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Voter Apathy

by adambemma | November 2, 2008 at 07:26 am

255 views | 12 Recommendations | 2 comments

During Canada's federal election on Oct.14, 2008, an historic low number of voters showed up at the polls. In this report I examine the trend of voter apathy with Canadians, focusing mostly on youth in the 18-35 year-old demographic. Speaking to Apathy is Boring, Canada's Research Chair in Electoral Studies, as well as Fair Vote Canada, leads me to believe change is needed to engage and involve voters in the democratic process.

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Terri Potratz

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 07:31 on November 2nd, 2008

adambemma, I like this story. It's good stuff.

What about mandatory voting? There's a good discussion around this in a recent NowPublic story about voting day in Brazil, which saw 128 million people vote.

angelica_77777777

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 09:35 on November 2nd, 2008

Adambemma, I like this story. It's good stuff. My own opinion is that the Proportional voting system would be the most fair! I found an excellent link that outlines ALL the systems that are available. It would require a big Marketing Campaign by Elected Leaders to get the message out! The Conservatives and Liberals are not in favour of this -- because the current system works just fine for them! (*It always has) ... and a low election turn out actually HELPS THEM!

Here's the link: http://www.fairvotecanada.org/files/

You will find the html Story in the above link titled, "Voting Systems: We Have Choices"