chief electoral officer.

Blaissays not knowing where to go or how to vote is only a small part of the overall problem.

"I dont think its even one of the main factors. If people are not well-informed, its probably because theyre not motivated enough to ask. Because the information has been there," he said.

The report Poilievre cited also found that of those who didn't vote, 57 per cent said they would have if online voting had been an option.

But the changes proposed in the 242-page bill include making it harder for the arms-length agency to test outonline voting, requiring consent from both the House and the Senate.

Poilievre says that's because of the problems encountered at polling stations, discussed in a report commissioned by Elections Canada.

"As the Neufeld Compliance Review demonstrated, Elections Canada was incapable of managing complex voting systems," Poilievre said in a statementthrough his director of communications.

"Based on that report, I believe Elections Canada has a lot of work to do to convince Canadians that it is capable of running traditional paper ballot system and it needs to do this before experimenting with risky, unproven voting schemes."

Poilievre also suggests there's no role for Elections Canada in getting voters to the polls, arguing that political parties are better placed to do the job.

Suppressing the vote

OppositionMPsallege limiting the agency's ability to test online voting, plus eliminating vouching, a process that allows those without the proper identification or voter information card to cast a ballot, is all about suppressing the vote ofyoung Canadians, aboriginal Canadians and others who tend not to vote Conservative.

Blaissays the researchisn'tclear about whether suppressing the vote works for or against any party, or even affects the vote at all.

Despite that, he says Elections Canada should have a role in encouraging people to cast ballots a role that shouldn't fall to politicians.

Loatcited a study in the U.S. that showed that where participation tended to increase, it was becausepeople were invited to vote bysomebody they knew and trusted typically not a political party, though she says parties are one of five or six actors who should be working on voter turnout.

"I think it probably is unfortunate that there's been curtailment of ElectionsCanada's role in that area," she said.

Blais says it's not clearly in politicians' interest to increase turnout.

"Their interest is to get elected. And in some cases increasing turnout might help them, in some cases it might hurt them. So they dont have a clear interest in higher turnout,"Blaissaid.