SACKVILLE, N.B. – The Mount Allison Students’ Union is taking part in a campaign to encourage more young people to cast their ballots in the federal election.
The campaign is called “Get Out The Vote,” and includes presentations and information distributed through online media.
The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations started the campaign. It includes 22 students associations from across the country.
Mount Allison Students’ Union is one of the Association’s members. Annie Sherry is the Union’s vice president external affairs.
“What we’re trying to do is break the misconception that students don’t vote because they don’t care,” she said.
“Right now a big part of this campaign is to collect pledges to vote and right now we’re sitting at about 700 pledges so far out of about 2,300 of our population.”
Elections Canada statistics show that young voters are below the national average. During the last federal election in 2011, 61.1 per cent of registered Canadians voted.
However, only 38.8 per cent of eligible Canadians between 18-24 years old cast their ballots.
Mount Allison University students familiar with the campaign says it has potential to bring more people to the polls.
“When one student votes they’ll tell their friends to vote and then more friends vote and when the culture is towards voting it can really make a difference on the vote,” said Alex Economou.
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