{"id":1254,"date":"2011-03-16T16:17:06","date_gmt":"2011-03-16T20:17:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/panorama\/"},"modified":"2014-05-20T13:11:24","modified_gmt":"2014-05-20T17:11:24","slug":"getting-out-the-vote","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/panorama\/archives\/fall-2005\/getting-out-the-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting out the vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted Sep. 1\/05<\/em><\/p>\n

Previous: Fixing Canada’s democratic deficit<\/a><\/strong>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/address>\n
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Jon Pammett, political science professor and associate dean of the Faculty of Public Affairs and Management.<\/address>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

As Ottawa prepares to call another federal election, officials from Elections Canada will be readying their campaign to boost voter turnout.<\/p>\n

Perhaps one of the biggest questions during this time will be whether such efforts actually entice young people to cast their ballots.<\/p>\n

Voter turnout, especially among youth, is a growing problem in Canada, says Carleton\u2019s Jon Pammett, political science professor and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Public Affairs and Management.<\/p>\n

In fact, it\u2019s at an all-time low.<\/p>\n

In the late 1980s, the Canadian voting rate among first-time voters slipped well below half. In 2000, it plummeted to 22 percent, according to a 2003 survey that Pammett conducted with the University of Toronto\u2019s Lawrence LeDuc for Elections Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll other things being equal, the voter turnout rate will continue to decline unless something happens to change the behaviour of younger people,\u201d says Pammett.<\/p>\n

Among those youth ages 18 to 24 who did not vote, a staggering 38 per cent cited \u201clack of interest\u201d as their reason while over 41 per cent of those in the 25 to 34 age group gave the same reason for not voting.<\/p>\n

Other democracies grapple with the same problem, including Britain. That country\u2019s government has concocted a tongue-in-cheek campaign to appeal to young people. Television ads are aimed at youth who claim they don\u2019t \u201cdo\u201d politics. The ads ask them whether they care about traffic congestion or whether pubs close at 11 p.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they care about these things, then they should care about politics,\u201d says Pammett.<\/p>\n

Analyzing whether these campaigns resonate with young audiences is an uphill battle since researchers normally look at reasons for behaviour \u2014 not lack of behaviour, adds Pammett.<\/p>\n

For now, Pammett is taking an inventory and examining the techniques of all the get-out-the-vote campaigns produced by some of the major democratic governments and non-partisan groups. He is doing this with the Sweden-based Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, a non-profit group that specializes in voter turnout.<\/p>\n

As for Pammett\u2019s prescription for improving voter turnout, he says there\u2019s no magic solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a long-term problem. Eventually, things will bottom out. But it\u2019s hard to know when that will happen.<\/p>\n

Next: Going green<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted Sep. 1\/05 Previous: Fixing Canada’s democratic deficit \u00a0 Jon Pammett, political science professor and associate dean of the Faculty of Public Affairs and Management. As Ottawa prepares to call another federal election, officials from Elections Canada will be readying their campaign to boost voter turnout. Perhaps one of the biggest questions during this time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":1220,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"yoast_head":"\nGetting out the vote - PAnorama<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Posted Sep. 1\/05 Previous: Fixing Canada's democratic deficit \u00a0Jon Pammett, political science professor and associate dean of the Faculty of Public\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/panorama\/archives\/fall-2005\/getting-out-the-vote\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/panorama\/archives\/fall-2005\/getting-out-the-vote\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/panorama\/archives\/fall-2005\/getting-out-the-vote\/\",\"name\":\"Getting out the vote - 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