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Canada Voter Turnout at Historic Low
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by Rob Walker | October 15, 2008 at 04:57 am
557 views | 28 Recommendations | 7 comments
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Fewer Canadians voted in yesterday's federal election than in 2004, which was a historic low. Only 59 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot yesterday, which ended in another Conservative minority government.
The numbers are close, but this was the lowest turnout since 1898, when only 44 per cent of Canadians voted. 60 per cent voted in 2004, which at the time was one of the lowest.
Tuesday's federal poll revealed an electorate that seemed apathetic in terms of who should lead the country, with voter turnout appearing to be the lowest in the history of Confederation.Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives won a second minority government.
But with just under 60 per cent of the votes counted at 2 a.m. ET Wednesday, turnout hovered around 59 per cent. That figure was slightly below the lowest turnout recorded in 2004 at 60.9 per cent when Paul Martin's Liberals won a minority government.
Despite Elections Canada's repeated warnings that posting the results of early ridings in the East coast before the polls closed on the West coast was illegal, it was a simple matter to find the results online.
People were posting to social networking sites, and a quick scan of twitter (and sites set up to feed specific twitter messages) gave a pretty good overview of the election results - before the elections were even over.
While Newfoundlanders watched their federal election results start to roll in at 8:30 p.m. local time Tuesday, residents of British Columbia and the Yukon weren't supposed to be able to see those numbers until their own local polls closed three hours later.But Canadians with an internet connection were among those who could find their way around that particular election rule Tuesday night.
NowPublic staffer Tina Kells was posting live on the election results last night:
Unofficial election results, Canada votes 2008
CONSERVATIVES - 143
LIBERALS - 76
BLOC QUEBECOIS - 50
NDP - 37
INDEPENDENTS - 2
GREEN PARTY - 0
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (7)
at 05:04 on October 15th, 2008
Rob Walker, I like this story. It's good stuff.
at 06:47 on October 15th, 2008
Rob Walker, I like this story. It's good stuff. I am also sure the most complainers most likely were non voters. If they want change they need to vote, if they don't then they cannot complain about the status quo,
at 06:55 on October 15th, 2008
Rob Walker, I like this story. It's good stuff. I just commented on this very issue on my Blog published in the World category a little while ago (I didn't see how to upload it into the Election Canada category - so I put it in World). I said that in my opinion it was very disappointing because when you factor in the numbers in the result, and see how much difference a highter turnout could've made -- it is clear that the result could've been totally different if people had done the right thing and gone out to vote for the person who they felt in their gut would've made the best leader for Canada. Just like Barry Artiste said, if they want to have a change, they need to vote!!
at 07:34 on October 15th, 2008
at 07:47 on October 15th, 2008
Rob Walker, I like this story. It's good stuff.
at 08:30 on October 15th, 2008
Rob Walker, I like this story. It's good stuff. I have a hard time understanding why folks dont vote. In 2000 we had about 60% of voters vote. in 2004 it was a bit higher... But the highest ever. This year I think records will be broken. Even with voting in the high 60s or low 70s there is still a large part of the electorate that won't cast a vote. Sometimes ones freedom has to be challenged before one will appreciate what a wonderful right it is to vote.
Thanks for the story. I enjoyed the read
at 17:57 on October 15th, 2008
Rob Walker, I like this story. I guess it's like the "no news is good news" thing, where it would take something drastic, like what's happening south of us, to get people to actually care enough to vote!